Rune Knight: Book Two of The Empress Saga

SECOND INTERLUDE

    The task was pointless. Maya was meant to be kept occupied and close at hand. This was busywork to justify her presence within the City of Althandor until her father's unknown agenda was ready for her involvement. There was no other purpose for this search.

And yet...

    Maya Algara's investigation into the death of Elise of Eastrun was making her uneasy.

    Doing the bare minimum of work was something Maya might have done earlier in the year. Laxness was a failing, and Maya could no longer afford those. Dashar wouldn't slack in his assignment. Neither would Jin.

    If Maya wished to be their equal, let alone surpass them, she could do no less.

    No one would have spoken against Maya if she had done no more than a token inquiry of surviving witnesses. Cathis himself had said he expected nothing to come of Maya's search. She could have gotten away with simply interrogating Elise's associates in Eastrun's prison, walking the main thoroughfare of the district, or maybe even visiting the scene where Elise had been finally apprehended by the city guard.

    That had all been done. Nothing that Maya saw or heard would arouse this unease on its own. Together, there were holes and contradictions. Enough so that Maya went to the final resting place of Elise, the crypts beneath the palace.

    Elise's remains had been cremated upon a pyre before being put on display and were now held within a tomb for unclaimed prisoners. Maya hadn't known what she expected to find, but she went all the same. Osteomancy leant her a familiarity with bone, and some things could be gleaned from the fragments remaining within Elise's ashes.

    Whoever it was that had been interred within the palace crypts, it was not Elise of Eastrun. Those bones had belonged to a man.

And so the real search begins, Maya thought. Maybe Father's paranoia is justified.

    Maya wore a commoner's outfit. She had left her assassin's armor behind at the palace, choosing instead a cotton half-vest and leggings. Her knee-high boots laced up the side and had a tall heel. Young women in the city were starting to forgo wearing a shirt beneath their vests now that the weather was getting warmer. Maya did the same. It was immodest, but it was practical within the sweltering mists that cloaked the streets. To complete the outfit, Maya had a pair of round-rimmed goggles for when the mist got too thick, but currently had them raised above her brow.

    She walked with her eyes lidded to hide her slit pupils and the slight glow of her irises. There was little chance that anyone would notice her bloodline's mark.

    It never ceased to amaze Maya how few, even in the City of Althandor itself, knew of the Algara eyes. Maya didn't try to hide them out of fear of being recognized as a royal. She was more likely to be seen as a shifter than a princess. That was trouble Maya didn't need.

    Not that she thought herself in any danger, of course. Of all the possible threats that roamed the streets of the Spired City, Maya knew herself to be the deadliest. The task her father gave her would merely be inconvenienced.

    According to the official record, the murderer and seditionist known as Elise of Eastrun was apprehended and executed eight years ago. That was a long time absent for the City of Althandor to remember. New players entered the game, and the streets and alleyways didn't cleave to memories of those who no longer walked them.

    Nonetheless, information could be found by those who knew where to look.

    Eastrun was a mercantile neighborhood. The upper levels were home to wealthy trade lords and some of the greatest noble houses of the Continent. Things grew more common, and livelier, as one descended further down the towers. Nearing the bottom of the spires, it grew deadly. An underworld, figurative though nearly literal, operated beneath the feet of the goodfolk above.