Page 102 of Stars May Burn

I stepped closer to her, ignoring her blade. “What in all the kingdoms do you think you are doing? There are crazed soulless out here—different than the ones from Kollenstar. These can turn civilians into soulless with a single bite.”

She pulled down her scarf. “I know. That’s why I’m here. You must stop this at once and come with me.”

I looked away, then back to her again. I wasn’t sure I had time for this right now. “Annabelle, Lord Lyrason released a couple a few hours apart last night and has already started releasing more tonight. My men are tracking a second one already. He’s taken the majority of the Red Men captive and is releasing them as these things. There could be up to twenty-five of them. You need to leave, and I need to stay and get rid of them before they hurt more people. I plan to sedate two, then I will bring the evidence to the king and Maegistrium. Dead bodies aren’t enough, you can barely tell anything from them. They don’t show how much they’ve been changed or that haemalcomy has been used to remove something integral from them. And maybe the king’s kryalchemists can find what it is that’s being drawn out of them, and why and where Lord Lyrason is storing it. There must be a bigger plan behind all of this.”

She shook her head. “I don’t believe you. If you know it’s Lord Lyrason, then why haven’t you told the king already?”

I sighed. I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation right now. “One, Lord Lyrason is powerful and popular, and the city guard will support whatever he says. It will require a lot of evidence to discredit him. I didn’t have enough evidence that would hold when nobody else seems to have witnessed a single thing. That’s why I’m trying to sedate them. Two, I…I was worried the king might be part of it. Or allowing it in some way. He knows Lord Lyrason does at least some illegal kryalcomy and does nothing. It has made me cautious until I could show him how bad this really was by publicly presenting him with one of these creatures.”

Her face tightened. “Many of the lords engage in some degree of mildly illegal kryalcomy. But how dare you suspect the king of allowing something as evil as this.” She pointed to the corpse.

I scoffed. “Oh, he’s done far worse.”

Her eyes darkened in anger.

I took another step forward, forcing her to move her rapier away from my chest. “As I said, I hope he has nothing to do with this. Why don’t you investigate him, since this seems to be your new hobby?” She shifted, and I noticed something in her hand, mostly concealed by the folds of her cloak. “What’s that?”

Before she could protest, I grabbed it and spun away from her.

“Give that back!” Her hand reached out but only grasped air as I kept my back between her and the object.

I took out my small kryalcomy lamp and examined the object in the pale blue light. It was a pyramidal device only slightly smaller than the one the Red Man had stolen from Lord Lyrason and used to track Sophie. Sure enough, the hare was embossed on one side. This explained the faint keening noise on my detector that had abruptly silenced. She must have only turned it off minutes ago.

I scoffed in disgust. “So you’re working with him too? Or do you just happen to be using illegal kryalcomy while blaming me for doing the same?”

She snatched it back with a glare, a golden strand of hair falling free from her hood. “It was a present.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Oh, really…wait, have you been tracking me?”

“How else would I be here?” She looked down, and her cheeks heated. “Well, I knew you were doing illegal kryalcomy, and I’d heard reports of random civilian deaths downtown through my information network. They always coincided with your return to Adenburg. So, I decided to investigate.”

I threw up my hands. “This is dangerous, Annabelle! And you shouldn’t be using Lord Lyrason’s kryalcomy. How did you set it to track me anyway?”

She pushed her hair back under her hood. “Well, when Lord Lyrason thought he was about to be engaged to me, he boasted about this device. It seemed harmless. I’m sure the Maegistrium will allow it soon enough.” She straightened her back in defiance. “I asked him for one as a symbol of his interest. He made me promise not to give it to anyone else. He didn’t want anyone stealing his ideas or giving it to the Maegistrium before it was made legal. Anyway, to set it to track, you can get your target to touch the center, or place a part of their body there. Like a hair or fingernail. I took one of your hairs from your coat at my engagement ball. The one you gave the servants to hang up.” She pocketed the device. “And I was right. People die every time you sneak back here, always at night.”

“Annabelle, you’re being a fool and missing what’s right in front of your eyes.” She glared at me, and I returned a hard stare of my own. “It’s not normal kryalcomy. Think about it. It’s using body parts. That’s closer to haemalcomy. That will never be allowed by the Maegistrium. It’s not ‘mildly illegal’ as you put it nor is it ethical.”

She looked at the pyramid and chewed her lip. “Convince me, and I’ll help you. But if I prove it’s you, I will arrest you.”

I sighed and pushed back my hair. “No. It’s too dangerous. If one of them bites you, there’s no cure.”

She squared her shoulders. “I can fight.”

I tilted my head. “You can spar. You’ll get yourself killed.”

She met my gaze without an ounce of fear. “Prove it to me, and I’ll argue your case to the king. You know we’re close. He always listens to me.”

I shifted, uneasy. “It may damage your relationship with him. You will have to be resolute.”

She scowled. “He’s a good man. If Lord Lyrason is causing these soulless, then Father is ignorant, not complicit, and he will want to end this.”

I shrugged. “He’s not a good man. But I certainly hope he’s better than this.” I gestured at the body. “I guess I’m about to find out.”

The gleam in her eyes turned cruel. “Just because he never fully acknowledged you as?—”

A stone clicked. I clamped my hand down over her mouth, and she squealed in protest. “Be quiet. There’s somebody coming.”

We’d been too loud, and we’d lingered too long. I shouldn’t have let her distract me. A soft whine was rapidly growing on my detector.

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