know what you’re talking about. I’ve never met you.”
“My soul can never rest. I am cursed to wander for eternity until you are dead!” the winds shrieked, each gust ripping Rosalia’s silks and tearing her skin with particles of ice sharper than diamond shards.
Once, it had been an elf. Rosalia saw similarities in the bone structure, the slim face, chiseled cheekbones, and the long ears. Magic buzzed around it again.
The bitter cold seeped into her bones. Tears blurred her vision.
So cold.
She couldn’t move. The unrelenting wind buffeted her face and flowed around her, encasing her within a thin, thin layer of ice. Rosalia struggled to burst free. Every inch may as well have been a mile. Her arms were so heavy.
Exhaustion told her to shut her eyes.
3
Opportunity
Chapter 3
The wizard in black had tapped all of his resources, and none had provided the information he needed. He remained behind the desk staring into a scrying ball that provided no information, for his target had a magical gift equal to or better than his own. To admit such a thing would be considered weakness by some, but Caius believed it a necessity of survival.
A necessity of war and conquest, as well. If he wanted to defeat his enemies, he couldn’t risk underestimating them.
For that reason, nothing surprised him about the absence of the Black Jackals and their failure to report. Their leader had promised a scout would at least check in to alert them of any progress. They had not received even that.
“It’s been three days since the Black Jackals entered the sewers to begin their hunt,” Caius muttered, rubbing his goatee. “Do you suppose it’s safe to assume we won’t have to pay the remainder of their extermination fee?”
“It would be wise to presume they are dead,” Lacherra said, shrugging. “They did, after all, choose to go up against a rainbow dragon.”
“They were the best fucking hunters across the sea. If they couldn’t do it, what luck do we have of slaying this thing?”
“You’re the wizard,” she said smoothly, chuckling as she pushed off her seat on the edge of the desk, her boot soles soundless on the carpeted floor. “I leave that up to you. For now, we should attend our gracious and benevolent monarch. He sent me to fetch you.”
Caius flew out of his chair. He hated himself for that, as much as he hated the sly smile curving her mouth and the unconcealed amusement dancing in her eyes. “Blasted woman, why didn’t you tell me right away?”
“What difference would it have made?” Her eyes rolled. “He’ll have assumed you were in some delicate magical ritual, as I implied you might be. Working hard in his name, for his benefit, to acquire a jewel no one else has come close to but us.”
“Ah.” And that was why he trusted her—in some small degree. Caius knew he could never truly place his trust in her and that if it ever came down to a choice between his life and hers, she would choose her own skin every time. But in this, she had no reason to betray him. She needed his magic as much as he needed her stealth and subterfuge. Their partnership was one of convenience, and he could never let down his guard and forget that she’d just as readily cut his throat as she’d sold out her husband to save her own skin.
Lacherra had done more than that, though, hadn’t she? For riches and wealth beyond imagination, as well as a title among the peerage, she’d turned over the entire criminal underworld of Enimura. He had to respect a woman with her priorities in order as much as he feared what she was capable of doing. For her role in bringing down the city’s worst, she’d arisen with a new identity as a duchess. Anyone who knew her true identity had died.
And if some had escaped, Caius imagined it wouldn’t be long before her dagger found them one dark and quiet night, sliding between their ribs in an alleyway, or perhaps after they’d entered their residence and thought they were safe and sound.
He found the thief unnerving, the way she quietly flitted from room to room as if she were a wraith.
When he moved for the door, she slipped from the room ahead of him and waited as he secured the study behind him. He cocked one brow, but her cunning smile provided all the answer he needed.
This was to be a meeting between three people.
A meeting