Which meant that, even if this building wasn’t as significant to the Mahsadën as Raz hoped, maybe it held some clue as to what he should do next.
At worst he would just burn the whole place to the ground.
Making up his mind, Raz let the corner drop to the table, his eyes flying over the papers, trying to memorize every detail. Those things he was sure he would need he copied down. Finishing with one section, he moved on to the next.
After two hours of poring over the parchments, he had everything he needed, and Raz moved back to his mat on the floor. Lifting the edge, he pulled out a thin wooden box from under it. It had been risky, but he’d snuck back to his old rooms in the White Sands and salvaged what he could from the wreckage of his belongings. Most of his possessions had been destroyed or taken by the Mahsadën agents who’d tossed the place, looking for a clue as to where he might be hiding. Some things, though, had been missed or ignored, the box being one of very few items he’d found worth salvaging.
Flipping the catch, he opened it, reaching in to pull out the thin wools of his mottled night gear.
Raz couldn’t help but feel sad, swinging himself over the edge of Adrion’s balcony. The Grandmother was still there, staring off into the night, layers of thick fur blankets wrapped tightly around her, and a cap pulled over her head. She didn’t even notice him crouching beside her, pausing despite his better judgment.
Then he bowed his head respectfully before looking to the wall above.
It was several hours past midnight, the only time he knew his cousin would be asleep. Raz barely had any time to get back to his hole in the ground before day broke, and the last thing he wanted was to be caught in the streets again with only the gladius to defend himself. He wished he’d had more time to plan. He hated rush jobs, and this couldn’t really be considered anything but. He needed to get the maps back into Adrion’s office before anyone noticed they were gone—if they hadn’t already—so he’d be free to see what was actually going on without risk of being found out. If the Mahsadën realized one of their operations was compromised in any way, they would pull out within hours, leaving nothing behind.
A gamble again, but he didn’t have many other options.
Following the same path he had on his last “visit,” Raz crouched and leapt. Catching the windowsill of Adrion’s office with one hand, his feet found the top ledge of the balcony doors below him. Hoisting himself up high enough to grab the top of the window frame, he tucked into the narrow foot of space between the glass and the ledge of the sill. When he found his balance, Raz dug claws into the wood of the window and pulled, feeling it move just a little before catching.
Adrion had locked it this time, it seemed.
Drawing a thin knife from his hip, the blade too fragile to be of any use in a fight, Raz slid it carefully into the lower portion of the crack between the window and its wooden frame, moving it upwards slowly. When edge hit latch, he wiggled it, getting the tool snug before tugging upwards smoothly. There was a muffled clunk, and the window swung inward the slightest bit.
Moments later Raz dropped into the office, no louder than a ghost as he landed on all fours on the carpeted floor.
Cautiously he studied the room, peering into every dark corner. It was a spacious chamber, an excellent example of the fine tastes Adrion had developed since he’d found his apparent calling in the Mahsadën’s ranks. Tapestries and brightly colored paintings covered the walls, offsetting a large mirror with golden engravings depicting the Sun and Moon in each corner. Raz grit his teeth when he saw it.
“If only They would take you, cousin,” he grumbled under his breath, standing up. “It would probably make my life a little easier, at least.”
He could smell no one else, and his vision was good enough in the dark to notice any motion that spelled a trap. The guards Sass had left must have been downstairs. He was safe for the moment, and Raz hurried to the wide desk set up against the back corner of the room. Tugging the middle drawer open, he dug through the papers and letters carefully until he neared the bottom.
Then, pulling out the maps he’d stowed in his shirt, Raz tucked them exactly where he’d found them, closing the drawer silently.
He was out the window in a minute, using the thin blade to push the latch back down, locking it behind him. Dropping silently to the balcony below, he knelt in front of the Grandmother.
“He’s turned traitor,” he spoke quietly. “A betrayer to our family and our ways. I hope you hear this, because I would ask you to pray to keep him out of my way. No one else is going to.”
And then Raz leapt over the balustrade, dropping to the street below.
If he’d taken a moment to look back up, perhaps just in the vain hope that the Grandmother’s eyes had followed his departure, Raz might have noticed the slim figure watching him. Swathed in black, she crouched down, peering over the edge of Adrion’s roof, balanced masterfully on its apex.
CHAPTER 35
“While the rule of the Mahsadën covered only a relatively brief period in the grand scope of history as a whole, it is a well-remembered one. Even now, a century and a half after the fall of the shadow government, unhealed scars mar the faces of most of our cities. Amongst the worst to suffer during those years, the fringe town of Karth never fully recovered, becoming a den for thieves, bandits, and the sarydâ that still travel the desert routes. It is for this reason that, in the 23rd year b.S., the Age of Change, Karth was renamed Tatrê Suav, or Haven of the Traitor.”
