Chapter 44
Keira
“So forty years ago, you took on a mission that suddenly resulted in an epiphany?”
Dina nodded to my question, the both of us now facing each other as we sat on the small ledge. She looked well and I couldn’t help but remember the way her olive skin used to glow, the softness it seemed to exude. I hadn’t realized I had missed it; the hazel of her eyes and the childishness of her smile.
“It was a complicated mission that resulted in a missing royal,” she continued and sighed, seeming lost for a moment. I could see emotion in her eyes and it was so intense that I looked away for a moment. I did not know how to comfort her or offer her any sympathy for the things she had to do. The things I knew we had to do.
Stunngard’s chilly breeze brought with it more snow and I watched it fall as Dina spoke.
“It had already been building up, that longing to get out,” she said, her eyes cast downward. “You know the feeling well.”
When our gazes met, I nodded at the mutual understanding of our shared history.
She fidgeted, playing with the threads of the skirt wrapped around her hips. I noticed the material and admired at the brilliance. What seemed to be an inconsequential strip of cloth around one’s pants would make for an excellent stash of knives.
“What happened?” I asked, not sure what answer I was expecting.
She looked at me for a beat longer and then up to the skies.
“I’m sure you’ve acquainted yourself with the Malavek family,” she said and there was an odd, uncomfortable sensation in my stomach that I tried and failed to ignore.
“Yes,” I said carefully.
“My job was to redirect some of the gold from the Treasury to an external source,” she said at which I frowned. “As usual, I was unaware of the client’s presence and I accepted the mission, no questions asked.”
I nodded again, urging her to keep going. My gaze lingered on the way she sat; hunched over a little with her vivid green hair fanning her face. The darkness that had set around us signaled the speedy arrival of nightfall and the city started to quiet, the people rushing to the warm comfort of their homes.
She sighed again before continuing, “I went to the Southern Isles. Strategy was simple; I would go to this party, charm whomever I had to and reroute the money. Routine.”
Her face pulled into a scowl as she seemed to recollect.
“But then something didn’t sit right with me and I started to investigate on my own. Without her knowledge,” she added with a flash of anger. “Funnily enough, I couldn’t trace back the gold to an individual party.”
I raised an inquisitive brow.
“I traced it back to a place,” she said, pulling at the threads some more, “Somewhere in Merdocia.”
I frowned again. “And this was relevant because?”
Dina pinned me with a grave look, “Because the gold was used to purchase weapons and hire mercenaries.”
I thought I hid my surprise well. “What?”
“Yes.” She took in some air before saying, “That much gold is enough for a small army, Keira. And I’ve never traced back so much gold to an external source that wasn’t nobility or royals.”
“But their Treasury is actually depleted,” I said, frowning. “I would know, I was there. There was no backtrack.”
“This was forty years ago Keira,” she said, her eyes cast down for a moment. “And whoever ordered this obviously learned from their mistakes long enough to stop the entire process.”
I caught the look on her face when I asked, “What mistakes?”
She took another long breath before saying, “I wanted to get out. I couldn’t go on with it.”
My heart hurt for a moment. At her words. At the pain in her eyes. It was an unusual but not entirely foreign feeling.
“So I planned it. I thought, maybe since you had gotten out, I could too.” She bit her lip, not meeting my gaze. My throat constricted.
“It was perfect. I would go through with that one last mission and then I’d disappear. I’d obviously went barking up some wrong trees because suddenly, the networks whispered there were people looking for me.”
“The ones who were rerouting the gold,” I finished.
“Yes,” she responded. “It provided me with a cover. They obviously wanted me gone and I could make it look like an accident.”
“You did,” I said, frowning. “I was keeping tabs on you. The story was that you drowned.”
She looked at me then, tears lining her eyes and I didn’t expect that at all. Or what she said next.
“That wasn’t a story Keira. I did drown.”
The breath was knocked out of me right then.
“I met someone when I was there,” she said, sniffling slightly and the smallest of smiles appeared on her face. Her head was somewhere else; forty years away, back in that land of great seas. “I was going to tell him the truth. I was going to end it all and fake my death. And I was stupid for thinking I would get my happy ending.”
Her face darkened, her green hair blown into her face by a sudden cold wind.
“My cover was blown by those imbeciles hunting me and I had to run.”
I saw the hatred, the anger in her eyes, the wildness of who she was when she looked at me then. She hated them enough to kill them. To kill her.
The first rule: no emotions.
I blinked the memories away.
My throat constricted yet again and I found myself saying, “I am sorry Dina.”
When she smiled, it was a sad one, like she knew there was nothing that could fix this; nothing that could fix centuries’ worth of death and pain.
“I have thought about it many times,” I found myself rambling, unable to catch a breath, “I kept wondering, if only we could’ve gotten to you earlier… if only I had found another way, I- I could’ve gotten you out too.”
“Keira,” Dina whispered, her hand covering mine. “It’s not your fault. We were children.”
My gaze fell to my boot-clad feet and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get that nagging feeling off of my chest; the one that felt like a stake being driven through my heart and it didn’t stop, hasn’t stopped since I left Riveria.
“Keira.”
I looked at her face, surprised to find tears lining her eyes.
But I saw something else there; determination… and anger.
“I need your help,” she said, locking me with a gaze that I couldn’t look away from, “I need you to help me take them down.”
I frowned in confusion.
“I want your help in taking her down.”
To be continued…
Woww...plot thickens...cant wait.👍🏻