Page 39 of Veil of Vasara (Fate of the Five #1)

CHAPTER 39- NATHON

I f Zeima’s Princess wanted to believe she possessed vital information, then that was absolutely fine by me.

What did she think? That Ruban and I braided each other’s hair, held hands, and embraced, shared stories of our heinous deeds and missions around hearty meals? That we, and all the people who worked for my father in this manner, had group meetings where we would unveil all our actions and plans?

It was Ruban, however, who was the greater fool. He had no excuse. He had worked under my father for four years. He had very quickly proven his skills to become one of his agents, and he had barely associated with anybody. It was precisely for those reasons that I distrusted him in the first place, as well as all the other people who worked for Sarlan. At most, any one of them knew twenty percent of what went on with my work.

For Ruban, that percentage was probably closer to five.

But that was five more percent than the rest of the world knew.

Than Loria knew.

And that five percent would contain the one thing that I never wanted her to know.

That Sarlan had wanted to shape us both from blood-stained clay. Work on us like monuments he’d unleash against the world.

And so I had agreed with him, when I was fifteen, to work twice as hard, endure twice as much, indulge in twice as much bloodshed, as long as Loria would never do, work for, endure, or indulge in anything.

I had decided it would be better if she hated me and was free, than cared for me and was trapped.

And now, if she ever found out, she would only hate herself, and her freedom would have been for nothing, and she would only hate me more, for having made that choice for her.

It was selfish of me to want such information to remain concealed, but I didn’t feel any guilt about it. It wasn’t as if I made decisions based on my own desires and wants at any other time.

If this was the only one, then so be it. It would be worth it.

I hadn’t even meant to leave the dinner so abruptly. But Loria had been looking at me with such confusion, such pleading, I couldn’t risk staying there for a second longer without risking murdering Ruban on site.

I walked inside my chambers and removed my jacket and tunic, leaving the thin undershirt on.

It was only then that I noticed.

I had been agitated when I entered this room. My guard had been down.

I turned to the figure perching in my window. Her cloak just reached over the frame.

“It’s rather impolite to watch a man get undressed like that… isn’t it?” I grumbled.

It was the same woman who had been at the draining centre that night.

She pivoted slightly, still perching in the window frame.

“I had no doubt you’d notice me before your virtue was at stake,” she said.

Her voice box had healed from before. I tried to place her accent, but like last time, I couldn’t. Her voice was only slightly deep, but smooth, calm.

And laced with derision.

“Still hiding, I see. Won’t you come a little closer?” I asked.

“So that you can try to kill me? I think I’ll pass.” She laughed under her breath.

“You’re so sure I would attack you.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

She was right. I would absolutely have attacked her and tried to remove her mask.

She lifted a dagger and pointed it in my direction. “It hasn’t healed.”

I looked down at my shoulder. “Are you here to tend to my wounds?”

She removed her hand, perching her wrist on her bent knee. “I’m quite sure that you could send for your own healer… Prince .”

So, she knew who I was.

At least, she did as of this moment. She hadn’t seemed to be aware of my identity when we had met, despite the fact that my appearance was widely known, as were the nature of my clothing, and weapons.

“It hardly seems fair you know who I am, and yet I do not know who you are.”

“I thought you had sworn to find out.”

“I’ve been rather busy.”

“So I’ve heard.”

I wondered exactly what it was she had heard about.

“What’s your name?”

“No.”

I took a few steps towards the window. The woman stiffened up. I could tell she was preparing for me to attack her, but I stopped, just close enough that my boots touched the edge of the shadow her body was casting on the wooden floor.

My voice dropped. “What are you doing in my room?”

She put the dagger away. I assumed she meant to indicate that her plan was not to injure, attack, or kill me.

“Why were you at the draining centres that night?” she asked.

“Why were you?” I raised a brow.

“I am not a Prince. It would not be dangerous for me to be there.”

“It would be dangerous for anyone to be there.”

“Not for me.” She smiled, just as before, I could see the bottom half of her face, but not the top.

I took another step closer. “What does that mean?”

She didn’t answer.

“You know. This is how a conversation works. I won’t answer any of your questions, unless you answer mine,” I told her.

“Do you want something from me?” she asked.

I was startled by the question. Why would she assume that?

“What made you think so?”

“You didn’t tell anyone about what you saw, about my presence. There are only two explanations for that. The first is that you have your own reasons for investigating the draining centres which you don’t want brought to light, hence my first question. The second is that you planned to use this against me, knowing I would invariably return to the centre at some point. Which is it?”

