“Someone woke up extra grumpy today,” I said cheerfully, breezing into the room as if I wasn’t at all affected by the look of death Vail was sending my way.
Point of fact, it had taken every ounce of my willpower to not spin around on my heel and come back later. Nyx could probably answer all my questions, but I was here now and refused to back down just because Vail couldn’t let the past go.
Nyx choked on air as they looked back and forth between me and Vail, and the unfamiliar man was staring at me wide-eyed like I was a creature he’d never seen before.
“So, have we learned anything useful?” I parked myself comfortably next to Nyx on one side of the table. Vail was still glowering at me, so I turned my attention to the man at his side. “I’m Samara Harker, and you are?”
“I know who you are,” he sputtered and wiped a handkerchief over his face. “I’m… uhh… Vasili. Cormel. Vasili Cormel.”
“Pleased to meet you, Vasili Cormel.” I beamed at him, which seemed to only increase his panic. “I take it you’re here because you can offer some insight as to what happened to this young man?”
“Yes! I mean,”—he looked frantically at Vail, who was clenching his jaw so hard I could see the muscle ticking in his cheek—“I’ve done advanced studies in anatomy at Drudonia. Moroi, Velesians, even some Furies.
“Although, it’s much harder to get my hands on the body of a Furie since there aren’t many of them to begin with, and it’s kind of a weird subject for me to broach. Asking for dead bodies and all.” He winced, squeezing his eyes shut and taking a deep breath. “I received a message yesterday morning requesting my presence here.”
My eyes flickered to Vail. He must have sent a message from the outpost.
“I left right away and arrived early this morning,” Vasili said hastily. “I was just about to go over my findings now.”
“Well,”—I grinned widely at Vail—“looks like I have perfect timing.”
When Vail and I just continued to stare at each other, Nyx cleared their throat. “Please continue, Vasili.”
His rich brown eyes, flecked with green, darted nervously around as he shifted back and forth on his feet. I couldn’t reallyblame him. Menace practically poured off Vail, who was still staring at me in a way that suggested he was thinking about slowly peeling off my skin.
My grin morphed into a frown. I’d been joking earlier, but he really was acting even more pissed off than usual this morning. “Did something happen?”
Vail blinked, and a mask of indifference slammed down on his face. “Nothing that concerns you,” he said stiffly before turning to Vasili. “Proceed.”
“Right.” Vasili swallowed. “As far as I can tell, all these wounds happened after death. There are at least six distinct types of bite marks, most of which are from scavengers, but this one,”—he pointed to where a large chunk was missing from the calf—“is from a banecat. There are drag marks where the clothing he was wearing rode up, and they’re quite severe. Given how far you found him from the outpost, I think he was dragged all the way there.”
My eyebrows crept up as his voice gained a newfound confidence as well as a hint of excitement. Apparently, his insecurity vanished as soon as he started talking about dead bodies.
Banecats were enormous felines. Despite their size and impressive fangs, they were mostly scavengers. They liked to eat in peace, so it was the most likely culprit for moving the body to where we had found it.
“Not to be callous,” Nyx said, pressing their lips into a flat line, “but why did we find the body at all? The scavengers usually pick everything clean within a couple of days, and he was out there for weeks.”
“I can’t say for certain,” Vasili admitted. “Perhaps it’s related to whatever that symbol on his neck does, but I can say that none of the scavengers seemed to take more than a few bites, which is unusual.”
“So, they started to eat and then stopped?” I frowned at the body. “Odd.”
“Very,” Vasili agreed.
“What killed him?” Vail asked.
“The oddness continues, I’m afraid.” Vasili pulled out a bowl from a shelf underneath the table, and a deep red mass sat inside it. Some type of organ?
I leaned closer, trying to get a look, but it was far too damaged for me to tell what it had been. It looked like someone had smashed it repeatedly with a hammer.
Vasili explained, “His heart exploded in his chest.”
“Fuck,” Nyx swore, and I nodded in agreement as I stared at the unidentifiable mass that was apparently a Moroi heart.
“That has to be magic, right?” I asked.
Vasili offered me an apologetic shrug. “I can’t tell you what caused it, only that the heart was affected. All his other organs are intact.”
“Maybe that’s what the symbol on his neck does?” Nyx said but immediately shook their head. “No, that doesn’t make sense. There are far easier ways to kill a Moroi, but there has to be some connection.”
