Total pages in book: 222
Estimated words: 210715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1054(@200wpm)___ 843(@250wpm)___ 702(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 210715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1054(@200wpm)___ 843(@250wpm)___ 702(@300wpm)
Solentine met my gaze.
Wow.
The Rise of Kair Toren had more viewpoint characters than you could shake a stick at, but Solentine was definitely near the top when it came to sheer page numbers, because he delivered both drama and shocking violence. Most people had a circuit breaker that tripped and stopped them because some things were simply not done to fellow human beings. In some people, it malfunctioned, but in Solentine it was either permanently broken or didn’t get installed in the first place. He was infinitely dangerous, and right now he was looking at me like I was an annoying bug he needed to crush.
It sank in: This wasn’t fiction. This was my reality. I was standing in a soundproof room, the servant behind me was likely a trained killer, and I was looking at Solentine Dagarra. In the flesh. I could reach out and boop him on the nose.
Oh god, he would kill me.
Solentine smiled at me. Alarm punched the base of my neck and rolled down my spine in an electric shock. Oh no, that wasn’t good. Not at all. Dying at the hands of the Shears would hurt.
Coming here had been a terrible mistake.
Mistake or not, now I had to survive. I needed to establish my credentials and show I wasn’t afraid. But I was afraid. Very afraid.
I forced the words out. “The head of the Shears. I’m honored.”
“Tell me how you know our password, and I’ll decide what to do with you,” Solentine said in a cultured baritone. Even his voice was off the charts.
“I don’t give away information, I sell it. Right now, I have something you want, so I came here to trade. You’re missing one of your men.”
There was a barely perceptible shift in the way Solentine held himself. A little less relaxation in the line of his shoulders, a little more rigidity in the spine, a harder edge to his gaze. I had his undivided attention.
“I can make you tell me everything you know,” he said. “It won’t be difficult.”
“True. However, if you do that, the Shears will never again profit from my services. I’d like to establish a mutually beneficial business relationship, so I’m willing to make certain concessions. I’ll tell you what happened to Miro, no strings attached. In a week, I’ll come back for my payment. If I like the value you put on saving a life, we can make a deal again in the future. If I don’t, this will be our first and last transaction.”
It was a huge gamble, but Solentine suspected everyone and everything. A week would give him enough time to check out the information I offered him. The delayed payment guaranteed I would stick around, which should make him comfortable enough to let me walk out of here unharmed.
A stupid leg-breaker would torture the information out of me and then kill me. Solentine was a very smart man. He would want to use this week to have me watched and to try to find out everything he could about me. Who sent me? Where did I come from? Did I have a secret agenda? Could I prove to be useful in the future? So many fun questions that would gnaw at his brain.
And if I played my cards right, down the line, he might trust me enough to not only pay me but provide me with a false identity. It would take a lot of work, but it was possible.
He pondered me for a long moment.
My skin felt too tight. I had a powerful urge to scream and run away as fast as I could just to ease the pressure.
Come on. Let the curiosity win.
“Where is he?”
Got him. “He broke into Baron Horost’s estate and was caught. They have him in the dungeon, last cell on the right as you enter.”
The Shears had started a century ago as a crime syndicate specializing in espionage, sabotage, and rumors. Solentine had taken them over eight years ago and continued the policies of his predecessor, forging the former syndicate into a shadow army of informants, thieves, and assassins. The Shears embedded capable and well-trained people all throughout Rellas. They were the tailors, the chefs, the barbers, the embroidery maids. Some simply gathered information and passed it on. Others ran around the rooftops in black outfits, broke into impregnable fortresses, and stabbed people in the back when the occasion demanded.
The Shears still took lucrative contracts and sold information to the highest bidder just like they did decades ago, but now they were dedicated to Solentine, and their actions stemmed from his agenda. Right now, a large part of that hidden agenda revolved around finding out who was supplying iron to the rebel group picking up steam in the north of the kingdom. Miro, one of Solentine’s best black-outfit operatives, followed the trail of breadcrumbs to Horost and got himself nabbed through an epic turn of bad luck.