When Lory returnedto the Ward, a bundle of blood-and-rain-drenched clothes and a heap of steel and jewels in her arms, she didn’t bother to look over her shoulder. She limped straight for her rooms, trying to forget who they’d belonged to. She limped up the stairs from the dungeons, listening to the silence from the direction of the cells. If Khayrivven’s plan had worked, she wouldn’t know. All he’d shared was that, if things went according to plan, they’d be out by dawn, and she didn’t have the strength to make the turn left to find the cells full or empty. Didn’t want to seal anyone else’s fate that night.
Up and up, the path dragged on, her legs heavy and her breath not fully recovered since she’d dumped Niely’s body. If Khayrivven was close by, he didn’t step out of the shadows to let her know.
“I’m going to change before I find you,”she thought into the gloomy torch glow as she climbed the next staircase, then the next, until she stood in front of her room.
She hadn’t reached for the doorknob when the door swung open and Anees greeted her with the expression ofa sassy mother hen. “If you hadn’t just delivered death, I’d make a joke and say you look like it, Fire Bug.” With a firm grip on Lory’s wrist, she pulled her across the threshold and straight into the adjacent bathing room. The moment Lory’s boots touched the stone tiles, she doubled over and vomited all over the rug in front of the simple bathtub, the bundle in her arms clutched to her chest.
“I—”
“You did what you had to do,” Anees interrupted her before she could spiral.
“I’m a mur?—”
“Brave woman who did what she had to, to protect herself and the ones she cares about; that’s what you are.”
“Stop inter?—”
“Interestingly, Khayrivven said the same thing when he came here to dump eons of guilt on me half an hour ago,” she said with a grin, helping Lory sit up, and she leaned her against the side of the bathtub. “Now let’s get you out of these clothes and back into a uniform. You seriously look like you’ll be sick all over the floor again.”
Anees wasn’t wrong. Lory retched three more times before she managed to climb into the tub and wash off her guilt and shame.
By the time she was done scrubbing herself clean, Anees had sorted through Niely’s belongings.
“We’ll need to burn the clothes,” she said as Lory dried herself off. “But there are some sweet bulbs among his jewelry. They might fetch a nice price when you sell them. And the weapons…” She counted. “Three sharp knives at a temple ceremony at the Tears of the Gods.” She shook her head. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Niely was up to no good.”
Tunic half over her head, Lory shot Anees a look. “He told you?”
Anees merely smiled, again that motherly expression taking over her face. “Khayrivven is the big brother I never cared to have, and much as he can annoy me, when he shows up half in tears, I’ll listen to whatever he has to pour his heart out about.”
Tears swam in Lory’s own eyes as she reached for the bond inside her chest, gently stroking the glowing gold. “Thank you.”
They did no more talking as Lory got dressed and strapped on her shortsword. Only when she was ready to face Lenya did she pick up one of the jewels she’d collected from the lord’s hand. A ring that might identify him, should anyone stumble across his remains in the desert. She pocketed it and put on a grin that would make Khayrivven proud.
Before she left, Lory rushed to Anees’s side, placing a hand on her arm. “If you ever want a sister you never cared to have, you know where to find me.”
Anees glanced up from where she’d settled on her bed. “I’d be honored.”
The door fell shut behind Lory, and she descended the stairs in deliberate steps, reminding herself that she was still a human being—with more fairy blood than might be popular for the century she’d been born in, but stillhuman.
The hallways lay deserted at this time of the night, not even the regular watch spaced out along the walls. Onlywhen Lory approached the main level of the pyramid, where the mess hall was situated alongside a few offices, did Lory glimpse black-clothed tested on guard duty.
Lenya hadn’t given any specifics of where to find him, and she hadn’t asked, but now … now she wondered if that had been shortsighted of her, if Lenya had expected more of her.
Forcing more bravado into her prowl and her voice than she felt, Lory approached one of the students to ask for directions and was surprised to find a familiar face. Not a tested, but a thornling.
“Jarek,” she huffed.
“Good evening, Lory.” Jarek gave her a brief smile and stifled a yawn.
“What are you doing on guard duty?” Not that it mattered, but since when did thornlings stand watch in the middle of the night?
Jarek shrugged. “My foot still isn’t completely healed, and Ycken considers it a fitting punishment to suffer through hours of standing on my injury. Better than being whipped, right?” He flashed his teeth, but there was no humor in his voice.
“They do that here?” Not that it would surprise her.
“Not to the students.”
But to the prisoners, the traitors, the people they considered threats. Lory heard his message loud and clear.
