Leoht (BloodRunes: Book 3) (14 page)

She needed to concentrate on what they
needed. They were going to Gelendan, through a border that was
reported to be holding enemy troops, and from the sounds of it,
there would be more coming in behind them from Treymayne. They were
headed straight into the middle of two conflicting armies.

She caught up to Gryffon, determined to keep
their conversation civil and professional and asked where they
could get supplies. He answered her shortly, and during the
saddling up of the horses, Axe and Fly, who had been stabled at the
palace since Layna’s accident, and all through the ride to the town
that Gryffon had indicated, neither said a word.

CHAPTER 9

“What do you mean you attacked her but didn’t
kill her?”

“She was more powerful than anticipated,
Ranis, it only means that I will have to reassess my approach and
try again. Next time I will be prepared for her.”

“Are you sure there will be a next time? It
was pure luck that you happened to notice them riding into the
palace! And there is too much interference around them to track
them.”

“Have I ever failed an assassination for
you?”

Ranis sighed, frustrated, but conceded.
“No.”

“And I won’t this time. She’ll be dead within
the week.”

The man bowed and disappeared. Ranis paced
back and forth in the room, but the floorboards creaked beneath
her, and she stopped. The noise was more irritating than it was
worth. Perhaps she’d check in on Jezebel. Obviously the woman had
so far been unsuccessful as well since the girl had been seen alive
leaving the palace grounds, but it wouldn’t hurt to find out if
they knew anything. Perhaps they had some clue as to where they
were heading.

She materialized in the room where Jezebel
was staying, and watched as she spoke to her manservant, Devon,
invisible to both their eyes and Jezebel’s talent.

“Have you made your choice?” Jezebel purred
to the man.

He glared at her and clenched his fists at
his sides. Apparently whatever she was making him choose between
gave him no option that he liked. After a moment, he nodded. “I’ll
allow the life-sucker to be placed on me.”

“Splendid!” Jezebel clapped her hands
together like a little girl and grinned at Devon, who scowled back.
Ranis lifted an eyebrow. He must really feel as though he were
between a rock and a hard place to voluntarily allow a life-sucker.
“Open up your shirt,” Jezebel commanded, and after a split-second
hesitation Devon complied.

Ranis watched with interest while Jezebel
painstakingly drew the rune on Devon’s chest with a knife,
murmuring the words to the spell under her breath. She hardly
needed to draw out his pain like that for it to be effective. He
was clamping his teeth down, obviously determined not to give her
any pleasure by voicing his discomfort, and soon Jezebel withdrew
the knife with a flourish.

“There!” She smiled devilishly, “Let’s see if
it works.” She held up her hand and Devon’s faced paled a bit as
his life-force was drained into Jezebel’s waiting palm. The rune on
his chest glowed brightly for a moment, then flashed and the blood
disappeared, leaving a scar that appeared to have been inflicted
weeks prior rather than minutes before. Interesting, she had used
his own life-force to heal the wound. Ranis wondered if the woman
realized how dangerous it would be for him, having no talent to
speak of to draw from the power around him to feed her whims, it
would all come directly from him.

He sat down heavily on the chair behind him,
looking rather pale. Jezebel stood back, surveying her handiwork.
She cocked her head to the side and watched him take a few deep
breaths.

“Interesting,” she commented, “I wonder if
that’s what it’s like when I take it from Gryffon.” Gryffon was the
name of the man reported to have been traveling with Layna. Ranis
wondered if it was the same. If so, Jezebel was showing her sad
lack of understanding of all things magical. Obviously a man as
powerful as Gryffon could withstand much more than Devon could. He
had massive amounts of power at his disposal before she’d actually
begin feeding off his life-force.

Jezebel continued, “Now that you’ve
sufficiently proven your loyalty to me, I’ll let you in on the
secret of how I knew where the little whore was.” Ranis listened
closely. “Every time I drain energy from Gryffon, I can sense where
he is. And since that whore is still following him around like a
lost little puppy, we can safely assume that that’s where she is as
well.”