—As Death Rose from the Ashes, by Kohly Grofh
“Our scrolls were back, like you said they’d be,” Adrion spoke up from his seat in Sass’ office, turned in the chair to watch the man pace.
“Then everything is going smoothly.”
“You’re assuming a lot. How do you know he’ll take the bait?”
“The Monster hasn’t been able to make a move in weeks.” Sass stopped by the window, pulling the crimson curtains aside with a finger to peer out. “It’s a stalemate, and you told me yourself he won’t be able to sit around and do nothing.”
“Even before everything happened, he was like that,” Adrion agreed, nodding thoughtfully. “Picked that up from our uncle. But are you sure he’s going to go for it?”
“What else could he do? We’ve offered him no other opportunity to strike. We’re too tightly guarded. If we can maintain that and hold out a few more days, I’d bet any amount of crowns you can think of that he will make a move to see what we’re doing there.”
“It’s an old bathhouse,” Adrion said with a smirk. “What does he think he’s going to find?”
“Does it matter?”
Adrion shrugged.
“Well, I’m glad you’re so sure it’s going to work. Sun knows we could use some credibility in the eyes of the others.”
Sass turned to glare at him, and Adrion smiled disarmingly, raising his hands in a gesture of peace.
“I only mean,” he clarified, “that we’re not exactly the most popular figures with the society at the moment.”
“Which wouldn’t be the case if you’d kept your animal of a cousin’s filthy claws off those records!” Sass snapped, turning away from the window and taking a seat behind his desk. “Because of you it will be months before we clear up this fiasco!”
“Well, as glad as I am that the other šef finally have some perspective on how essential my numbers are to them, it’s far from fair to blame this on me. I told you not five minutes before this ‘fiasco’ that you were underestimating him, and it takes losing our earning calculations for a whole section to figure out I was right.”
Sass was silent, glaring at Adrion, who stared right back levelly.
“On top of that,” he continued, “Master Evony should have posted an escort to travel with the messenger. He can be equally blamed, if you like.”
At that, Sass laughed dryly.
“Ha! Maybe, but just go try telling him that,” he scoffed.
“I’d rather not.”
Sass grunted, raising a hand in dismissal.
“I have things to attend to. I’ll send for you if I get word from Orture. His guard have a close eye on the bathhouse.”
Mychal nodded, setting his crutch on the ground and leveraging himself out of the chair. When he was gone, Sass leaned back with a sigh.
“You would do well to flip him,” a voice spoke. “From what I saw, the atherian is as good as me. He would be useful to your organization.”
A figure detached itself from the darkest corner of the room, stepping out of the shadows like she were made from them. Dressed in black silk so thin it would make a decent man blush to see her, the woman approached the desk gracefully.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Sass began, tilting his head as he looked into her blue eyes, examining the scars that crossed her pale face. “He’s better than you, Lazura.”
The blonde woman smiled venomously, claiming the chair Adrion had just vacated.
“I don’t know about that,” she said, crossing her legs, the silk falling open to reveal the smooth skin above her knee, “but you’re entitled to your opinion.”
Sass raised an eyebrow.
“You forget that your charms don’t work here. You’re not my type. And as for flipping him, we’ve been down that road, and it didn’t work out well the first time around. I very much doubt it would be any different now. But regardless”—he leaned forward hungrily—“tell me what you know.”
Lazura frowned, her expression suddenly businesslike.
“He’s holed up in an abandoned shop a short ways off the main fairway into the west slums,” she said. “I didn’t follow him in, like you said, but if you move quickly you might be able to get at him before he changes locations.”
“Not worth the risk,” Sass muttered, eyes on his desk as he thought things over. “If he’s there, he’s holed himself up in a way that would take an army to get to him, maybe in the basement or cellar. Likely he even has another exit you wouldn’t be able to see from the surface. Worse, if he’s already moved then he’ll have eyes on the place. The minute he hears we raided an old hideout he’ll drop off the grid again, and it’ll be ten times harder to find him.”
“Then let me go,” Lazura said, her smile popping up again. “He has to sleep, right? I can be in and out in minutes and your problem is solved without a—”
“He sleeps less than four hours a night, probably with one eye open, and is faster and stronger than any of the fat old trims I’ve had you take care of in the past.”
“But if I can catch him at the right time—”
“You won’t. You can’t. I’ve been working with the lizard longer than anyone. As much as I’d like to think he’s nothing but a dumb animal, the reality is that he’s smart. Maybe as smart as you, with your northern education.”
“You can hardly call it an education,” Lazura retorted. “A bunch of brainwashing old nags too rooted in old ways to see what their abilities could offer themselves and the world? The Laorin Broke me. Because I wasn’t about to let myself turn out like them, they Broke me.”
