hawk & sable

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR,

HAWK & SABLE | TWENTY-FOUR

IRINA WAS FUMING. The princess was utterly red in the face, mouth opening and shutting, eyes screwed shut. The portrait of rage and frustration, all locked inside the body of a sixteen year old who'd been given too much power and responsibility at too early an age. Sometimes she looked at Irina and thought the girl seemed years older, an ancient soul locked in a mortal body.

If Ciri wasn't the recipient of her wrath, she'd have thought it amusing.

Right when she thought Irina would explode, the princess sucked in a deep breath and opened an eye. "You didn't think to call for any of us?" she demanded, rubbing her forehead.

"So you could have run in and found my corpse?" Ciri asked politely, offering a tense smile. "I know how the Panther works. I made a gambit. It paid off."

"Asteria?" Irina asked, twirling towards the countess, a whirlwind of red and gold, the hem of her qipao rustling around her feet.

Asteria's hands snapped up in mock surrender, seeming grimly amused, mouth half-quirked up. "Do not look at me. I back Ciri's instincts. I don't think anyone would have heard her anyways."

"I have guards posted around Gui Yan Gong," Irina growled. "Guards who are adept in combat."

"Next to the Panther?" Asteria huffed. "They might as well be useless."

The three girls sat in the same office the Panther had graced his presence with hours before. Ciri hadn't bothered immediately calling for any one. The Panther would probably have been sticking around to listen in on that anyways. Irina hissed and spat and paced around the room. Asteria stood next to the wall and looked bored and did her best to be invisible to avoid Irina's fury. Ciri waited patiently for Irina's temper to cease.

So many things would be easier if Princess Irina's vocabulary of swear words were just a bit shorter.

She sucked in another deep breath, struggling to keep her cool. "Okay, okay. So he came to apparently visit you. In my office. And he admitted that he wasn't being paid to kill you. Anything else you're not telling us?"

Ciri gave a shrug. The rest of the conversation wasn't relevant. It wasn't information Irina needed to know. Irina would never actually hurt a child, but god knew what else she could do with that information. Diabolical, their princess, crafty to the very core. If only she had a tighter rein on her emotions. Rage and irritation, mostly.

"Did he give anything away regarding his employer?"

"It's a he. He said that he pays well. And the Panther said that the employer doesn't seem like a fool." Ciri's head snapped back to the conversation, replaying it for what felt like the hundredth time in her head. Analysing every bit of it, making sure there was nothing she'd missed.

"So," Irina drawled in her characteristically dry manner, "nothing we haven't already realised."

"We could strike the females off the list of suspects," Asteria suggested, rather bravely in Ciri's opinion. When Irina glared, she shrugged. "Just pointing it out, Your Highness. Not completely useless."

"Nothing from the others?" Ciri asked, leaning back into the comfort of the chair.

"Both Rhys and Io found trails," Asteria reported. "They're working on that. Might take a while. Lord Archsham was still detained by some lords last time I checked. He's escaped Lady Kuroki unscathed, it seems. Very, very unfair." She strolled towards a shelf, opening a small porcelain box. Nothing must have been inside, because she closed the lid after that. Had this been another day, Ciri would have been tempted to check the box out herself.