Page 29 of The Umbra King

“Rory,” Keith and Dume said at the same time.

Kordie’s face was thoughtful as she regarded Sera. “Rory is dead.”

“They said she’s in Vincula,” Sera informed her, pointing at Dume and Keith.

Kordie rounded on Dume. “What is she talking about?”

“Adila sentenced Rory to five-hundred years in Vincula.” The lump in his throat grew.

Keith pushed past Dume to stand in front of Sera. “What do you mean, ‘she saved your life?’”

Sera looked between the three. “I didn’t know her name, but I’ll never forget her face.” She pointed at the ES above the bar where Rory’s picture covered half the screen with scrolling text. “One of the men she killed attacked me. She ripped him off me and told me to run. I later saw him on the news as avictim,” she sneered. The woman’s chin lifted defiantly. “Say what you want about her, but I think she’s a hero.”

The group stared at Sera, at a loss for words. Dume’s mind raced as Adila’s words from the transcript ran through his mind.“Your soul is a beautiful shade of grey, Miss Raven.”

“In the van on the way to The Capital, Rory said, ‘my soul is as black as theirs were.’” Dume recalled.

“Her soul isn’t black,” Sera snapped.

“Maybe they deserved it,”Keith recited. “Remember? That day in the bar when we were talking about the murders, Rory said, ‘maybe they deserved it.’”

“And you said life wasn’t a supermystic movie,” Kordie added, looking at Dume.

“Well, you were wrong,” Sera said, glaring at theAatxe. “If she were murdering for fun, why didn’t she kill me too?”

Dume scrubbed a hand down his face. “She was obsessed with being on the force.”

Keith blinked. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“After Cora was murdered,” Dume explained. “She became obsessed with enforcers. She even wrote a letter to the Scales of Justice asking to make an exception and let her on the force.” He snorted at the memory. “Lenora never sent it. The older we got, the less she talked about it, and I thought her fixation had petered out.”

“She became her own version of the Scales of Justice,” Kordie concluded as she plunked onto a stool. “Why didn’t she report the crime after she saved her,” she asked, jerking a thumb at Sera. “Why kill them in such a terrifying manner?”

“And if her other victims were the same, why not report them, too?” Keith mused.

Dume pinched the bridge of his nose. “Cora.” He looked at his friends. “She harbored a lot of guilt and anger after Cora died. She watched as her sister was murdered, and it really fucked her up.”

“She wasn’t fucked up,” Sera growled. “Stop speaking about her as if she were a cold-blooded killer. Her ways were… horrible at best, but she is still a hero.”

“She was a crazy bitch,” a man to their right slurred.

Sera spun around, cocked her arm back, and slapped him across the face. He stumbled to his feet, pissed. Dume stepped between them and looked over his shoulder at the pint-sized fireball. “You should go.”

She harrumphed and stomped away with her head held high, but before she stepped through the door, she held her middle finger in the air. Dume’s lips twisted to hide a smile.

“Go home,” Dume told the drunkard and looked at the bartender. “Don’t serve him again.” The drunk man grumbled under his breath as he left.

“What if sheisa supermystic,” Keith blurted, and Kordie popped him in the back of the head.

“Supermystics aren’t real, idiot, but she was something else, and I don’t mean the villain the news is making her out to be.”

Dume nodded. “I have to go.” He threw moedas on the bar. “If one of her victims was a suspected murderer, and another was a rapist, there may be more people she saved willing to come forward.”

If there was more evidence Rory wasn’t the heartless killer the news made her out to be, he would find it. Hehadto find it.

For his own sanity.

10

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