It was a failure in virtue that created the atmosphere of the Eight, and a failure in virtue that they wish to perpetuate. They love vice, and love moral drudgery. The seem to thrive on debauchery and licentiousness. It sickens me, to see what the Eight wanted for man to become. The Kai'Draen were signs, reduced to acting like carnal animals, unfeeling, uncivilized.
-The Necromancer's Notes, Vol. 6, Chapter 4, History Wing
***
Skaria had been told to knock on a postern door, a servant's entrance. That, however, was a stupid thing to do. She wasn't some maid Lord Solstael could order around. She'd march through the front door when she felt like it, and in this case, she felt like it now.
So, she adjusted the cloak around her shoulders, fixed a scowl on her face (which wasn't hard to do; she had plenty of practice), and shoved the grand doors of Solstael Manor open.
She marched through the atrium with a fierce determination, a fire in her eyes that made anyone in her way flinch and get out of her way. It could have also been the half-dozen swords strapped to her back, but Skaria suspected it was a combination of those two things.
She entered the great hall and brushed off a maid who asked if she could guide Skaria to the fencing salon, but Skaria wanted to find her own bloody way, and she didn't need someone else to help her with something as simple as finding directions.
"So, Aaeron, you didn't introduce me to this lady," a voice said behind her.
She whirled about. There, emerging from a darker hallway like some pale specter, was one of the noblemen. She had heard of him, knew enough about his looks to recognize, but she had never had the displeasure of meeting Lord Cydari until today.
His blue eyes had a mischievous glint in them, but not the joyful mischief of a prankster. These had an edge to them, the eyes of someone wondering what he could do to someone and get away with. His skin had wrinkled like crumpled parchment, and his hair had turned white as the snow that still clung to Skaria's boots. He was lanky, tall, and had a strange swagger to him, a smug overconfidence that made him seem like a bit of a braggart. Given that he was supposed to be a pathological womanizer, that was to be expected.
"Yes, well, Lord Cydari, she's a new addition to the staff. Not actually a member of the household, really, an outsider I contracted to teach my daughter self-defense," Lord Solstael explained.
"I see," Lord Cydari said. "Well, young lady, what's your sweet name?"
Skaria gave him a flat glare. "It's none of your business what my bloody sweet name is, thank you very much," she spat out. "If you'll excuse me, I must be going. I have a student that needs instruction on how not to be abducted, and I need to be doing more important things than exchanging pleasantries with people like you." She went to walk past him.
He grabbed her. He grabbed her. Skaria turned, faced Lord Cydari. "Now, miss, that's just uncordial. I'm sure if you spend more time with me," he said, his voice slowly dropping to what he attempted to make a husky whisper, "that I can be very, very charming." He moved closer to her.
You should have taken the servant's entrance, Lord Solstael mouthed at her from behind Lord Cydari. That explained it. This was the only time she had been instructed to use the postern gate, to enter in discreetly. It had been to make sure she didn't run into this idiot.
"Lord Cydari, while you happen to be convinced of your charm, I can say with complete certainty you're not nearly as charming as you think," she snapped. Anger bubbled and boiled in her veins. "Now, do me a wonderful favor and get your bloody hands off me. Unless, of course, you have fifteen minutes for something."
"Fifteen minutes?" Lord Cydari asked, wrinkled eyes narrowing in confusion. "And what do you want to do in fifteen minutes?"
"Nothing. But that's how long you'll have after I sever your tendons and your major arteries in your hand." He let go of her wrists as if her arms were made of burning, searing metal, which was a blessing in and of itself. She felt physically dirty, defiled in some way, after being touched by him. Compulsive womanizers disgusted Skaria, disgusted her on a real, visceral level. She had no qualms about threatening her in any way, shape, or form they wanted.
"Of course, most of the damage done would happen within five to ten minutes. You wouldn't die immediately, but your tissue and body would get damaged." She glared at him. "And, so you don't have to ever experience that firsthand, I'll give you a simple rule." Her voice lowered into a dangerous tone. "Never, ever, ever do that to me again."
Lord Cydari, however, wasn't frightened. Or if he was, he was good at hiding it. Real good. "Well, she has a fire in her belly. I always liked girls like that," he said with a grin. That twinkle in his eye, the mischievous glint with a dangerous, feral edge, shone again, and this time, Skaria could tell exactly what the emotion lurking in his eyes was.
Lust.
