Her attempt to wrangle her emotions didn’t work, and tears formed in her eyes.
“I know.” Ridge wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a hug. She leaned her face against his shoulder as he rested a hand on the back of her head. “I’m sorry there’s no way to travel back in time to get your family and bring them here for the wedding.”
Sardelle took a few deep breaths, appreciating the hug and the warmth that emanated from him, physically and emotionally. She hadn’t come here to weep all over his uniform, so she sniffed a couple of times and tried to pull herself together.
“As far as my mom goes, I’m positive she’ll recover and accept you as her daughter-in-law. I’ve told you before that she’d about given up on me getting married and her having grandchildren.”
Ah ha, Jaxi said. There’s your segue into your other announcement.
Ignoring Jaxi’s commentary, Sardelle said, “As I recall, you said she’d be happy if you had babies with a baboon at this point.”
“I don’t think that’s exactly what I said—”
“It’s very close.”
“—but you’re much better than a baboon.” Ridge leaned back enough to smile and meet her eyes, and she sensed him wanting to make her feel better. “You don’t have any fur you have to shave before you can go out dress shopping.”
Apparently, he doesn’t know all the details of your grooming regimen, Jaxi thought.
There isn’t any fur involved, Sardelle replied tartly.
Armpit hair is close to fur.
Gross.
I certainly think so.
“Is Jaxi making comments?” Ridge asked. “My jokes don’t usually prompt that weird of an expression from you.”
“You know me well. Us well.” She patted his chest. “I’m relieved she didn’t share the conversation with you.”
It’s not too late, Jaxi said.
Ssh.
“I’ll find some time to go up and talk to Mom,” Ridge promised. “Is there anything else worrying you that I should know about?” He raised his eyebrows.
There’s your baby-announcement prompt again.
Sardelle bit her lip. Maybe this would be the time to bring it up.
“Oh, wait.” Ridge dropped his arms and stepped back. “I better tell you about Tolemek. Hells, I bet Tylie doesn’t know yet either.”
“What happened?”
“He’s missing. And his lab was ravaged, or so Ahn reported. She said something about an explosion. The king knows and said he’d send Kaika and someone from army intelligence over to look for clues about who did it and where they might have taken Tolemek.”
“Jaxi was right,” Sardelle said, her shoulders slumping at the news. “There never seem to be any truly untroubled times, do there?”
“Every now and then, there are a couple of peaceful hours in the evenings.” Ridge smiled, but it wasn’t as broad and cheerful as before. “Maybe you could go over to his lab and look around with your magical senses. Do you think you might see something Kaika and an intelligence officer wouldn’t?”
“Not necessarily, not if it happened hours ago, though if magic was used, Jaxi or I might find some indications of it.”
“Yes, good. Do you mind going? I’d offer to accompany you, but I have an architect to bribe with beer—” Ridge waved at the papers he’d thrown on the desk, “—and I’m due to inspect a couple of fliers being delivered to the hangar this afternoon. The new models are finally in production.”
“Architect?” Despite her concern for Tolemek, Sardelle felt a twinge of curiosity and pushed the topmost rolled paper open.
“For someone’s temple, yes.”
“Oh, this design is lovely. Reminiscent of the temples and colosseums from the Tvakmar Era. They incorporated columns and arches in their architecture before mathematicians quite understood why arches worked so well to distribute weight. Some of their ruins still stand deep in the Cofah empire.”
“That’s the design Bhrava Saruth liked,” Ridge said. “Because there’s a good place for his throne, and it will be visible right when you walk in.”
Sardelle snorted and released the paper. “I’ll go check out Tolemek’s lab. Will you be home tonight?”
“You should know how little sleeping on the couch in here excites me.” He waved to the well-used leather sofa. “Aside from Tolemek’s disappearance, there’s nothing dire going on in the city, though I suppose if I go up to my mother’s house, that’ll make me late. Unless I take a flier. The army frowns on us using their craft for reasons that aren’t work-related, but maybe I can say I’m going to check on the temple’s building site if someone asks.”
