Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Here’s a reminder.” Quin drags the vitalian to the dead body and drops him beside it.
I tug Quin’s sleeve and pull him quietly aside while the vitalian gulps and stares at the body.
“Certain you can get a confession out of him this way?” I ask.
“I’m the—” he stops and clears his throat. “I’m a constable. Do I not exude a general feeling of authority?” He whips his cloak dramatically as he takes a confident step forward with a snap of his cane. I bite back a smirk, which he catches.
“Cael . . .” His eyes flash with warning as he leans closer to me.
I swallow, and a sharp shiver dashes through my middle.
His lips curl and an eyebrow arches. As our suspect tries to sneak past and make a run for it, he grabs the back of his cloak, his eyes never leaving mine.
“As you were,” I say.
Quin drags the vitalian back and once again sits him with the body. He barks for an explanation, but our middle-aged suspect looks like he’s about to soil himself.
I crouch between them. “The dead redcloaks, they tried to kill the prince the night before they died. They were not a good bunch. I know that. Were they the ones who got your soldad confiscated?”
Quin, crouched very close behind me, whispers at the back of my ear, “Being nice won’t—”
“How’d you know?” Dimos blubbers. “They claimed I gave them bad spells. I didn’t. I really didn’t.”
“Is that why you killed them?” Quin growls.
I glance to my hands. “You must have felt empty and hurt, losing everything you’ve worked your whole life for.”
Quin shifts; Vitalian Dimos shuts his eyes briefly and shudders on an exhale. “I wanted them to feel my pain.”
I should never have saved you. “I understand.” I feel Quin stir beside me, and suddenly he’s closer. His hand brushes mine as he grabs hold of the man’s shirt and hauls him forward.
“What did you do to them?” Quin growls, his focus never wavering.
“I didn’t kill them, I wouldn’t. Ever.”
The quiver in his voice sounds genuine, but I can’t ignore the bloody trail that led us here.
Quin grunts, letting him go. “If you didn’t poison them and try to frame Prince Nicostratus, why were you at the outpost?”
“I put some harmless activator in the well water.”
“Activator?” At Quin’s suspicion-filled tone, I quickly clarify in hushed tones.
“He wanted the redcloaks to lose their shit. Literally.”
“That was the only reason I was there. It was supposed to vent my anger. I never thought I’d trip over their bodies.”
“You knew they were dead, then. Why did you run away?”
“It didn’t look good for me, did it? I’d been stripped of my soldad. I was angry and people knew it. I didn’t like my chances.”
“Trust the truth will speak for itself,” Quin says.
Dimos laughs. “Since when is the justice system known for relying on truth?”
I nod sympathetically. “Someone really should do something about it.”
“If I ever see the day.”
We both sigh, and Quin flicks the back of my head.
I rub the spot and clear my throat. “I believe you didn’t kill the redcloaks, but . . . why exhume the bodies?”
“The poison.”
“You know about the poison?” I shift closer to him, with an eagerness that has Vitalian Dimos rearing back.
“I noticed something was off,” he says. “One of the four held a handkerchief to his mouth and the healer in me grabbed it as I passed them.”
I halt, and Quin and I exclaim simultaneously: “Four?”
Dimos looks between us, frowning. “The same four who came to me a few days earlier. Two of them had been stung by bees; I gave them a spell to help with the swelling. I didn’t expect it to worsen their symptoms—it shouldn’t have, it was a spell I’ve done a hundred times before without fail.”
My mind races as I analyse the properties of the spell, and how it might have—“It clashed with the earthbloom in the poison.”
Vitalian Dimos looks at me with newfound respect. “You’ve studied this.”
Quin frowns. “Where’s the fourth body? Our absent-without-leave soldier?”
A fourth body and a cover-up by the commander . . .
“Why would someone take his body and not the others?”
“Maybe the same reason I took one?” Dimos says. “To prove something? In my case, my innocence.”
“Innocence . . .” I murmur with a pointed look. “How did you escape the memorial grounds?”
He flushes.
“How?”
“Took all my magic to break out through a dog hole in the wall. From back when it was part of a manor, before it got made into a memorial. I lay low with the body until I’d restored my supplies, then waited for dark and dragged him here. As you can see”—he glares in Quin’s direction, and then shrinks back when he receives an intense look—“I didn’t get away with it. He flies in from nowhere and the next thing I know I’m being interrogated by you.”