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hen why not kill me, Excellency?” Noret sneered.

“I’m not impressed by vulgar offers of blood money, Noret. For all their pretended subterfuge, the Topaz Sparrow is about as subtle as a cavalry charge, and I’ve seen finer gemwork left behind by drunken card players on the wharf,” Reina took hold of her staff with her other hand and leaned confidently. “I have no trouble whatsoever finding people so desperate to be found.”

“If everything is so easy for you, Excellency, why wait so long for your vengeance?” Noret spat.

The cowled woman did not respond.

“The truth you find so hard to face is that you need me,” Noret said haughtily. Then he directed his words at Cici again. “The choice remains, orphan. Relinquish the Lantern and your friends live.”

Cici looked back and forth between Reina and Noret, unsure who to trust.

“Have you had that scar long?” Reina asked. Cici noticed one of the spectacularly expensive-looking rings on Reina’s right hand suddenly darken to a pitch black color. Instinctively, Noret moved his hand towards his left side.

“It’s been healed since I was but a lad.” As he spoke the last word, he sucked in a sharp breath and clutched his side. He stumbled forward and the club slipped from his grasp.

“How very fortunate,” Reina said sarcastically as the ring’s silvery color returned.

Noret dropped to his knees, eyes wide, clutching his side with whitened fingers.

“She’s a sorceress!” Clenick shouted.

“By all that lives!” Phileo wailed. “Flee for your lives!”

The other men dropped everything and scattered. The fat man crashed through a small pile of supplies and fell before scrambling to his feet and chugging his way down an alley between two warehouses. An act of heroic stumbling luck narrowly prevented Clenick from pitching off the dock into the water. He disappeared into the mist.

Reina ignored them. She patiently watched as Noret gasped for air, then planted her staff next to his shoulder and reached down slowly. She gathered the collar of his greasy shirt in her slender gray-skinned hand and slowly lifted him up. As she pulled his weight up to her eye level he sucked in one more breath. He held his eyes closed for a moment, then blinked through the beads of sweat. He tried to focus as Reina’s face leaned within inches of his own.

“It’s a pity to see such healthy vermin sicken,” Reina hissed through clenched teeth, then yanked his collar, pulling him closer. The bird opened its beak with a challenging frown as the interloper’s nose infringed on its space.

Noret became dizzy and closed his eyes to avoid the nauseating illusion of the ship’s ropes slowly circling the dock. He tried to focus on the golden irises of the Vicereine’s eyes, but the burning sensation around the fresh open wound in his side was becoming unbearable. Reina’s voice made Noret shiver.

“You must be the last human survivor of Rotensha Nox.”

“Nobody survived that battle!” Noret cried, then he winced and groaned again at a fresh wave of agony.

Reina paused for a moment, then dropped him in a heap on the dock. As he gasped for breath she turned away.

“I have sought the destinies of a thousand crowns and where does it lead me?” Reina asked rhetorically. “To a liar washed up like so much pirated cloth on a Gacenar dock. I suppose you mean to sweep into the bazaar like some drunken fop and trade your ransom for trinkets and beads?”

“I was tricked!” the man snapped. Then he sucked in a sharp breath and leaned back, clutching his side and grimacing. “My reward was nothing but poisoned land. I would have done anything to escape.”

Reina’s shoulders trembled with a barely suppressed rage.

“Escape if that is your wish,” she sighed finally. “Take whatever you believe is yours and flee. Flee to the Rift. Flee to the Shales. Flee to the swamps and dig yourself a sanctuary in the bog. Perhaps you are clever enough to mislead a Legion Cryptic for a time.”

Noret’s face paled as Reina turned.

“But none of your craven schemes will save you on the day I discover you have twice betrayed me.” The blank shadow of her cowl absorbed the gaze of Noret’s horrified face as she loomed over him and spoke with a cold and deliberate hostility.

“There are fates in Aventar worse than death.”

The Vicereine’s words cut through Noret’s heart like needles of ice. He felt as if his feet were ten times their normal weight but somehow he managed to crawl out from under Reina’s accusing gaze and scramble towards the night. Moments later, the last sounds of his escape faded into the gloom.

It was then Reina noticed that Cici had fled with the Chronicler’s Lantern.

Continue to Chapter Thirteen