“And that is considered work-related?”
“Bhrava Saruth is definitely work.”
“I can’t argue with that. I’ll see you tonight.” Sardelle rose on tiptoes to kiss him before heading for the door.
“Don’t forget dress shopping,” he called after her. “And inviting Lilah. She’ll be a good stand-in if my mom needs a few more days to recover. I mean, she doesn’t care about art or fashion or buying pretty clothes, but at least she can hold your sword while you try things on.”
Sardelle paused with her hand on the doorknob, surprised that dresses were on his mind when Tolemek was missing. “Are you bringing this up again because you want me to prepare for the wedding or because you want me to finagle information out of Lilah about her romance with Therrik?”
“Not about their romance. Seven gods, I don’t want any details on that. I just want to make sure he’s treating her well. You know, the opposite of how he treats me.”
“I don’t believe Lilah is as lippy to him as you are,” she said, releasing the doorknob and turning back around.
“She states her opinions, stands up for herself, and does as she wishes,” Ridge said.
“That’s not the same as being lippy.”
“Maybe not, but Therrik doesn’t like people arguing with him. I’m surprised they’re even— Doesn’t he seem like someone who’d like a sweet docile woman who obeys him a lot?”
“I haven’t spent much time contemplating his ideal partner,” Sardelle said.
“Neither have I. But still.” Ridge frowned and stuffed his hands into his pockets.
“Have I mentioned that it’s sweet that you’re worried about your cousin? But at the same time, that you should accept that she’s a mature adult who can make her own decisions when it comes to the men she dates? Without the guidance of meddling older cousins?”
“So, I’m a sweet meddling pest?”
“That sums it up nicely.” She smiled at him and opened the door.
“The serene way you smile makes it seem like that wasn’t an insult, but I know better.”
Her smile widened as she walked out.
“You’re lucky I’m used to being insulted,” Ridge called after her, “and that I still want to marry you.”
The door had closed, so Sardelle replied telepathically. I’d be devastated if you didn’t.
Good. I love you.
I love you too. She smiled as she walked out of the citadel, and it wasn’t until she was far down the walkway that she realized she still hadn’t told him about the baby.
“After I figure out what happened to Tolemek,” she murmured. It didn’t seem right that she should be planning her wedding and speaking of love when Cas was worried sick about her missing love.
Cas wanted to pace while Captain Kaika and Captain Bitinger poked around in Tolemek’s lab, but the intelligence officer had already warned her once not to tramp around and break more glass with her diminutive elephant feet. Whatever that meant. So instead, she lingered in the doorway, examining the lab with only her eyes, and tried not to think about what she would do if they didn’t find Tolemek.
It had taken her most of the summer to get used to living with someone else—with him—and she’d barely begun to realize that she liked it, liked having someone to come home to, someone to share breakfast with, and someone to hash
out problems with. Someone who cared about her. And someone she cared about.
A brown-haired man in a lab coat with goggles perched on his forehead came up the stairs. He turned toward the first door on the right but noticed Cas and heard Kaika and Bitinger discussing residues from explosives.
“What happened in there?” the man asked, coming forward to peer past Cas. He looked to be in his mid-twenties and reminded her of Lieutenant Pimples.
“Tolemek was kidnapped and his lab ransacked.”
“Kidnapped? From the middle of the city? That’s statistically improbable.”
“I don’t suppose you were here last night and heard anything?”
He shook his head. “Not me. I just came in to check my gels.”
Cas hadn’t expected anything else. She and the intelligence captain had already questioned the building’s occupants, the three they had managed to round up. From what she’d heard, half the people who worked here only did so part time because they had offices elsewhere or also taught at the university. Nobody had been here the night before, at least nobody that had been by yet. Bitinger’s people ought to hunt down the other tenants for questioning. Or the police. Someone must have reported the destroyed lab to them while Cas had been at the castle. When she’d returned with Kaika and Bitinger, two police officers had been walking around the room, breaking more glass and perhaps destroying evidence. The intelligence captain had shooed them away in exasperation.
