“Are you aware of anyone else who may seek to inflict harm within my Realm?”
“No, I am not.” Lelan replied firmly.
“I am sorry to have to ask you these questions, Lelan,” I said to him as he answered my final query. All his words had flowed forth in tones of clear blue, and I was comfortable enough to relay some additional information to him.
“There has already been an attempt on my life.” I told him, and his eyes lit up at the disclosure. “And I am certain it will be only the first of many. Anyone under consideration for a position that grants them access to sensitive areas or information, or who raises any suspicion, will be subject to similar scrutiny.”
“That being said, Venna tells me she intended to offer you the position of Chamberlain of my Palace. It will be a challenging role, Lelan. As you have undoubtedly noticed, construction of the building is not even complete as yet, and you will need to assemble your staff as well—all of whom must pass the same sort of scrutiny that you just did, but if you want the position, it is yours.”
“Dreya Sintári, I would be honored to serve as your Chamberlain,” he replied with the faintest hint of a smile. “The position is a challenging one, I admit, but I look forward to it, nonetheless. After I was dismissed, I despaired of ever finding any employment that matched my particular skills. The market for deposed chamberlains is quite limited, as you might expect. You will not regret this decision, I promise you that.”
“Good, that’s what I’d hoped to hear,” I said as I opened one of my desk drawers and pulled out a bundle of papers.
“These are the plans for the Palace,” I told him as I passed Lelan the parchments. “You will want to familiarize yourself with them, I imagine. There are designated quarters for you already noted, but if you find something else you prefer, you need only get Venna’s approval to appropriate them for yourself.”
“I will begin right away, my lady,” he said as he rose and began to leave the room.
“Lelan,” I halted him before he could venture too far.
“My apologies, Dreya Sintári,” he replied hesitantly. “Should I have waited until you dismissed me?”
“No, I’m not quite that formal, Lelan,” I assured him. “But there is one more thing I need you to see to. I have procured the services of a tailor. He will be taking up residence in the Palace, and I need you to find quarters for him and his wife, along with the space he needs to work.”
“Oh,” Leland replied, obviously impressed. “You have managed to hire Birt before I even had the opportunity to suggest that you do so.”
“Well, Birt and Wenda are old friends,” I informed him. “In fact, he gave my friends and I some truly stunning outfits when we last parted ways.”
“He gave you one of his garments?” Leland replied in amazement. “Even the least of his works sell for over 20 Talons.”
“I had no idea,” I responded, somewhat taken by surprise. The stunning emerald gown Birt had given me was clearly not anything that would have qualified as the least of his works, as Leland had said, making it worth far more than even the outrageous sum he had quoted.
“I will see to it that the master tailor is provided with both accommodations and work space suitable to his station,” Lelan promised me.
Once he left to attend to the many tasks that awaited him in his new position, I leafed through the jumble of papers that had been left for me on my desk. Most of them were simply status reports and updates on the progress of our many endeavors. After the attempt on my life, my daily tours of the Realm had been severely curtailed, and the reports had become my main source of information on the many developments that continued to occur. But the lifeless sheets of paper were no substitute for seeing my people and hearing their stories first hand, so over the frequent and strident objections of Ella, Karina, and the rest of my guards, I still made my rounds from time to time.
Reading and sorting through the reports took most of the rest of my day, and once I was finished, I took a quick dinner in my office before I headed back to the chambers that still served as my temporary quarters. Venna assured me that my permanent residence was nearly ready for me, and I couldn’t wait to be in them. Despite how comfortable my current quarters were, I never felt truly at home in them, knowing that the arrangement was only temporary.
Karina brought us to a halt outside the door to my suite as usual and sent a pair of guards ahead to sweep through my rooms. Despite the presence of the two outside, and the other pair down the hall, she insisted on performing the inspection every time we returned, and it was her strict adherence to that protocol that probably saved my life that day.
Almost as soon as the two entered the antechamber, a loud thud came from inside, followed by a muffled cry for help. Karina and the rest of my escort rushed inside, while the two sentries drew their weapons and took up protective positions at my side. But if there was trouble inside my rooms, I was far more capable of dealing with it than any of my guardswomen, so I drew the Essence Blade and Dagger of Laceration from behind my back and followed right behind them.
As soon as I entered, I saw three of my guardians down on the floor, while the rest surrounded a lone, black-clad figure. Karina held one hand against her side and a stream of blood flowed from between her fingers, painting a streak of bright red down her leg and onto the floor. Two others bore lesser wounds, while their opponent seemed to be unscathed. At my appearance, I could see the cold grey eyes behind our enemy’s mask flash with recognition, and I knew that the assailant we faced was yet another assassin sent to end my life.
In addition to wounding Karina and the others, the killer had put three of my guards on the ground, possibly dead. I had neither the time nor the patience to deal with the fucking animal in anything other than the most immediate and final way I could think of, so without hesitation, I dropped the Dagger, rotated the palm of my hand to face outwards, and shot a Bolt into the center of the dark figure’s chest.