She had seen a similar look in Laidu's eyes, though his was tempered, very heavily, by compassion and love. The lust she had seen in Laidu's eyes was part of his love for Kyra, his body wanting hers. It was tamed, if one could describe it like that, tamed and kept captive by Laidu's self-discipline. It didn't rule Laidu, not in one respect or any.
For Lord Cydari, this was a wild animal, the kind uncontrolled, the kind that pulled the puppet strings on the man. He didn't rule this emotion; he was a slave to it, a slave in all but name. Nothing would slake this lust. Nothing. It had become an end for him, not a means or a part of him.
"Skaria! There you are!" Skaria turned to see Kyra, at the moment, her student and her savior, rushing from another hallway. She was dressed in the quilted fencing regalia, hair pulled back, a smile on her face. A smile, that, it should be noted, quickly soured and vanished when she caught sight of Lord Cydari. "Oh. Come along, Skaria. My other teacher's getting impatient." Other teacher? What in the world was she talking about?
"Ah, young Miss Solstael." Yuck. Now Lord Cydari had shifted over to Kyra, smiling, eyes glinting in the same fashion. Skaria could understand how he could react that way to Kyra, but Skaria couldn't understand how in the world Lord Cydari could be attracted to her. Skaria didn't kid herself; she was not pretty.
"Lord Cydari, please excuse my teacher and I," Kyra said, face twisting in concern as Lord Cydari approached her. Lord Solstael, meanwhile, was furiously pantomiming at her, ordering her to do... something. Skaria thought his motions were trying to tell her to get away, to run as fast as she could. Or something. "We must go to our lesson."
"Ah, yes. Very well." Lord Cydari looked disappointed and bemused. That point, Skaria decided, was the best point to make a tactical retreat with Kyra to the fencing salon. She grabbed her noble-born pupil and marched away, quickly.
Kyra led her through the halls, looking back with wide eyes. "Well, it's nice that you're here, Skaria," she said, "but why didn't you come through the servant's door?"
"It was a matter of pride," Skaria explained with a sniff. "I'm not going to be bossed around like one of your father's servants. I'm not one of his people just because he pays me."
"Yeah, well, he wasn't trying to show dominance over you or anything like that," Kyra said, "but he was trying to get you to avoid that... man, Lord Cydari." She grimaced. "Just imagine having to attend a ball with him. If he 'likes' you, he'll try to talk to you, and he'll be there when you try to avoid him, stalking you." She made a disgusted sound. "He makes me feel dirty, just dealing with him."
"I feel the bloody same way," Skaria said. "I was a few moments away from shoving a blade through him. Several times." She felt dirty just by talking to that man, stained by what he did. She dealt with lust and debauchery in her normal course of life, but this man made her feel dirty and disgusting and tainted.
Kyra threw open the doors of the fencing salon. "When I heard the doors open," she said, pointing to a small bell hanging above the door, "I knew you were coming through that door, so I wanted to intercept you before you met Lord Cydari, or rather, before he met you."
"You have bells for every door in her house?" Skaria asked, pointing to the bell, one of half a dozen or so in a line.
"Lord Cydari is just- oh, the bells? No, they just ring when doors to the outside open," Kyra said. "I think someone ran cord through the walls to ring them. I know some other houses use thaumaturgy to link the plates, but we can't do that, especially with my issue," she said, pointing at her head. Skaria frowned, confused. Issue? Kyra wasn't mad, like Laidu seemd to be. What was she talking about? "Remember? Indra called me a thaumaturgic savant?"
"Oh, oh, right," Skaria said. "I remember now." It was easy to forget that Kyra wasn't normal. But then again, with their motley bunch of freaks, she fit right in. Skaria's business partners included a brute who could create spirits and a bat that could enhance his body and senses with blood, and Skaria herself could boss the universe around. Oh, and Kyra was in love with a freak of nature, capable of heating himself up to actually burn people. And Indra, without any strange magics of her own that she was born with, was generally freaky enough with her alchemy.
Kyra began to stretch, rotating her arms, warming herself up. "You know, that's not the first time Lord Cydari's done that. That's actually the reason he's here."
"To creepily make advances on you?" Skaria asked. "I mean, your father may be an arrogant noble-" Kyra's face soured at that for a short moment, "-no offense, but he does seem to care about you a little more than that."
