When he drew even with Inari down the row, going in opposite directions, he pulled in a deep breath and inhaled the delicate sweetness of her perfume. They stood shoulder to shoulder, each facing a different wall.
At first, when he felt her fingers brush his hand, Elias thought nothing of it. But then her fingers slid silkily between his, interlacing, and he took the opportunity to drag the pad of his thumb across the skin of her hand. He did not glance over to acknowledge the touch and neither did she. Their shared interest in contact ended some minutes later as they moved past to the next painting in line.
By the time he reached the end of his row, Elias had discovered nothing else unusual. He wasn’t too disappointed—after all, he had the initial find, which might still provide more insight at a later date.
Inari appeared at his side. “I didn’t find anything, though I think you should go back over them all when I’m gone. I may have missed something.”
“I will.” He didn’t think she would be offended by his blunt honesty. “At least I know it’s been gone over once, though. Every bit helps.”
“Should we attack the journals now?” she asked.
Elias tamped down the urge to tell her he wanted something else at that moment. Something much more intimate. He smiled, held out his hand, and said, “You read my mind.”
There would be other days to dally between the sheets.
Today was a day to unearth mysteries.
Chapter 29
I have never seen a more untrustworthy lot of cur in my life. Two days ago, Archon Rehn sent men to murder me. I was just coming upon the stables when an arrow passed literally an inch from my nose. It hit the side of the stable, giving me only a second to prepare myself for battle.
Almost immediately, someone attacked from behind. The stormy weather played a part in my not hearing the bastard sneak up on me. I barely ducked in time to avoid losing my head. I divested the man of his weapon shortly after, and ended him. The second assassin switched to knives and managed to wound me in the thigh, but it did not prevent me from besting him in hand-to-hand combat. My guards arrived. I forced them back.
I wanted the assassin for my own.
I did not kill him, not then. I forced confessions from him over the course of two hard, long days, until he finally released the name of his benefactor.
I should not be surprised that Archon, a man who ever goes back on his word, sent his assassins after me.
However, I am.
I would not have guessed that he would test my anger and resolve in this manner, not after the horrific crimes Imatra has committed against Latvala. My father refused to attack Imatra during the Black Scourge, as my father called it, when Imatra raided our border villages relentlessly. They stole our women and children and killed the men where they stood.
I discovered something surprising during my interrogation. The assassin, unless he was lying, said that Archon arranged for my demise in retaliation for the recent attack on an Imatran village, supposedly perpetrated by warriors of Latvala.
It simply did not happen. I never sent a cadre to annihilate innocent villagers, which makes me believe that there is more to the story than I know. The only conclusion I can come to is that someone is trying to compromise us.
Someone who wants war between Imatra and Latvala.
Archon’s brothers? Cousins? It could be anyone. Someone who wants the throne or someone Archon has wronged.
Had the assassin not told me about the village raid, I might have sent my own assassins to take out Archon.
I will not. I will bide my time and see what, if anything, Archon does next. His missing assassins should be a big enough clue not to send more.
* * *
Darrion
* * *
Elias reread the entry. It was the first page he’d found among a stack of single papers that harked back to the time of Archon. Elias had a clearer picture now, at least to some degree, of the back and forth issues between Imatra and Latvala.
Someone had been sabotaging both sides, if Elias guessed right, in an attempt to take them to war.
At his elbow sat several other random entries to journals or historical documentation, most of it far removed from Archon and Darrion’s time. He had high hopes that the remaining pages would give him more insight.
“Elias!”
He snapped a look over when Inari gasped his name. Immediately, he rose from his chair, circled the desk, and came to stand right behind her chair. He bent low, examining the weathered piece of paper she held in her hand.
“Look. Look!” Her finger glided down the paper—which seemed to Elias to be more of a handworked skin—to a faint drawing positioned below a scrawling signature.
There, staring him in the face, was the same crest he’d found on the dagger, the same as the one in the coffin.
“The language is Latvalan for sure, but I’m having a difficult time making out the marks,” Inari said.
Elias was already reading, too impatient to think about the ramifications of the crest. He was familiar enough with the old dialects and alphabets to read without difficulty. His heart thumped in his chest, as if he somehow knew he was about to discover a clue.
* * *
We are faced with a brutal winter. Food stores are low and my men are hungry. Gariston said we should ask Imatra for aid.
I almost cut off his head.
I will not ask anything of Imatra or its king. They are the reason we are hungry, I should remind Gariston, for it was Imatra’s army who infiltrated our food stores and stole it away.
Who does Gariston think sent the invaders?
Imatra’s king, of course.
Arix Ahtissari used my trust against me.
* * *
Elias had to stop reading. He frowned, staring at the name on the page, certain he had misunderstood. Why had his direct ancestor named an Imatran king as an Ahtissari? It made no sense. Rehn was the reigning dynasty. Had been since Imatra’s inception.
