The Sultan's Spy

Chapter 19: End of a Life

Eliska kicked the front door shut behind her, glowering at the hall in front of her. The walk home from the dead mage's shop hadn't improved her mood, only allowing her to stew over what had happened. She should have known something was up, should have noticed the death spell, should have been able to do something, not just watch him die.

"Whoa," Tariq said, coming out from where the kitchen was. "What happened?"

She grimaced. "My information gathering didn't go as planned."

"That bad?"

"I went to see the mage, he starts to tell me about an unusual spell he prepared for someone from the palace and dies in the middle of it. It was obviously death magic and I couldn't do a blessed thing about it!"

He whistled low. "And I thought my information was good." When she looked quizzically at him, he shrugged. "Someone was trying to buy illegal slaves a while back, some kind of middleman servant. He was beaten and his money was taken. Most of those people only come from one place..."

She crossed her arms over chest, already knowing where he was going with this. It didn't deter him. "You know the palace is where this blood mage is located, and all signs are pointing to the Sultan and his family."

"No, it's not. Just because whoever it is happens to be in the palace, doesn't automatically mean it has anything to do with Sultan and the family. There are plenty of people who live and work there who aren't part of the family."

He raised his eyebrows. "You have to admit it looks bad."

She glared. "I can tell you with complete certainty that it wasn't the Sultan or his family."

"Where does your confidence come from? How can you have such complete loyalty in them?"

"None of your business."

Tariq stared at her for several seconds before he sighed. "You know we're going to have to go to the palace to get more information. We've sifted through most of what we're going to find out here already."

"I know. I'm going to have to leave this identity and be someone else."

"You don't have to burn it, if we do it right, we can still use it later if we need it."

Eliska pursed her lips and slowly nodded. "I can make some arrangements, we'll have to come up with a convincing cover story, something those nosy neighbours of mine will swallow. Do you have any ideas?"

"It'll have to be something serious, but nothing so bad that we can't come back to it if necessary. Something that would send us away for however long we need to be gone."

The first thought that popped into her head came out of her mouth before she could stop it. "A family illness."

Tariq smiled. "That's great! How about...my father? That would make sense, right? If we say I'm the eldest son and my father's taken ill and that we need to go help my mother care for him, everyone will accept that. If we never come back, they'll assume he died or something happened. If we come back, we can just say he got better and they don't need our help or that I have a sibling who's caring for them now or something."

"That should work. We'll need to arrange a cart and horse, pack up our things, make it look like we're leaving. If we can get some boxes in there as well, we can leave without suspicion. Luckily this place came furnished."

Tariq's shoulders relaxed. "That's good. I thought we'd have to haul all of this out of here, and I can tell you I wasn't looking forward to that."

Eliska snorted. "I'd have helped."

"You wouldn't have been able to do too much without raising suspicion. Merchants' wives don't typically do heavy lifting. At least, not any wives of successful merchants. I do hope that even as a fake merchant I'm successful."

She raised her eyebrows. "Something tells me you can't be anything but successful. You're far too determined, too confident not to keep fighting until you win."

"If you grew up like I did, you'd know that continuing to fight is the only way you survive. Success is living to see the next day."

"Some wouldn't consider that living."

Tariq shrugged. "Some don't know what fighting really is."

"It's hard to judge that from the outside. Everyone has things they're willing to fight for, if they're triggered."

"I hope you don't think I meant you," he said, taking a step towards her. "I've seen what you can do, seen you with a knife in your hand, seen you change from being a simple merchant's wife to someone capable of commanding respect in the space of a day. You are someone who knows how to fight, what's worth fighting for, and have more than earned my respect."

Eliska looked away from the intensity of his stare. "You're not so bad yourself," she said. "You gather information as well as if not better than I do."

Tariq reached out and tilted her chin up so she was facing him again. "You know we work well together, each good at getting the information the other can't. We're good at coming up with ideas with one another too. I want you to know that I've been enjoying our relationship so far."

It was hard to meet his gaze but her pride wouldn't let her do anything else. "This is a business arrangement. You know that right."

"It doesn't have to be just that," he said, his face inching closer to hers. "I think we'd be quite good together."

Eliska broke out of his grasp, where his fingers feeling like they'd been burned into her skin. "We might be, we might not," she said, dancing out his reach. "But I don't know you well enough to be able to tell, and unless I can be sure of you, I'll be keeping our arrangement purely business."

Tariq's smile was slow to spread across his face but it had a distinctly predatory gleam to it. "Then I look forward to trying to make it very personal."

She nodded sharply before turning and heading upstairs to pack, doing her best not to let his words echo in her head. Tariq was one lamp she was beginning to regret rubbing.