"No, not for me," Kyra said. "He has a little scandal that's giving him more than a good share of headaches." Her voice lowered. "Supposedly, he had conducted an affair with one of his maids, and when his wife found out, I think she fired the girl. Made up a bunch of stories about how she had been seducing all the male servants of the Cydari household, things like that. But, rumor has it that Lord Cydari made the first move."
"You mean that a politician did something wrong?" Skaria asked, sarcasm hemorrhaging from her voice. "Well, color me bloody surprised." She rolled her eyes. "Now, let me see your fighting stance." Kyra nodded, drew her practice sword (there was no way, absolutely no way Skaria was going to let someone as new and green as Kyra practice with a real sword) and assumed her stance. Feet at an angle, weight evenly distributed, shoulders tilted slightly, leading with her right hand, left arm across her chest. "Keep the blade at an angle," Skaria snapped, prowling around her pupil.
"Well, the story gets weirder." Kyra adjusted the blade. "So, the maid leaves and starts talking about how lustful and pig-like Lord Cydari is, making a big stink, raising a huge ruckus. Then, suddenly, she recants and says everything that she had said was a lie. Just like that, and just like that, Lady Cydari hires her." Kyra looked up at Skaria. "Since then, no one's heard from the maid."
Skaria frowned. She directed Kyra through several sword forms, but her heart wasn't in today's training session. Her mind was running at a thousand miles an hour, with that story bouncing around in her mind. She dismissed Kyra at the end of their session, picked up her gear, and marched away. She had her suspicions of what was happening, and part of her dreaded it. Part of her relished the chance for a rematch. But first, she needed proof.
And she knew just the man to go to.
***
"Laidu!" Skaria practically shouted as she kicked open his door. "I need a favor from you!"
Laidu looked up from where he was writing something at his desk. "Skaria. It's nice to see you, but it would be nice for you to knock before you burst in like that."
"No time," Skaria said. "I need you to get me access to the city guard."
"Skaria, I'm a Ranger of Alberion. We're in Caeldar. Different countries. That's going to be out of my jurisdiction," Laidu said. "I'd love to help. But I can't. I really can't."
"It's about Kazalibad. I think he's in the city," she said. Laidu perked up at that, and Skaria could see fear and dread in his eyes. "We have to at least try."
"Alright." He set his document aside. "Let me grab my badge." The Ranger grabbed his pack, rummaged through it, before drawing out a small shield, emblazoned with the insignia of Alberion on it. "The guards should recognize this. There are enough stories about the Rangers in northern Alberion; some of them have to have made it up here."
"Thank you," Skaria said. "We need to get to the charnel offices. Where they deal with the dead bodies, you know? I need to see if they found a skinless corpse."
"Like Torvan." Skaria gave him a blank stare. Who? "The slave trader," Laidu explained. Oh, right, him. "Smart. You got clued in by something?"
"Yeah," Skaria said. "Kyra told me a story about something Lord Cydari did. Or, rather, a mess he had cleaned up for him. Noblemen's scandal kind of issue." Laidu yanked his fur-lined cloak on, fastened it, and nodded to Skaria.
"He get a servant girl pregnant?" Laidu asked as they left the inn.
"Not pregnant, but the same idea. I met the man, and I'm convinced that he's constantly lusting after anything that has two legs."
"Oh." Laidu said.
"He tried to make a few moves on your girl, but we left in time," Skaria said. His eyes bulged. Great. Now he was jealous. "Relax. It isn't like he did anything," she said. "We made sure to stay in the fencing salon. Away from the creepy old man."
"Okay. Good. I know Kyra's in safe hands." Laidu relaxed. She could see the tenseness of his pose drain out of him, relieved to hear Skaria's message.
"Relax. She's a grown woman, Laidu." Skaria rolled her eyes. "She can take care of herself."
"You wouldn't understand," Laidu said. "You're not a man. And you're not a man in love with someone. It's my job to protect her, as God is my witness."
"You know, you're really sentimental about her. To the point of it being close to disturbing." Skaria. "But it stops short of disturbing. Stops short enough to be really endearing, if you weren't such a bloody loonie about it."
"Yeah, well," Laidu said. "When you feel the same about someone else, you might be able to understand."
"Whatever," Skaria said "You know, Thaen seems to be getting in the same mood with his girl." Laidu's face immediately soured. "Is something wrong?" she asked.
"Yeah. Thaen and I... we had a fight. I haven't seen him, and by his tone, it's clear he doesn't want to talk to me."
