The Cursed Deal ✓

Chapter 18

For the third time since Ilian closed the door to his chambers, Faine asked, "Are you certain you have no idea what this is about?"

He tipped his head back towards the stone ceiling and groaned. A mission could be any number of things and Faine, being the one that always wished to understand her missions as soon as she heard about them, couldn't waste another second at Ilian's slow pace. The bath he took had lasted long enough, as had him straightening out his shirt and lacing his boots.

"I have no idea what this mission is about," Ilian repeated for the third time. "If you keep asking me, I'll beg Celestia to reassign you to someone else."

Faine grinned and nudged her elbow against his. "Come on, you know you don't want to see me shadowing someone else. I am your prodigy, aren't I?"

"You are not my prodigy; you are someone that stole my crown and spun it for a deal of their own." He snarled at her. "You just got lucky."

Vulnerability would be to take that personally. Many years at Rising Eternity left her being underrated, and it wasn't until Faine fully displayed her skills that others stopped believing she was nothing more than a lilac skinned feliram. Her hard stares and drawn-in brows were great supporters in making others value her worth.

"Luck would've been fighting for the crown and coming out of our tussle with it. I don't think you noticed, but I ran into you on purpose." Faine moved to the side of an oncoming gadigator that snarled at her for being new to the guild, but she hardly bothered with a glance. The most he received was a warning glare from Ilian.

They turned down the hall that led to Celestia's study. "Please, baffle me with what your plan was," Ilian said, splaying his arms wide.

"Well, I ran into you and grabbed hold of the satchel. Therefore, I took it away from you when we collided. While I seemed to be lucky by finding it in my hold, it was intentional all along." Faine spoke with pride and that sense heightened when Ilian narrowed his eyes. He was struggling with the truth and for a brief moment, considered that to be possible.

"I don't believe you would go through such great trouble just to have my crown. Besides, how would you know I had the treasure in the first place?"

The geas she put on him was the obstacle to get over. Perhaps she was allowing too much information to slip, and by that, giving away the false identity she'd crafted from the start and molded into something believable. The person who didn't trust her the most was walking at her side, waiting for her response, and one more wrong word and Faine believed she'd sink in quicksand.

She tucked a strand of silver hair behind her pointed ear. It caught on the piercings but she was too focused on jumbling words together to care. "I saw you were fleeing and figured you had something of importance. In my mind, I believed it belonged to me. Still do," she lied.

Ilian didn't buy it for a second. She wished to see the visual tug in his mind, wondered which side was winning and hoped that, through much deliberation, he'd find the strength to trust her. He stopped at Celestia's door and didn't bother knocking before pulling it open and allowing Faine to step through the threshold.

"We'll resume this conversation later," he mumbled.

"I hope your conversation is nothing of importance," Celestia responded from where she stood at a bookshelf near the door. "Surely, I'd love to hear more, but then again, I don't want to intrude on boring affairs." Her heels clicked along the wooden floorboards but silenced when she transcended the rug and, as swift as ocean waters, walked around her desk and set herself upon the leather cushion.

There were no curtains over the windows, strange for a crime base that wished to keep secrets, and the fact that Ilian didn't knock before entering was another strange entity to add to the list. Faine traced it back to the towers that watched over the land, but not every sniper or spy was accessible from the embrasures. Faine was living proof of that.