“I want nothing from you. Sorry to disappoint,” I waved my hand in a dismissive gesture.

“So, it’s the first one.”

I crossed my arms. “Even if that is the case, I see no reason for us to interfere in each other’s plans.”

“You are already interfering." She sounded frustrated.

“How? It is you who has invited yourself into my chambers.”

She jumped through the window and took a few steps towards me. We were no more than an arm’s length away from one another. No, less than that. I hadn’t expected her to enter, or to come so close.

“Your knowledge of my existence is interference enough.” Each word she spoke was sharp, purposeful.

“Your…existence? All I know is that you are a woman of a fair complexion. I would hardly call that incriminating evidence.”

“Do not make yourself out to be a fool. I have heard enough about you to know that you can gather my meaning easily. The existence of an individual who is neither a Vessel, nor someone who works for the Palace’s draining centre…can only be one thing, can’t they?”

“You think that a spy in this Palace is such a rare occurrence?” I tilted my head and raised my eyebrows. “You think that is enough to warrant my attention. It is as commonplace as the clouds in the sky and the leaves on the trees here. You’re not as important as you think you are.”

“Until you decide otherwise?”

“You’re not very trusting, are you?”

She let out a quick laugh. “Do you consider yourself a trustworthy person?”

“I keep my word,” I said tentatively. It was probably because this woman had been the first person to actually wound me in years, but an uneasiness grew in me the closer she came. I was not accustomed to the feeling.

“And what is your word, Your Highness ?”

“I will tell no-one of your existence. You have…my word.” I bowed before her, reaching for my dagger as I did.

Before I could straighten up, she came closer to me. Her hand found its way to my arm, my wounded arm.

She squeezed it hard. I fell to my knees.

“You’re lying." She looked down at me. “I can tell, especially since you clearly just tried to attack me.”

“You—” I reached for a dagger at my belt, but she grabbed my other hand before I could. I still had my left hand free, but it was almost impossible to use with her fingers pressing harder and harder into the wound on that side.

“What do you want me to say? I just told you I would keep your secret, and you don’t seem very pleased about it,” I said through gritted teeth.

“That’s because I don’t believe you.” She bent forwards so that our faces were level, if she hadn’t had a hood over her face, I’d be looking at her directly in the eyes.

“What could I do… to convince you?”

She paused, and didn’t say anything, then suddenly let go of my shoulder.

“I don’t want to hurt you. Do you understand?”

The infinitely increased level of pain in my arm said otherwise.

“No, I’m afraid that I don’t. I don’t understand what you want at all, or what you’re doing here.”

She sighed, and then let go of my wrist. “I don’t know you and so I don’t trust you, and even if I did know you, I’d be unlikely to trust you anyway. If our situations were reversed, you would have killed me by now, but I can’t do that since you’re a Prince, and even if I could, that doesn’t mean I’d want to.” Unlike her previous sentences, these words came out hurried.

“You’re not a very good spy.” I couldn’t help but smile. “Telling someone you don’t trust so much.”

She huffed. “It’s no more than what you already know.”

“Honestly?” I stood again with my right hand on my left shoulder. “This knowledge matters little to me. I don’t care about it, or you.”

“You mean that I’m not a threat to you.”

“Are you?”

“I could be.”

I didn’t doubt that. I caught myself being surprised at my own thoughts.

I didn’t doubt that this woman could indeed be a threat to me.

I had never met someone who had genuinely believed that. That they could defeat me in combat. Only complete fools. This woman seemed anything but one.

Which could only mean that she had good reason to believe she could, which did nothing to ease my growing concern in her presence.

I wasn’t used to fearing for my life or placing much value on it at all.

But I had to live.

Or Loria would not.

“I think you may have forgotten the outcome of our last encounter,” I said.

“I suppose it would be easier for you to remember, since I left such a permanent reminder.” She pointed to where my hand sat.

“Perhaps one day, I’ll return the favour.”

“You see …” She sounded impressed with herself. “How can I trust this disregard you have for my existence won’t suddenly disappear?”

“It won’t.”

“Would you trust you, if you were me?”

I smiled “Most definitely not. But as you’ve already said, you can’t kill me and according to your own predictions, killing you would be impossible, so what is it that you are so concerned about?”

“Even if you cannot kill me, you could reveal my activities to any of the relevant authorities at any time, and that would effectively mean I cannot complete what I came here to do. I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone about your presence at the centre without revealing my own, so…as you can see, you have the upper hand. I don’t like that.”

“And yet…that is the situation. You cannot change it.”

