Page 47 of A Crown of Lies

“Simeon and Divina,” Rowan said. Just saying their names left a sour taste in his mouth. “I know them from Trinta. I knew they had their hands in some shady dealings and shipments, but banditry is new. I shouldn’t be so surprised, given how he and his wife delight in the misery of others.”

Ewan’s brows pinched as he hooked his hammer to his belt. “Sadists, then?”

“Of the worst kind.”

The older man sighed. “Well, at least we can confirm Trinta’s connected to the increased bandit activity. Probably supplied half the equipment we just buried.”

“We should have killed Simeon.” Rowan rubbed his tired face. “He will not stop just because we’ve broken up his operations here. This isn’t about a unified Trinta for him. It’s personal. He will hurt others just to get back at me. Divina is just as cruel, if not more so, and smart. If they could do this, there’s no telling how far they might go to hurt me and the people I care about, especially with Trinta’s backing.”

Ewan’s answer was a snort. He patted Rowan on the back. “Well, he’s gone for now. Take the wins when you can.”

Ewan might have been quick to dismiss Simeon and Divina’s involvement, but Rowan knew better. They were more than just rivals with a different philosophy. Rowan had never met anyone who delighted in cruelty the way those two did, and with Trinta’s nearly unlimited resources, the harm they could do…

The very thought of even one of his people falling into their hands left Rowan’s stomach turning.

Fifteen

Ieduinwokewithastart and a gasp, sitting upright in an unfamiliar bed.

In Rowan’s bed.

Lightning flashed, and it all came back to him. He sighed and touched his palm to his forehead. What was he thinking, falling asleep in there?

He’d been having a nightmare about the old days, the days after the Hen House and Madam Nushala.

When he first started selling his services, he worked on street corners. He’d get invited into carriages or he could take people down an alley to do the work. That came with its own dangers. When the gangs realized what he was doing, they started beating him and taking his money.

Madam Nushala put an end to that. After a bad beating, she brought him into her establishment, the Hen House, and patched him up. Then she made him promise he’d come there and work for her starting the next day.

The first time, he went expecting she would make him service her, a private entertainer. Instead, Madam Nushala had him changing linens, washing laundry, sweeping floors, or cooking. He’d scrub the bathtubs, dust the shelves, and run errands. It didn’t pay as well as when he worked on the corners, but he didn’t have to worry about being robbed or beaten. At the end of every day, she had him sit in her office, where she made him practice writing his letters and numbers.

For four years, that was his life. Every morning, he’d wake before the sun and make the long walk into the capital of the Yeutlands, Ulbirsk-Kavan. He’d come in through the back and stoke fires on wintry days, or open the windows in the summer. He’d make breakfast for all the Madam’s girls, who’d pay him with kisses and secrets, and then he’d spend the whole day cleaning and working before ending with his lessons.

As he got older, Madam Nushala gave him more work. She taught him to balance ledgers, and to keep books. He learned how to address letters to important people, and how to make small people feel important with nothing but his words.

He was happy those years, and he was paid for his time. Neither he nor his sisters went hungry. They didn’t have much, but they hadjustenough.

Then Madam Nushala caught a fever. He looked after her for two weeks, bringing her soup and water, changing her bed pan, giving her sponge baths. He even tried to keep the Hen House running. The Madam couldn’t do it, and no one else seemed interested in paying the bills, but he was a boy. Fourteen. Even though she’d taught him well, he was still just a boy.

Then the Jotki came. He didn’t know about her arrangement with the local gang, didn’t understand that he needed to pay them protection money or they’d burn the place down with Madam Nushala inside, which was exactly what they did before they took him as payment.

He didn’t like to think about the years that came after that, especially how they used him. It was one thing to be a whore. At least whores got coin for servicing assholes like Durlan. But the Jotki had treated him like an animal. Five days a week, they kept him in a cage, only letting him out to use him. The only reason they let him go home on the weekends was because they knew where he lived. If he didn’t come back, they’d show up at his door and start harassing his sisters, threatening to take them instead.

The only good thing to come from all that was his skill with the bow. He’d always been decent with it, having learned through trial and error how to shoot so he could hunt food during scarce times. In his Jotki days, though, he gotgood. Every day they let him, he’d spend hours out back, shooting arrows into wooden targets. He’d hunt and practiced making trick shots. It was the only thing that kept his mind off what Durlan had done to him, or what he might do next time.

He didn’t remember how or why it occurred to him that he could kill more than just rabbits, snakes, and pheasants with his bow, but one day, it did.

At dusk one weekend, he slung his bow over his shoulder, strapped a quiver of arrows to his back, put a hunting knife in his belt, and painted his face to match the shadows. He kissed all eight of his sleeping sisters goodbye and made the long walk into Ulbirsk-Kavan.

Years of hunting prey had made him silent. Hunger had made him small enough to fit places no elf had any right being. He went in through an unguarded hole in the roof.

The Jotki were asleep, drunk as usual. The first elf was snoring in his bed. He could still remember the smell of sex and mead in the air, the empty bottles strewn all around. The bowstring groaned as he pulled it back to his familiar anchor point at the corner of his eye. He didn’t shake. He should have been trembling and terrified, but all he felt was rage.

The arrow made a wet thump as it went into his eye socket. He jerked once, but never woke. He retrieved the arrow, twisting it free and threading it back onto the bow string.

Slowly, silently, he went into the hall and killed the next Jotki with an arrow to the throat. He fell back, gurgling. Ieduin didn’t wait to watch him die.

He slew eight Jotki that night before he finally made it to Durlan’s room. He stood over the elf who’d beaten him, raped him, starved him, threatened his sisters with the same, fresh blood drying on his fingers. The bow trembled in his hands, but not because he was nervous or scared. Because Durlan didn’t deserve the quick death he’d given the other eight. He needed tosuffer.

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