Kaika left Bitinger, who was peering at things with a magnifying glass, and walked to the door.
Cas lifted her gaze, hoping Kaika had learned something. But she didn’t meet Cas’s eyes. Instead, she licked her finger and wiped the sooty doorjamb. Some of the soot came away on her skin, and she lifted it to her nose to sniff it. Then she touched it to her tongue.
The scientist blinked. “You shouldn’t do that, my lady. Soot is a byproduct of the incomplete burning of carbon-containing materials and may contain numerous carcinogens such as cadmium, chromium, and arsenic.”
“Good thing I know a dragon who will bless me then.” Kaika rubbed her fingers together. “Did you just call me ‘my lady’?”
“Er, yes, my—ma’am. You seem…” He looked her up and down, taking in the army uniform and her six feet in height. His gaze lingered for a moment at her chest, though the uniforms didn’t exactly accentuate a woman’s breasts.
“Noble?” Kaika asked skeptically.
“Tall enough and strong enough to beat me up.” He smiled faintly, as if the idea appealed to him rather than alarming him. “I thought I should try to get on your good side. Are those grenades on your belt?”
“Yes, they are. Nice of you to notice.” She patted him on the cheek. “I think your gels are calling you.”
“Uhm, right.” He headed to his own laboratory but glanced back at her grenades again before disappearing through the doorway.
“Scientists are quirky,” Kaika announced.
“I’ve noticed, ma’am.” Cas felt a pang of loss as she thought of her own scientist. But she firmly told herself it was too soon to believe him lost. “Did your soot tasting tell you anything?”
“Not really, but this is telling me a lot.” Kaika drew a piece of twisted metal out of her pocket. “It’s the safety pin from a Farongi bomb.”
“Farongi?” Cas hadn’t heard the name but allowed herself a smidgen of hope that Kaika may have found some useful clue.
“Farongi?” Bitinger asked from across the lab. “I was getting ready to declare this a Cofah invasion.”
“Based on what evidence?” Kaika asked.
“They’re our greatest enemy with the most to fear from technological military advancements we make, and since Dr. Targoson was originally one of theirs, they have reasons to resent him defecting.”
“So… no evidence,” Kaika said.
The captain, a reed-thin man in a perfectly pressed uniform and painfully polished boots, frowned. “Why would the Dakrovians kidnap Targoson and wreck his lab? They’re not even a unified nation. It would have to be a team sent from one of their independent city-states. If you can call them cities.” He sniffed. “Few of their jungle population centers have more than twenty or thirty thousand people.”
“Nonetheless, this is a Farongi pin.”
“Dakrovians?” Cas eyed the pin, thinking of the mission she and Tolemek had gone on to the continent a few months earlier. They had attacked the Cofah there and kidnapped their emperor, but she didn’t think her team had done any actual damage to Tildar Dem, the town they had visited. The Dakrovians shouldn’t have vengeful thoughts toward Iskandia—or Tolemek.
Kaika nodded. “Most of the continent is technologically behind the times, but there are a few exceptions. In Jlongar Jalak, one of the larger cities near the southern end, there’s a renowned weapons manufacturer—Hur Farongi—that supplies rifles for big-game hunters and also makes three types of explosives, at the request of the warring tribes in the area. The safety pins are the same on all three, with a distinct twisted-strand style pull.” She held up her find. Her twisted find.
Captain Bitinger came over to look at it.
“Farongi is popular with pirates and mercenaries,” he said, “because Jlongar Jalak is easy to get into and out of without dealing with anyone’s military. The city has a modest police force, but that’s it, and they have a free-trade policy. Anyone can dock there for a fee.”
“So, pirates might have done this?”
“Would pirates have kidnapped him?” Kaika asked. “Or just shot him?”
“The people here did try to shoot him.” Bitinger waved at the bullets in the walls. “And we don’t have any proof that they kidnapped Targoson. They may have shot him and removed the body.”