“I would like to change it,” the woman said.

“That’s not my problem,” I said, backing away from the woman slightly.

She noticed and took a step forwards. “We’re not done talking.”

“Could we be?”

The woman crossed her arms and then unfolded them again. She was apprehensive.

“If you tell me why you were there…I can help you, and in return you can help me.”

So many deals. With this woman, with Sarlan, with Elias, with the Captain, with Rhana.

It was give and take in this world. Always.

And the take was usually far more merciless, more powerful.

I wondered what it must be like, to know someone who came to expect nothing of you.

“What makes you think that I need your help?”

“Don’t you?”

I grimaced. “No. Not really. I work alone.”

The woman looked at the ground. “And have you found what you were looking for?”

“I will. In time.” I dropped my hand from my shoulder, rolling it slightly.

“Do you have time?” she asked, her head following the movement of my arm.

“I have more than enough.”

“Really?” She leant against my bed frame, crossing her arms once again and tilting her head back, to glance at the ceiling. “Then why is it your drinking companion follows you around like a hawk?”

My face fell.

“Watches you like one too." Her head dropped as she turned to look at me.

She’d been following me?

But how? I always knew, I always could sense when I was being followed, being watched.

“He’s certainly not protecting you. I’ve heard you can protect yourself…most of the time." She gestured at my wound.

“He’s looking out for me.” I leant back against the wall.

“Is that what it is?” She sounded doubtful.

“How long have you been following me?” I asked, irritated at my lack of ability to detect her having done so.

“Who says I’m following you? Perhaps I’m just… looking out for you .”

“I’m not working with you.”

“Are you working with your friend? I can’t report your activities at the draining centre, but I can report him.”

I was almost tempted to let her do it. Mathias behind bars would be a pleasant sight.

But that would inevitably put Loria and I in great danger.

This is how they must have felt. The Captain and Elias. When I backed them into a corner. When I demanded their help in exchange for silence. And not only them, but all the people I’d done so to in the past.

But if anyone were to find out about my true motivations for being here, for Loria’s, the King would not be so forgiving, and if he didn’t execute us, then Sarlan had already promised to do so, or at least, make us infinitely suffer.

Still, I had no intention of being manipulated.

“Be my guest,” I told her.

“Such loyalty to your friends .”

“What exactly is it you can report? That a friend of mine visits the Inn and watches me. Suspicious? Yes. Incriminating? No. The members of this Court are already suspicious of me. This friend of mine won’t change that.”

Calling Mathias my friend, even under these circumstances, made me feel physically ill.

“Besides, I already have the means to discover what it is I need to know,” I declared.

The day after the Captain and I had removed the escort's body from his chambers, I informed Elias of the first favour I wanted from him.

To visit the draining centres and find out as much information about them as possible. He, I could tell, had been startled by my request, and not at all glad to fulfil it. But, as a self-proclaimed murderer of a noble, he really had little choice but to agree.

We had managed to keep the escort’s disappearance hidden for now, since it had only been two days since the incident, and there had been no events which had required his involvement or accompanying of the Jurasan Princess. But it would only be a few more days before people realised that he was missing. Until then, the Jurasan Princess was remaining in her quarters.

The woman shook her head. “If you want to know anything about those places, you won’t find anything useful by yourself, even if it is you.”

The woman walked towards me and since my back was already against the wall, I had nowhere to go, apart from to the sides, which in this moment, felt wrong.

She held up a key. It was small and golden. She placed it in the upper pocket of the light shirt I was wearing.

It was the window key to this room.

Her voice became quieter. “You’ll need my help. I guarantee it. I’ll come back in a few days, and we can talk.”

She took a few steps back and hopped onto the window again. She turned her head to the side slightly, and with a smile still on her face said, “You can get undressed now.”

She left.

I instantly walked towards the window. I looked out, down, and around, but there was no trace of her anywhere, no footprints on the grass below. There were no signs she had been here at all.

I placed my hand in the pocket of my pants.

As the woman had given me my window key, I had also taken something from her, since she had been so close.

I opened my palm, and my breath faltered.

An enolith stone.

There was only one kind of person who could use an enolith.

The kind that could remain unseen, that could avoid my detection, that could leave no traces behind.

I had never spoken with one. I had only ever been sent to kill them when they lay sleeping in their beds. Unaware and unthreatening.

I had killed one, just two days ago.

I laughed. She hadn’t been bluffing. She hadn’t been wrong.

This woman really could, if she so desired, kill me.

Because this woman was a sorcerer.