The powerful blast of energy launched the assassin’s body through the air and into the next room, where it slammed against the far wall. The shrouded form didn’t move once it crumpled to the ground, and the uninjured members of my guard quickly disarmed and restrained the unconscious assassin.
With the killer dealt with for the moment, I rushed to tend to the fallen guardswomen. The assassin had shown little restraint even though they were not the ultimate target, and the two that had been sent in first to inspect the rooms were already dead when I reached them. Fortunately, the third was still alive when I got there, and with the help of a few crystals, she was soon sitting up again and recovering from her wounds. Then, I made sure that Karina and the other wounded had seen to their injuries before I returned to the dead.
I knew them both, obviously, as I knew all of my guards, and their deaths caused me grief, but it hurt just a little more to see Tana with her throat slit open. She had been the first to speak in favor of bringing the orcs among us, and had made a point of showing them kindness, despite the loss she had suffered. The other dead guard was also an honorable woman and looking at the ugly wounds on Nomi’s body brought tears to my eyes. After a moment of reflection, I silently brought forth Death’s Embrace for the first time.
I suddenly realized that I actually had no idea how to use the Artifact—although its description mentioned using its charges to resurrect the fallen, it did not tell me exactly how I was supposed to do that. So, I simply held the rod in my hand, and focused on what I needed it to do for me.
As I did, there was a rush of energy that flowed through me for just an instant. Although still incredible, it was nothing like the overwhelming experience I had when using the resurrection scrolls, yet the familiar nature of its power was unmistakable. When the brief surge passed, I looked at Tana’s body and saw her take a deep breath. Her torn throat was mended, and Tana’s eyes fluttered open as she looked around in bewilderment. Karina and the other guards shepherded her away as I moved on to Nomi’s corpse, and I hear
d them offering Tana comfort as I began to focus my mind on restoring Nomi.
A second wave of energy coursed through my body, and as the subtle feeling of its passing faded away, Nomi too opened her eyes and gazed blankly at the ceiling for a moment. The other guards were still occupied with Tana’s recovery, so I lifted her up into a sitting position and tried to help her as best I could.
“You’re alright, Nomi,” I soothed. “I brought you back, everything’s okay now.”
“She was so fast, Dreya Sintári,” Nomi whispered. “I barely even realized what was happening before Tana was down and she cut me to pieces.”
“How do you know the killer was female?” I asked, as I had no such indications during our fight.
“She spoke, cursed us as we fell,” Nomi replied as her voice came back to her more strongly. “Called us filthy abominations.”
I was angered enough by the second attempt on my life—even more so since the killer had hurt so many of my guardians so badly. The fact that she felt the need to add vile insults to the deaths she’d caused only made matters worse. For her.
“Get out,” I said to them all as I stood up.
“I won’t leave you alone with that animal,” Karina replied.
“Get. The fuck. Out,” I glared back at her.
She had yet to see me full of rage, but was smart enough, or perhaps had been warned well enough to recognize that it was time for her to leave. Karina quickly ushered the others outside and I strode over to where the assassin lay bound on the floor.
She looked up at me with hate-filled eyes, and I let my own anger flow through me as I took the last few steps towards her. The room flared with green light, and the killer’s eyes widened in surprise as I knelt down next to her trussed-up body.
“You are going to answer my questions,” I told her flatly.
“Fuck you, human whore,” she spat back at me.
I responded to her insult by gripping her by the throat and choking off her breath as I let her know just where she stood with me.
“I view every life as precious,” I began. “Every person is a gift to this world, but you need to understand that you are not a fucking person to me. You are part of the evil that needs to be cleansed from the land so that decent people can live without fear. I will show you no mercy and no restraint. Your life is utterly meaningless to me.”
I let go of her neck and she fell to the floor gasping for air. As she struggled, I drew my dagger, cut away her mask and ripped open the front of her shirt, exposing her face and the skin of her body to me.
“Who sent you?”
The elven woman’s steely eyes glared back at me full of hate, but she refused to speak, so I reached out and trailed a finger along her neck and sent a thin thread of pleasure into her body. As the sensations creeped into her, she stiffened and tried to resist my impulses, but their effects were simply too much, and a soft moan escaped her lips after only the briefest moment.
Just as she yielded to my power, I cut off the pleasant emotions and abruptly replaced them with a harsh, unfiltered tendril filled with the rage she had kindled in me. Her body was instantly wracked with pain at the sudden and unexpected shift, and even under the limited influence of the tiny portion of my anger that I sent into her, she convulsed with spasms of agony.
“Who sent you, bitch?” I asked her again when I withdrew the tendril.
“What… what are you?” She gasped in confusion as she tried to regain herself.
“I am Dreya Sintári. Didn’t your employer tell you who you were being sent to kill?” I replied coldly.
“Are you going to tell me who sent you, or do we have to start all over?” I said when she remained silent.
My questioning was brought to an abrupt end when Tási, Venna, and the rest of my companions burst into the room. I rose to meet them and halted their advance immediately.
“I’m questioning the prisoner,” I informed them. “She seems a bit reluctant to talk, so this may get ugly.”
“There’s a better place for you to do this than on the floor of your suite,” Khorim offered. “The cells below the Palace are much more appropriate for such things, and there are no rugs on the floor that’ll need to be cleaned up afterwards.”