Yet there, in faded ink, was indisputable proof of an Ahtissari mixed in somehow with the Rehn empire.
“Why are you frowning?” Inari asked, glancing from his face to the paper.
Elias said, “Something is not right here. Let me finish reading.”
* * *
I should not use the given name. I do not care. They will always be Ahtissaris to me. I believe in blood ties, and there is no escaping that we are as intermingled as the stars. Our own brethren stole from us. Stole from us so they could live.
The Rehns.
I refuse to recognize Rehn as their surname, at least in private. Among my men and my family, I have no choice.
The ruse must live on, our separation and their distinction a necessary method of survival.
Otherwise, we would be constantly at war.
It has taken too many generations to hide what we are, to bury the blood ties.
We may see war yet, if Arix and his army continue to raid our lands.
Blood or no blood, I will kill him should his warriors show their faces here again.
* * *
Aksel Sandersson Ahtissari, 8th king of Latvala.
* * *
Elias straightened, jaw tight, disbelief warring with shock in his mind. According to the entry, the Rehn Dynasty had, at one time, been Ahtissaris. There were blood ties.
He recalled specific bits of information in rapid order: the initial dagger with its unusual crest, the constant war and strife between Imatra and Latvala, the mention in Archon’s letter that Latvala belonged to them anyway. He thought about the dead man in the cavern, the dagger with the name Ariss Rehn Ahtissari.
Ariss Rehn.
Archon Rehn.
Amschel Rehn.
And Elias thought back to his own lineage, the very first king of Latvala.
Aksel Ahtissari.
All beginning with the letter A, a common trait among families. Even to this day. His own brother and sisters’ names all began with the letter E.
It explained the bad blood, the centuries of kings passing down their dislike and mistrust of their adversary.
It explained, perhaps, why one crest had suddenly changed into another.
The crest with the A between facing lions, which had switched to lions facing away. It suggested discord, separation, a turning of their backs on one another.
Archon Rehn
Amschel Rehn.
Ariss Rehn Ahtissari.
He cursed beneath his breath and set a hand on Inari’s shoulder. When he met her gaze, he recognized surprise and curiosity, though he had no time to explain the connections he’d just made.
“Will you please excuse me, Inari? I have to summon my father for an emergency meeting,” he said.
“Of course. I’ll see you later.” Inari rose to her feet.
Elias gently snared her by the chin and kissed her mouth. He appreciated her understanding and ability to handle the situation like an adult. Many women, he knew, would not accept being sent away without an explanation so gracefully.
He reached for his phone the second she’d departed the office.
The urgent news he had to share with his father could not wait.
Chapter 30
Inari busied herself by pacing up and down the upper hallway, the one with row after row of ancestral paintings. She fidgeted restlessly as she walked, studying the portraits she now knew much more intimately.
The feel of Elias’s mouth on her own lingered.
It distracted her from thinking too hard about what conclusion Elias had come to down in Sander’s office. That a breakthrough had been made was obvious and, rather than be disappointed at the request for privacy, she was excited he finally had some answers. Or at least another big clue.
She knew, too, that Elias would share the information when he could.
The distinct features of a distant king drew her to a halt before an enormous gilt painting. As before, there was still something about the painting that seemed familiar somehow. And, as earlier, she could not place what exactly it was.
How frustrating.
She moved on to the next painting, gaze taking in the sturdy features of a man who looked more like a Viking than not. Dark blond hair, blue eyes, rugged build. Even the royal finery could not detract from the sense of wild warrior the man exuded.
Elias’s ancestors, by and large, were handsome men indeed.
She glanced back to the portrait before, then started to move on down the row.
With the suddenness of a lightning strike, Inari understood what seemed so familiar about the former painting.
She rushed back to stand before it and framed her hands in a way that blocked out most of the king’s hair and jawline. Not touching the canvas, of course, but at an angle that allowed her an unimpeded view of just the king’s eyes, nose, and mouth.
Inari gasped.
There was no mistaking it. Not when she focused in on specific features.
She turned from the painting and hurried down the hallway, intent on sharing her suspicion with Elias and Sander at the first possible opportunity.
* * *
“I’ll be damned,” Sander said.
“I believe the facts are indisputable,” Elias said, hands in his pockets as he made a slow circuit of his father’s office. He was too restless to sit still.
“I agree with you,” Sander said, standing before the desk.
Elias had spread out all the evidence and had explained, in detail, the connections he’d made. The more he outlined his theory, the more he believed they had stumbled upon the truth.
“Aleksi, Caspian—all of them. They’re our relatives. Our blood. Cousins, no matter how distant.” Elias wouldn’t have believed it if he’d not seen the proof for himself.
He still couldn’t believe it.