Devon’s grey pallor was slowly growing more
normal-colored, and he took a deep breath. “So where are they now?”
he asked her, raising a hand to rub at the rune before pulling his
shirt back over his head.

Jezebel watched his movements and Ranis
caught a glimmer of disappointment at having her eye-candy taken
away. She didn’t treat the man she was so infatuated with with very
much compassion. As he tugged the shirt back into place, Jezebel
closed her eyes and her lips moved. Ranis could tell that she was
activating another life-sucker and she quickly sent a tendril of
her own energy to follow its path.

“They are heading towards Gelendan,” Jezebel
answered, “I can’t tell exactly where yet, but once we get closer I
should be able to pin-point him.”

Ranis withdrew her own spell. Interesting,
either she still didn’t trust Devon completely even when his very
life was now linked to hers, or she was really incompetent.

Ranis knew exactly where he was. And that
meant exactly where
she
was as well. She blinked out of
Jezebel’s company and quickly mind-called to the assassin. She
didn’t know his name, but his black aura was easy to pick out.

He appeared in her room moments after she
did.

“I found them,” she said excitedly, and
quickly filled him in on their location. When he departed once
more, Ranis was able to finally relax a little. It had felt like
everything was getting out of control lately, but hopefully this
little loose end would be tied up quickly. After coming up with the
plan to eliminate the threat of the girl, the rest of the inner
circle had moved to the task of determining how best to reestablish
control over the King, leaving Ranis to oversee the operation
herself. With so much riding on its successful completion, it had
stressed her to her limits.

She allowed herself a quick drink before
contacting Lord Telvani and she downed the hard liquor quickly,
burning her throat on the way down. Now that her operation was
underway with no room for failure, she felt confident enough to
check in and see how their end was coming.

“Ranis,” Lord Telvani greeted her with a
pleasant nod. “Does this mean that the goal has been
accomplished?”

“Currently underway,” she acknowledged with
an easy smile, portraying utter confidence, “the threat will be
eliminated very shortly. How goes the planning there?”

Lord Telvani sighed and Ranis’s stress
returned, the acid in her stomach rising uncomfortably in her
throat. “Not as well as we had hoped, but still moving forward. It
appears that he has bonded with the stone completely and that Nuko
may actually be conscious of the host and even worse, communicating
with it. Undoubtedly, Nathair is painfully unaware of the danger of
dealing with dragons - or at least with this particular one. Our
sources suggest that he may have struck some sort of bargain with
him.”

“What have the two of them been up to?”

“On the advice of his advisor, who we put in
place, we’ve convinced him to spend his time flying around the
country-side cementing his leadership. It keeps him occupied rather
than hatching new schemes and will hopefully buy us some time. From
the looks of things, it was probably a smart idea anyway, the
people needed convincing. We may have dealt with quite a few loses
otherwise.”

“Is the war still moving forward as
planned?”

“Oh yes, there’s no stopping it at this
point. Treymayne’s army has already started gathering and we expect
them to begin their march soon.”

“Wouldn’t the war itself be a good
distraction for the King?”

“We thought of that, but decided that it
would be safer to try and gain control over him beforehand. While
we have the converted garrisons under our control, using them to
help contain him would be much more difficult if they were already
deployed to war.”

“I see. And your plans to regain the
control?”

“We are waiting for the completion on your
end. The plan will be much the same, to drop in and grab him,
transporting him back within the ranks of one of the garrisons
where he can be contained and collared. The modified collar you
sent us obviously will be utilized, it is currently in place and
ready when we are. But in order to do this, we need your particular
talents.”

Ranis smiled with satisfaction. She was the
best, and they knew it. “Well, we should be able to get back on
track shortly then.”

*

Katya felt the stone in her pocket warming,
indicating that Layna and Gryffon wanted to talk to her, and she
pulled out her mirror, whispering the words to activate the
spell.

Layna’s face shimmered before her in the
glass. “Hello, Katya.”

“Layna,” Katya nodded, “How is everything
there?”

