She’d been right.

  Of course she’d been dammed right.

  Ezerkal had been staring silently at the proof, a single piece of slightly curled parchment clutched in his hands.

  He slowly turned his gaze to her, opening his mouth to speak when her hands thudded onto his desk and she leaned over him. The fury on her face made him shrink within his robes. “Aiur is gone,” she growled.

  “Yes,” he replied flatly. He hadn’t realised how hollow and tired his voice would sound.

  “Where?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know.”

  “So, he could be anywhere, doing anything? Do you at least know when he left?”

  “This morning, I think.”

  “You think? Why were you not aware? And why was I not informed?”

  “Recent events mean that he no longer shares his plans with me. And besides, I have been busy.” Ezerkal dropped the parchment on the desk and twisted it around to face her.

  She impassively scanned over the parchment, allowing Ezerkal a brief reprieve to collect his thoughts and decide on the best way of mollifying her.

  He slumped back into his chair, at a loss of how to turn this setback around. He felt so tired. Even though he’d slept well the previous night, the weariness was soul deep. His mind overtaxed by the goal Syla had set him to. Two weeks of chasing up elusive figures to provide new knowledge, new skills, to their cause. That had been draining in its own right, but Aiur’s outburst during the ceremony had impacted him more deeply than he had expected. The discovery of his sudden departure this morning had compounded that, leaving an unpleasant sense of foreboding in the pit of Ezerkal’s stomach that Syla seemed to share. Syla looked up at him, her gaze cold. “There is no surprise here. No grave news you weren’t already aware of. In fact, I told you of this already.”

  “I didn’t believe you. In fact, you told me not to believe you!” he snapped before deflating once more, his voice little more than a murmur. “I had hoped we were not totally alone. Doomed to Ra’ven’s dominion and more years of bloodshed.”

  Syla sighed, lowering herself into a seat and leaning forward, she took hold of Ezerkal’s wrist. He winced under the pressure she applied. “We will make things better. Not now, not yet. But we will. If we are to succeed, House Zerkash, and Nerkai, must be a part of it. So, we will fix your house. We will fix your home. But we must bide our time.”

  Ezerkal took a deep breath, clenching his hands repeatedly as he tried to relax. “Yes, of course. I worry about the future, and I hope you can help. But you are right, we cannot fix this all at once.”

  “Good. Now, we must discuss what has happened to Aiur.”

  Ezerkal nodded. “Right, yes. I share your unease about this sudden disappearance…but, if we cannot bring Zerkash onboard now, is this obsession with Aiur not somewhat pointless? Why are you so desperate to convince him?”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “To blunt Ra’ven’s teeth,” she replied. “Now, recall to me everything that happened before he left. Absolutely everything. Leave nothing out.”

  He considered a protest, lips pursed in thought as he stared at her. He quickly thought better of it, she was not in a mood he wished to endure for any longer than he had to.

  “The morning started as it should have done,” Ezerkal began, reclining in his seat, leather groaning. “The morning following the ceremony, we were all called to a gathering of senior house Scions and all our major retainers to plan our next movements. A shift in policy was expected.”

  “We, as always for such things, had met in our ‘private’ sanctum that dominates the court’s east wing. I was on the periphery, sitting in the glare of the stained-glass windows while playing Heptaratoi with Iktra, the house Treasurer. Squat fellow, yellow scaled, easy enough to recognise, though I suppose the lighting in there was not particularly flattering. I had been there on duties you had provided, so I was one of the first to arrive. The morning was warm, pleasantly humid, and enough refreshments were on offer to feed your average household for about a year. There were many present, but few I consider notable to this account. Those notables being; myself, though as an observer, Ra’ven, of course, and Khafra.”

  “No others? The legates perhaps? That seems an awfully short list for such a supposedly important gathering,” Syla interrupted.

  “Of course the legates were there! Amongst many others! But as I said, they are unimportant to this account, they stood back and took no part,” Ezerkal exclaimed. “Now if you will allow me, I shall continue to relay events in a sufficiently swift but detailed manner.”

  He sighed and began again. “As I was saying. I was sat at a small table playing Heptaratoi. Winning, of course, while Khafra and Ra’ven murmured over his prized map-table. Strategy, I would assume, though I’m afraid I didn’t snatch the precise details, and with the truce in place who knows what they could be planning. They were quite engrossed; gesturing, pointing, poking and keeping their voices low.”

  “They don’t intend to keep their word, perhaps,” Syla interjected.

  Ezerkal frowned but swallowed his retort. “Perhaps, but unlikely. Ra’ven may be a warmonger, but he’s not an idiot, and this is of course entirely beside the point. I’m saying they were too distracted to realise Aiur had not arrived until perhaps half an hour after he was supposed to.”

  He took the glass of wine Syla had offered him, though he was not quite sure when or from where she had retrieved the bottle. “Ah, thank you.” He sipped, before leaning forwards again. “At first the reaction was mild. They sent a servant out to fetch him, assuming there had perhaps been some kind of celebration the night before. When they came back and reported his household was empty, it grew to confusion, and as one might expect of Ra’ven, paranoia. He immediately sent Khafra out, to gather the city watch and organise a full sweep of the city.”

  “That seems a considerable overreaction,” Syla said, her continued interruptions making Ezerkal roll his eyes.

  “Yes, yes of course. But you must understand the full extent of the paranoia of the man we are dealing with. He saw a little spat at the ceremony between Aiur, myself and Mavan, thus his mind instantly sprang to foul play on Mavan’s part. I think he almost hoped it was, based on how he kept looking my way. Regardless, by the time Khafra inevitably returned empty handed an hour later, Ra’ven was furious.”

  “I realised something was wrong when I saw the soldiers crawling over the city. They weren’t being very subtle about it.” Syla confirmed, seeming calmer now much to Ezerkal’s relief

  “I suspected as much. This, of course, made him only more angry when Khafra arrived with word that several people had seen him slip away, proving the fruitlessness of this entire search as well as his prized Consul’s apparent refusal to participate in his plans. By that time, we’d spent over an hour pointlessly digging through old documents, searching for some vague hint as to his plans. As if he had been planning this intricately, leaving clues like some cliché criminal. Frankly, the string of curses he hurled at Khafra upon delivering this news was so foul I daren’t repeat it for fear of incurring Aten’s wrath. I thought he was going to hit the boy.”

  “So, to find out where he’s gone, we need to ask Khafra,” Syla ruminated, bracing her chin on her hand.

  “Yes. Maybe. I doubt he knows for certain, and doubt even more so that he would tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he wouldn’t tell me. I believe he knows I would immediately tell you.”