“All it will take is a DNA test,” Sander said. “I’m sure I can get Aleksi to agree to one.”
Elias hadn’t thought that far ahead into the scheme of things. His father was right. A simple test would give them an absolute answer. “How does this change things between countries? Or does it change anything at all?”
“It changes nothing,” Sander said. “No one has any claim to the other’s territory, but it does explain why my own father rarely ever discussed Imatra and discouraged close interaction. He’d no doubt received the same sort of ‘advice’ from generations before. I recall Aleksi saying once that our fathers, his and mine, did not get along well. Now we know why.”
“They didn’t understand what the real issue was, did they, all these years later?” Elias asked.
“I doubt it. The old grudges, suspicions, and outright hostility got passed down, but some of the details did not. On purpose, I’m sure. Some of our kings, as well as Imatra’s, chose to simply turn a cold shoulder to one another. My father was not hostile to Imatra so much as he completely ignored them. He did discourage us from interacting, discouraged friendship between Aleksi and me, but otherwise he pretended like they didn’t exist. It’s incredible that the chasm between countries lasted this long.”
Elias considered his father’s words and agreed with them. “A chasm that has been steadily closing, thanks to you and Aleksi.”
His father and King Aleksi’s friendship had paved the way for Elias and Caspian to become great friends early on.
“There’s no reason to go back to the way things were. Hasn’t been for more than two decades. What we need to do now is finish going through the papers and journals, see if we can find more information. I’d like to know just how the men, back in the beginning, were related. You mentioned cousins. I wonder if they were brothers instead,” Sander said.
“I should have the rest of it finished by tomorrow night. Think we’ll come across details about the dead man?” Elias asked.
“Probably not. I think we’ve been lucky to get what we’ve got. But we know that he was an Ahtissari, a royal at some point in his life, so he’ll get a proper burial. He could have died of natural causes, could have been a spy, could have even turned against his own side and joined ours after the obvious split.”
Elias grunted. He hadn’t considered burial rites yet. It made sense to lay the man to rest after all these centuries. “And what are we going to do about the public? Or Aleksi? Are you going to tell them? Can you imagine the media storm once word gets out?”
Sander tapped his fingertips on the desk. “I’ve already thought about it. I think it’s critical that we go public with the information, but I’ll have a private meeting with Aleksi first. You and Caspian should be there, since you’ll both be taking the throne in the future.”
“You think someone might find out if we try to keep it a secret?” he asked.
“Now that the papers are in the open, and we’ll be burying a strange body, people will start to dig for the real truth. It’s better to control the release of the information than have an insider break the story.” Sander stepped away from the table. “Let me know what else you find.”
“I will.” Elias tracked his father until Sander was gone from the office. He released a slow breath, dragged a hand through his hair, and quit the room himself.
He needed to find Inari, make his apologies, and finally get some sleep.
Tomorrow would be a long, long day of sifting through what papers and journals remained.
Chapter 31
“Elias! I have something I need to show you.” Inari didn’t waste even one second on greetings when Elias found her pacing the hall outside the office. She touched her hand to his arm, encouraging him to follow her back to the upper hallway where the portraits of his ancestors hung.
“What is it? I wanted to tell you—”
“You’re not going to believe it.” She
was so excited about the discovery that she did not pursue whatever topic Elias wanted to discuss with her. She led him up the stairs and into the long hall. “Remember when I said earlier that something was bothering me about one or two of the paintings?”
“Yes?” he said.
“I discovered what it was.” She brought him to a halt before the picture of his ancestor then lifted her hands to block out the hair and jawline, as she’d done before. “Put your hands like this. Frame just the eyes, nose and mouth of the king and try to ignore the rest.”
Elias complied. He lifted his hands and stared through the rectangle he’d made.
Inari waited for Elias to see the same thing she’d seen. To make the connection. It took him a few minutes of frowning and staring and, when he still hadn’t had an epiphany, Inari moved him back a few steps, farther from the picture.
Less than fifteen seconds later, he sucked in a surprised breath and dropped his hands. He stepped closer to the painting again, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“You see it now, don’t you?” Inari asked.
“Yes. The resemblance is very faint but undeniable. When you focus on just the eyes, nose, and mouth, you realize that he resembles Aleksi. Especially the eyes. The shape, more than the color. And the nose. The structure, the similarity, cannot be coincidence.”
“Exactly! The eyes and shape of the face from brow to mouth are so similar, at least with this king. Some of the others, not so much. But there is a definite resemblance there. The blood tie cannot be ignored.”
“No, it cannot,” Elias said. “Which only adds to the information we’ve obtained that the Rehns were once Ahtissaris. Cousins or brothers who separated in the beginning and started different lands. My father is going to ask Aleksi for a DNA test, see if we match.”
Latvala Royals: Bloodlines Page 18