Page 10 of Horn of Winter

In quick succession, I saw a thin woman with a nest of wiry red hair and, on a silver chain around her neck, a pendant in the shape of a half circle with two uneven lines underneath it. While I’d never seen the latter before, I certainly knew the woman.

It was none other than Maran Gordon, the caster who’d firebombed the tavern and aided the two shifter thieves who’d stolen the moonstone from me.

Except, it couldn’t be—I’d killed her when she’d claimed the sword of darkness and attacked me and Vincentia.

Did Maran have a twin? A sister? I had no idea, but maybe Sgott would.

It was also possible we were dealing with the multi-shifter we only knew as Carla Wilson—the woman who was second-in-command to the hereto unknown man in control of the Ninkilim—but as far as any of us were aware, she was not also a mage.

I scanned the area yet again, but there was—unsurprisingly—little evidence or clue as to the direction the woman had gone. If we were dealing with a sister, then it was likely she had similar talents and was at least somewhat adept at concealment and body-morphing spells. Even if she was using some sort of magical shield, she was also smart enough to remain under the tree line, where the frost hadn’t ventured and prints wouldn’t show. A tracker would undoubtedly find her scent, but that was unlikely to end in a result given that, by the time they arrived, she’d have had more than enough time to jump into a vehicle and disappear.

The bigger question right now was, if this wasn’t a random attack and someone had placed another contract on me, who’d brokered it?

It surely wouldn’t be Kaitlyn Avery. While she was Deva’s—and maybe even England’s—largest broker of illegal services, she knew far better than to get involved inanyway with another contract on me. She was already walking a fine line with Sgott, and one more transgression would see her thrown in jail. And no matter how much goodwill she’d built with Ruadhán—Mathi’s father—by supplying him various bits of information, she knew well enough even he could not help her if Sgott pressed forward with charges.

However, she wasn’t the only broker in town, even if she was the largest, and any one of the minor players could have accepted the commission. I had no idea how many we had here in Deva, but I suspected there’d be quite a few given this was basically a black-market hotspot. Sgott would no doubt be aware of them all and task his people with interviewing them, but it just wasn’t in my nature to sit back and let others sort out my problems. I was just like my mother in that respect.

Of course, Mom had also ended up dead...

I shoved the thought away and resolutely made my way back to the body of the man who’d broken his leg. Mathi wasn’t there, but two others were—a man taping off the area and a woman taking photos. The latter was the fox shifter who’d attended the fire-bombing at the tavern.

I gave her a nod and asked, “Is Sgott here yet?”

“He’s up with Dhar-Val at the first body.”

“Thanks,” I said, and continued on.

Sgott had his phone in his hand, obviously taking a statement from Mathi, but turned as I came out of the trees.

“You canna stay out of trouble for very long, can you?”

The amusement in his voice echoed through me. He was a big bear of a man—quite literally, given he was a bear shifter—broad of shoulders and chest; thick, wiry brown hair; brown skin; and a fierce, untamable beard. He also had a heart as big as his body,at least when it came to those he considered family, anyway. “Yeah, sorry, but that was Mom’s lot in life, and it appears to be mine now. You got any evidence bags?”

“Indeed.” He dragged a couple from his pocket. “What have you found?”

I carefully dropped the bullets into the first bag. “Dug them out of a tree—they’re from the second shooter’s gun, and I haven’t physically touched them. The other is several strands of hair from a woman the spitting image of Maran Gordan.”

“Maran’s dead,” Mathi said. “No matter how powerful the magic, there’s no coming back from cleaved in two.”

“I know, but when I touched the hair, I saw Maran.”

“It was more than likely Keeryn rather than Maran,” Sgott growled. “They’re basically two chips off the same block, and there’s only a year between them.”

“Maran has a sister?”

He nodded. “Has similar talents, too, though we’ve no evidence Keeryn followed the same dark path as her sister.”

“Well, that has obviously changed given the attempt on our lives here,” Mathi said.

I glanced at him. “If she’s kept her nose clean up until now, her taking a kill contract on me makes no sense.”

“Well, that very much depends on just how annoyed she is that you killed her sister,” Mathi noted dryly.

“How would she even know something like that? All the main players are either dead or in jail.”

“Maybe she found someone who could raise and talk to the dead.”

I guessed that was possible. Unlikely, but possible. “Even if someone has placed another contract on me, Kaitlyn is unlikely to be involved.”

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