I saw the wisdom in his suggestion and nodded for him to see to it. Khorim grabbed the assassin’s feet, and Karina grasped her roughly by the shoulders and a few of my guards accompanied Khorim and his entourage as they dragged her away to the cells.
“I didn’t recognize her,” I told the rest of them. “She must have come with the caravan today.”
“I will have Khorim question all of the new arrivals,” Broda replied. “If any of them know anything or can tell us who she might have come with, we need to know.”
When Broda left to catch up with Khorim and make sure he followed up on her idea, I plopped down on one of the chairs and let out a deep sigh. We had just thwarted yet another attempt on my life, and it had nearly cost the lives of two women I counted as friends. I wondered how much farther it would go—how many more attempts we would need to defend against, and how many lives might eventually be lost to assassins’ blades.
“We will need to increase your guard, Sintári,” Stel remarked. “From what Karina told us, even this lone assassin was almost too much for them.”
“Stel,” Venna replied with more than a little irritation in her voice. “That was quite possibly the most unhelpful comment you could have offered right now.”
“Perhaps I should help Khorim question the new arrivals,” Stel offered as he retreated when Tási and Venna continued to glare at him.
“Are you alright, Dreya?” Tási asked when it was just the three of us.
“Yes, I’m fine,” I was honestly able to say. “It’s not really me I’m worried about. It’s you and everyone else I care for that concerns me most.”
“I know that we interrupted your questioning, but were you able to find out anything from the assassin?” Venna inquired.
“Not yet,” I confessed. “But after speaking to Lelan and hearing the venom in her voice, I can’t help but suspect that we have an enemy somewhere in Olóra.”
“I want to be there when you speak with her again,” Tási said, clearly indicating that her statement was no mere request.
“Then I will tell you exactly what I told her,” I replied as I held Tási’s gaze. “She’s nothing but a rabid animal in my eyes, and her life means nothing to me. I’m going to show her no pity, no mercy. If you’re willing to watch what I do to her, then you’re certainly welcome to join me, but the first time you object to anything I do, I’m going to throw you out the fucking door.”
Venna swallowed hard at my harsh words, but she said nothing while Tási only nodded her head, letting me know that she understood my terms.
“Alright,” I said once the matter had been settled. “I intend to let that piece of shit stew until morning. We will begin again then. Hopefully, in the meanwhile she’ll have reconsidered her stubbornness and we can get some answers.”
“Change of subject,” I declared. “Do you know if Lelan has gotten Birt’s accommodations taken care of, Venna?”
“Yes, he has,” Venna replied, clearly relieved to have something different to focus on. “Birt and Wenda have been given rooms on one of the lower floors with adjacent space for his tailoring needs.”
“Perfect,” I responded. “Then we’ll stop by in the morning to finalize his pay and position.”
We discussed a few more minor matters before our conversation came to an end and Venna left to return to her own quarters. When I left my office and entered the receiving area, the bloodstained rugs had already been removed, and a pair of guards were stationed on the inside of the doorway. Karina was waiting with them and informed me of the changes that had been made to my protective detail.
“I’ve added additional security measures, as you can see,” she said as I entered the room. “We were able to determine that the assassin entered throug
h one of the windows, so, from now on, not only will the outside of your chambers be watched, but there will be a constant presence inside as well.”
I arched my eyebrows in response, not at all pleased with the intrusion she proposed.
“Forgive me, Dreya Sintári, but until we move you into your new quarters, it will be necessary to ensure your safety,” Karina held her ground as she responded to my glare. “I assure you that we’re already taking measures to eliminate the need for such impositions in your permanent residence.”
“What exactly are you making me put up with?” I replied as I rubbed my temples.
Karina braced herself and took a deep breath before responding once again.
“A pair of guards have been stationed on both sides of the entrance to your rooms, as you can already see,” she began. “Another pair will be in both your office and personal chambers at all times. Obviously, the pair in your chambers will leave when you are in residence— but they will remain on call should there be an intrusion.”
“And how will this be any different when I move to my permanent residence?” I pointedly asked her.
“Captain Ella is taking care of that issue right now, Dreya Sintári,” Karina replied. “Honestly, I don’t know any more than that. All she told me was that she knew you wouldn’t tolerate the current arrangements for very long, and that she needed to figure out some way to make our presence less intrusive.”
“She’s right on both counts,” I shot back at her. “As for securing my chambers, I should be able to handle that myself.”
I motioned for Karina to follow, and Tási tagged along with a silly grin on her face. She knew exactly what I intended to do and was looking forward to seeing the lieutenant’s reaction.
We blew past the two guards and I went straight to the window. After a quick look outside, I placed my hand against the cold stone of the exterior wall and traced an intricate pattern along its surface. Once I finished, I stepped back and told Karina to take a peek.
The pulsing red outline of the trap I’d placed around the opening greeted her when she poked her head out the window. By the time she pulled her head back inside again, I had already placed a second snare on the inside as well.
Second Skin: Unified: A litRPG Adventure (Second Skin Book 3) Page 48