“Well you’ve certainly put what talents you were left with to good use,” Sass said with a nod. “But even with your abilities, you won’t get the best of i’Syul.”
“Can’t know that until we try.”
“I said no,” Sass breathed with lethal finality. “And you will follow my directions, or I will find my accountant a new housekeeper. I know how much you would hate to be taken away from that precious charge of yours. Studying Adrion’s grandmother has already brought you so much closer to finding your original gifts again… It would be so sad, don’t you think, to be taken away from her?”
Lazura stiffened.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“I would dare to do a lot, my dear,” Sass said with a shrug, leaning back. “I didn’t get to where I am by being slow and cautious. There are other people out there with your skill sets, Lazura, believe it or not. Not many as good as you, I admit, but those that are can be found and hired and those that aren’t can be bought and trained. You seem to forget who taught you your skills.”
“Lifegiver take you, Sass,” the woman spat, her eyes narrowed, and for a second Sass thought she might go for the throwing needle she had disguised as a decoration in her blonde hair.
Then she seemed to think better of it.
“Fine,” she breathed. “I’ll stay away from the atherian.”
“Thank you.” Sass gave her a patronizing smile. “A wise decision. Now, if you would, I wasn’t lying when I told Adrion I have other things to take care of. You may go.”
CHAPTER 36
“There is almost always another way. Take the time to look for it. You will go through life with more friends and less scars. It is not the coward who steers clear of a fight. It is the wiser man.”
—Jarden Arro, Champion of the Arro clan
Raz crouched low to press himself against the brick and marble wall, waiting for the guard to pass his narrow alley. They were seven in total, a standard patrol, and on any other night he wouldn’t have hesitated to take advantage of their turned backs and relinquish their spirits to the Moon.
Tonight, though, he didn’t have the time to waste.
They marched past steadily, torches held high, peering through the dark. In full gear Raz ducked farther back into the shadows, hoping they hadn't caught the glint of steel. He didn’t so much as twitch, waiting for the last flickers to fade in the distance before he dared the street again.
It wasn’t often he visited this part of the city. The middle class was a relatively small group, larger than the wealthy by far but still barely a fraction the population of the slums. They were a generally honest people, merchants and artisans who practiced their labors rather than steal or slave for their fortune. As a result Raz had only twice before accepted a contract on a local resident, though he’d done a number of private jobs for some of the shopkeepers nearby who’d wanted protection for their goods.
It seemed odd therefore that his investigations would lead him here of all places. He did rare business in these parts, and since the Mahsadën’s dealings ran parallel to his own in a sense, he found it strange that they would be using this particular district as a trading front.
It had taken Raz some time to discern what was going on. He’d been watching the place in question—an old bathhouse that appeared to have been recently restored into some sort of local bazaar—for four days now. All had seemed innocent at first—people milling throughout, going in and leaving with fresh fruits or clothes or other merchandise. The bustle and murmur of the bartering had taken him back to years long gone, and for a time he’d been hard-pressed to think of the place as anything but the sort of market he and the Arros might once have set up shop in.
Then Raz had started watching those people he knew weren’t locals, men whose countenances seemed too gruff for the decent clothes they wore. Pairs would enter the building with wrapped parcels and depart empty-handed. Three times he’d seen individuals he knew were the right hands of some šef or another enter the bathhouse, only to leave hours later. Adrion had made an appearance once, as had Vyrr Gaorys, the šef responsible for every crown the Mahsadën leached out of Miropa and its citizens. The pudgy man had been surrounded by his usual contingent of burly guards, all of whom seemed impossibly bigger and beefier than the ones Raz had slaughtered trying to get at him a month and a half ago.
Needless to say, there was certainly something going on within those walls…
Turning right, he made his way cautiously down the cobbled street. That last patrol had been the third he’d run across thus far. The Mahsadën seemed to have spared no measure. It was the kind of manpower usually retained for the roads in and around the wealthier estates to the north, and it had taken him by surprise. He was already behind the two-hour schedule he’d drawn up for himself to get there, get in, and figure out what the hell was going on inside. After that he’d have another hour again
to make for the new safe house set up at the very edge of the city before the Sun started to rise.
It had already been over an hour, and he was still fifteen minutes from the bathhouse.
The city was dead as Raz moved, inconspicuous in the night. Ahna was thrown over his shoulder, her shaft resting between the crook of his neck and the handle of his gladius, her blades hidden by their leather cover so as not to catch the light of the street lanterns. At one point he thought he heard yet more footsteps in the distance, and he ducked behind a large pile of pine crates. There he waited, but after a full two minutes of listening to nothing but the cold night breeze whistle through the street he got to his feet and started running again, cursing his paranoia.
The Wings of War: Books 1-3: The Wings of War Box Set, Vol. 1 Page 30