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)
Lasa’s ledgers were as bad as the worst of my real-world crime reading. They were made of human suffering. Pages and pages filled with matter-of-fact stories about children abused, sold, and butchered in secret.
But if Derog was still alive and I had somehow stolen those ledgers, I could have taken them to the Justice Chamber, and the royal prosecutors would have ripped the slavers apart. Derog knew this. He paid his bribes and hid his dirty dealings by writing in code, pretending to be a legitimate businessman, and paying his taxes on time. He didn’t do flashy spending. He didn’t draw attention to himself. He didn’t parade around in black, red, and gold with a sour pout on his face because people didn’t jump to do his bidding fast enough.
No, for all the heinous shit Derog had done, when compared to Ulmar Hreban, he was definitely small-time.
Someone rapped their knuckles on the doorframe. I turned in my chair. Reynald stood in the open doorway.
“Come in.”
He came in and sat in a chair, throwing one leg over the other. He looked fresher somehow. Like a man who, after enduring restless nights for weeks, had finally slept till morning.
“Rough reading.” He nodded at Lasa’s ledgers stacked on my desk.
“Like swimming through a sewer.”
“Is there anything in there about Matheo?”
I passed him a ledger with a knife in it. I’d needed a bookmark and that was the only thing handy.
He took the knife out, looked at it for a moment, set it on my desk, and read the entry. It was very short. One puppy, fourteen weeks, mother didn’t survive. Shipped to a southern buyer. Code for “We stole a fourteen-year-old boy. We killed his mother. We shipped him south.”
Reynald raised his gaze. “Puppy?”
“Derog paid taxes. He pretended to be a livestock trader. Dogs and cattle.”
“What does this mean?” He pointed to a small star by the entry.
“Special request. He didn’t grab your son at random. Someone paid him to do it. There is another thing. If you look at the other entries, the buyers are identified by initials or code names. ‘Southern buyer’ doesn’t appear again anywhere. Why southern buyer? Why so generic?”
“Someone targeted Matheo,” Reynald said.
“Do you have any enemies I don’t know about? Can you think of anyone?”
He shook his head. “All of my enemies are dead. No, it has to be Silveren.”
Silveren was the Lord Commander of the Redeemer Knights. The books didn’t spend much time on him. He was fanatically devoted to the Order of the Redeemer and would do just about anything to help it thrive. When Hreban rose to power, Silveren put the military might of the Redeemer Knights behind him, hitching his wagon to the only horse willing to help him draw ahead.
The entire Order of the Redeemer consisted of people who had done something so screwed up that they were willing to risk their lives to atone for it. They were capable of terrible things, and for some of them it didn’t take much to cross that threshold a second time. Their leader was a ruthless, stone-cold killer. Hreban waved the banner, but Silveren carried the sword.
“You think Silveren was Derog’s southern buyer?”
Reynald nodded. “My son has the gift of farseeing. Any knightage would want him.”
He wasn’t wrong. In the 1970s, both the CIA and the USSR became obsessed with psychics and actively recruited people who claimed to be capable of remote viewing—perceiving distant objects and locations in real time with their minds. Matheo was the real thing. He didn’t see the past or the future, he saw the present, and his visions were brief but clear. It made him the perfect scout. He could catch glimpses of the enemy commander’s map in their tent from miles away or spy on a conversation that happened in a secure room in another end of the city. The Redeemers would hold on to him with every tooth and claw.
“The Redeemers are desperate for talented recruits,” Reynald continued. “I think Silveren approached Derog and paid him to steal Matheo. Then Derog sent my son, escorted by a couple of his less valuable lowlifes, to a prearranged spot, where the Redeemer Knights ambushed them, killed the witnesses, and ‘rescued’ Matheo. If any questions arise, the only thing the Redeemer Knights are guilty of is saving a child from some slavers.”
“If you’re right, Silveren must view Matheo as a double-edged sword. Matheo claims that he lost his memory, but there is no way to verify that. For all Silveren knows, Matheo remembers everything. If he is allowed to escape the Redeemer Tower and this matter is investigated, he might link Derog and Silveren, and Silveren wouldn’t want that.”
Reynald’s face was grim. “Yes. We must be certain that we can pry him free. If we show our hand too soon, Silveren might kill Matheo rather than let him go. I don’t want my son to suddenly suffer a fatal fall from a horse or have a ‘regrettable training accident.’”