“It’s alright,” Layna answered, and Katya
could tell there was something going on that Layna didn’t want to
tell her, “We just wanted to check in with you and make sure
everything was alright, and let you know what our plan is.”

“All’s good here,” Katya acknowledged, “I’ve
run into a few nasty things, but nothing that I can’t handle and
the process to cleanse the areas seems to be working. It has held
up fairly well too which is somewhat surprising given the chaos
that’s around it.” She laughed ruefully, “Wait ‘til you have to do
a spell in one of the uncleansed areas, it’s like trying to hold
onto an oil-slicked pig.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Layna smiled at her
and Katya felt a tiny twinge of loneliness. “We’re making our way
to Gelendan right now to hopefully invite the King to join our
party out there. We’re going to try and meet up with a couple of
old friends and hitch a ride with them into the palace.”

“What kind of old friends?” Katya asked
curiously, trying desperately to ignore the clash of ideals that
was taking place in her mind. The King was bound to have the palace
under strict security with all of the events going on. The fact
that they already had a plan to get in strangely discouraged her.
She had been hoping for a little more time to work things out.

Layna smiled a sly smile, “The kind of
friends who are likely to still be allowed to come and go in the
palace, I can’t imagine any noble being able to forego his regular
visit from his special Golden Girl for the sake of a little
security.”

Katya snorted at the brilliance, though still
dismayed at the forward motion of their plans. There was little
doubt in her mind that those girls could come and go as they
pleased. The guards probably knew them all by name, if not even
more intimately. However, part of the Golden Girls reputation was
built on the fact that their visits were extremely discrete, that
combined with their ultimately higher-class professionalism, made
them the favorite for nobles and especially political and others in
the public eye. “Are you sure that they’ll agree to risk their
reputation like that?” Katya secretly hoped they wouldn’t.

“I think these two will, we saved one of
their lives a while back, and regardless, even from knowing them
for the short amount of time that we did, I know that they’ll want
to stop what’s going on.”

The view of the mirror moved suddenly and
Gryffon’s face appeared in lieu of Layna’s. “Once we’re inside the
palace, we’re hoping that the disguise will get us close enough to
the King’s chambers that we’ll be able to pass the rest of the way
unnoticed. We’re a little skeptical that the King would have girls
coming in and out for him rather than just keep his own harem, so
that probably won’t work to get us all the way there.”

Katya bounced her head back and forth,
considering, once again ignoring her inner self which was now
feeling a rather intense pang of jealously. “You’re probably right,
but it will get you past the hard part. The guards at the gate are
the ones who will be looking at you the closest. Once inside, it’ll
be more or less assumed you have a legitimate reason for being
there. Just remember to act like you do. Nothing gives a person
away more than looking like they feel they don’t belong.”

Gryffon gave her a knowing look and she was
reminded just how much these two did know about her sordid past. It
was rather unnerving. But at least there was a hint of a smile
underneath. His suspicion of her seemed to have diminished slightly
since they parted ways and Katya wondered why.

She changed the subject. “Any idea what
you’re going to do once you’re in the palace?”

“Not yet, we’re working on it. We have to
find a way to subdue him enough to transport him with us, and
Aileen says that she has an idea that will make it safe for the
Bloodstone to be in the same place as the source without them
bonding, but she won’t tell us what it is yet.”

Katya was picking up on a strange vibe coming
from the two of them, but she couldn’t quite figure out what it
was. They didn’t seem to be as in sync as they usually were, and
both were using very flat tones. Layna especially was normally very
animated.

“Are you two sure everything’s alright
there?”

Gryffon’s face looked surprised. “Fine,” he
said shortly, though she saw his gaze flick sideways towards where
Layna must be for a split second. Something was definitely not
right. She had the urge to transport back there and slap some sense
into the two of them. Had they still not just told each other how
they felt? Katya was annoyed. She couldn’t figure out her feelings,
but the two of them couldn’t be more obvious in how they interacted
with one another. And they weren’t mature enough to just express
it. She grew suddenly weary of speaking with them and indicated
that she needed to get moving, breaking the connection
abruptly.