Cas didn’t like hearing someone else voice the thought she’d had earlier. Not that thought.
“I see sensitivity training isn’t required in the intelligence units.” Kaika frowned at Bitinger and gave Cas a concerned look.
Bitinger’s brow furrowed. “Is it required in the elite troops?”
“No, Colonel Therrik would explode if he had to be sensitive.”
Cas looked into the hallway, debating how she could find Tolemek if pirates had kidnapped him—she chose to believe that had happened rather than someone shooting him and dumping the body. They could have taken him right out to a sailing ship or an airship, meaning he might already be hundreds of miles from the mainland. She could give chase in her flier, assuming she could get permission to take it out, but where would she start looking? It was a large world. Could Tylie help find him?
Someone new came up the stairs at the end of the hallway. Sardelle.
Cas hadn’t expected her, but she lifted a hand in greeting, wondering if her magic might allow her to see something that the two captains had not.
Bitinger shifted his weight, frowning uneasily down the hallway as Sardelle approached. Cas wondered if he recognized her and had a problem with her occupation. Or maybe he’d seen some of those silly newspaper articles of late.
“Afternoon, Sardelle,” Kaika drawled. “Come to join the party?”
“Party?” Bitinger asked. “I don’t think I’m the insensitive one here.”
Kaika shooed him away. “Weren’t you trying to figure out what was in that vault?”
“Yes, yes. Don’t let her come in and trample things.” He pointed at Sardelle, then returned to his investigation.
“Good afternoon, Cas, Kaika.” Sardelle nodded gravely to them. “Ridge asked me to come help figure out what happened.”
“Nothing good,” Cas said, sighing. She did appreciate that General Zirkander had sent someone else to help, someone with a different set of skills. That morning, when she had left the castle, she hadn’t been certain the king would prioritize Tolemek highly enough and send enough people.
“Are there any clues yet as to who did this?” Sardelle peered past them and into the lab, her eyebrows lifting when she saw the destruction.
Kaika held up the twisted piece of metal.
“That looks like the pin you use to open an anchovy tin,” Sardelle said.
“It’s the pin you use to open a Dakrovian grenade,” Kaika said. “It’s a good thing Angulus sent me over here. Bitinger would have had us haring off after the Cofah, and you’d have us harassing innocent fishermen.”
Sardelle’s cheeks grew a little pink. Or maybe they’d been pink when she had come in. Had she run over here? She wasn’t breathing heavily, but her skin seemed a little brighter than usual.
“I’ll see if I can find anything that might suggest magic was used.” Sardelle stepped past Cas and Kaika and into the room. “Tolemek is a capable fighter, even if it isn’t his first nature, and he usually has explosives of his own within reach when he’s in his own lab. I suspect the numbers were either overwhelming or someone used magic on him.”
Cas hadn’t considered that, but it was a good point.
Bitinger frowned at Sardelle when glass crunched under her shoes, but he didn’t say anything to her. Rather than looking around, she walked in, rested her hand on a work bench and closed her eyes. She wore a dress, a flattering blue with white trim, and her soulblade hung from a braided leather belt, so Cas imagined Jaxi also using magic to search the room.
Bitinger shuddered and looked back at the broken vault. He scraped some residue from the inside and placed it in a test tube.
Once again, Cas resisted the urge to pace. She felt useless here, but what could she do? Before she could hop into her flier, she needed more of a clue than that the kidnappers had visited a Dakrovian weapons maker.
After a long minute of standing with her eyes closed, Sardelle moved toward the area where Tolemek had been working the day before. She rounded the broken table, crouched, and scraped at something on the floor with her fingernail.
Cas watched to see if she would sniff it and lick it.
“This sticky goo is magical.” Sardelle stood up, and Cas came into the lab. Whatever Sardelle had scraped up was too small to see from across the room. “There are a lot of things in here with a magical residue to them,” Sardelle added, “but I recognize them as Tolemek’s work, with his magic imbued in them. This has someone else’s magic imbued in it.”
Oaths (Dragon Blood, Book 8) Page 7