Harland’s one eye becomes malignant, his coarse beard twitching. For what it’s worth, whatever venom he wants to spew, he holds it back, even if the anger bashing about in his skull is so brutal that I can practically feel it.
It’s Davorin who finally answers. “We only briefly found their scent. It led us to these two who were dutifully cleaning up what appeared to be quite a lot of blood.”
“Noctis blood,” Harland growls.
“Where was this?” I ask them.
Davorin gestures behind them. “Back that way a few blocks. One of them was holding this.”
He hands me an arrow—No, not an arrow. It’s much too short.
Caz leans over to me, a hand shielding his quirked mouth. “Crossbow bolt.”
“Yes, thank you.” I snatch the thing from Davorin’s hands and turn it over. There’s fresh blood on the tip. “Perhaps this is why Gregor and Boris didn’t respond through the bond. Judging from the amount of blood, are you presuming them dead?”
Davorin nods.
“We don’t know they’re dead.” Harland’s words are like rabid dogs tethered by tenuous leashes.
If he were anyone else, I might try mustering more sympathy for the fear and pain he must be experiencing. I’ve never had a brother, not by blood, so I can’t pretend to know what it must be like for your younger brothers to be missing, and very likely dead. But it’s difficult to muster sympathy for someone who’s never shown any to you, someone who looked me in the eyes after I watched my mother die—at his hands—and told me toget over it.
Even if I didn’t harbor a seething hatred for the man, facts are facts, and the dead are the dead.
“They didn’t send word through the bond, and when you tracked them down, you found blood, and two humans cleaning it up. I know this might be difficult for you to hear—hell, it’s the very reason you weren’t invited—but here you are, so let’s be honest. They seem to be dead.”
Uttering the words out loud don’t make me feel any better. And if he thinks he’s the only one upset, he’s wrong.
I didn’t much care for Harland’s brothers; if he had the civility of a wild and starved bear, his brothers behaved more like the impish fiends that once populated the Shadowthorn. But they were still men inmycharge, and therefore I have failed them.
Failed the crown.
Even if we return with two humans as compensation, it won’t be enough. I’m not even sure four would be enough. Or ten.
Although…maybe, it would be.
The thought gives me a flicker of an idea, but before it can fully form, Harland lunges for me.
Caz tries to leap between us, but I shove him back.
Harland doesn’t scare me. Let him start something he can’t finish. It’s about time I put him in his place and remind him who is a full-blooded Devonshire noctis, and who was raised in the gutters on rat blood and filth.
Before a good brawl can even begin, Harland stops short, teeth bared and snarling mere inch away from mine. “They can’t get away with this. I won’t let them.”
“They won’t,” I promise.
Though I’m loathe to agree with him, he’s right. We can’t let them take two of ours and return with only two of theirs. It’s hardly an even trade. Not in the eyes of the king anyway.
I examine the two humans, neither of whom appear to be struggling by any means. The younger of the two has almost definitely bathed recently, given the sheen of his golden wheat hair, and I’m willing to wager that the other, a grouch of a man with the figure of someone who’s not accustomed to food scarcity, has a home somewhere—perhaps nearby—where the missus is preparing his next warm meal.
Just yesterday, Ursulette captured a human—a woman who also seemed to be in fine health.
It could be a coincidence, to find three humans in the same city all within a day of each other. But that seems unlikely. These aren’t just folks wandering aimlessly around the same abandoned city. They came from the same place.
“Davorin,” I call to my father’s adviser. “Ursulette found a human woman yesterday at a well. Do you remember where she said it was located?”
Davorin pulls out his map and unravels it for me. “The east side of town, I believe. Near the forest, there. Why?”
My eyes scan the sketches of roads, an idea forming. “Three people… They’ve lost three people so far...”