"He mentioned something about that," Skaria said. "He did seem rather angry when he came to his bunk in the guildhouse." She looked at Laidu. "The voices are getting worse, aren't they?"
Laidu was silent as he walked, but eventually, the dragon-man nodded. "I think there's a way to stop them," he said, "or fix them, or whatever it is. Earlier, remember when I transformed when Kazalibad first attacked? That giant dragon man?"
"Yeah. I was wondering," Skaria said, "that seems pretty useful. You're bigger than Karik'ar is, stronger than he is. Why in the world didn't you use that in any other fight?" He could become a titan, a monster of unparalleled strength. Skaria had once seen a Tuskborn wrestler in a travelling fair, colored burnt orange instead of Karik'ar's blood red. She had watched him hug a log against his chest, and then crush it to splinters. But what Laidu could do was even more powerful. Why didn't he use it?
"It ties in. There, the voices... united, I guess you could say. They became one, and told me I needed to tell them their true name to mend them, and also to become that monster again. I know their name, Rhaedrashah. But they need the meaning too. I need to pin the meaning of the name down." Laidu sighed.
"So you have to figure out what Rhaedrashah's bloody mother meant when she decided to name her... what do you even call a baby dragon? A pup? A calf? A kit?"
"Probably a hatchling. Because they hatch from eggs," Laidu said. "And yes. They need that name's meaning."
"The insane voices in your head are oddly specific," Skaria said. "Anyway, I'll relay that information off to Indra. I can't help you with that."
"Yeah, thanks."
"So, what happened with Thaen?"
"The voices... they think things for me. They shove thoughts in my face," Laidu said. "In this case, a rather graphic one about strangling Thaen."
"Oh." Skaria paused; she didn't want to know the answer to the question she was about to ask. "Tell me the truth. Are you getting similar thoughts about me?"
"Um... no, not at the moment," Laidu said. "The voices are... kind of afraid of you. They hate Karik'ar, because he entered my mind and thrashed them, and by proxy, they hate you because you're- well, they think you're Karik'ar's lover, and that frightens them."
Again? "Hold on," Skaria said. She grabbed Laidu by the collar and yanked his face down in front of her. He stared up at her with confused eyes. "Look here, loony voices in my friend's head. I. Am. Not. Karik'ar's. Bloody. Lover. You understand that?" She shook Laidu a few times, so they got the idea. "Got it?"
"They say yes." Laidu peeled her hand off him. "Did you mean that? Calling me a friend?"
"Meh. Sure." Skaria shrugged.
A cold wind picked up, stinging and lashing her face. She blinked and rubbed the small flecks of snow and ice out of her face. Laidu didn't have to, she noticed. Ice touched his scales, turned to water, and drifted down his neck, where it turned to steam. It drifted about his neck, a spectral scarf made out of hot vapor.
They rounded the corner, and the guardhouse stared back at them. A few guards sat next to a small brazier, warming their hands over a few sputtering coals. The building was two stories, squat and low to the ground like some animal, with dark windows that stared at Laidu and Skaria, eyes that studied them, watched them.
"Well, this is the place," Skaria said. She turned and looked up at Laidu. "Think your badge could get us through?"
"Um..." Laidu paused for a moment, lost in thought. "Maybe if I said we were on an investigation and trying to apprehend a criminal in Alberion that escaped into Saefel Caeld. That's kind of true. I mean, Torvan died in Alberion. He was murdered by Kazalibad. Which, by definition of law, would make Kazalibad a murderer." He shrugged. "Legally, of course. I mean, we're at the guards' mercy. It's not like I can court martial them for obstruction of justice."
"Bloody law. I try to stay as far away from it as possible," Skaria said. "Which I've never been good at," she muttered under her breath.
"What's that?" Laidu asked.
"Oh. Uh, nothing, nothing. Nothing at all," Skaria quickly interjected. Her style of work tended to get her on the other side of jail bars more often than not. Karik'ar usually paid her bail and the penalty fines, and that was a regular occurrence. Not that Laidu needed to know. She just so happened to be a bit... reckless with her job. So what?
They stepped into the office, Skaria throwing off her hood. It was warmer in here, and darker too. It was probably the lack of bright, pure white snow that reflected the sun so well. Here, whatever light that didn't drift in through the windows came from a few lanterns strung about the low-ceiling room in a haphazard fashion Several of the guards stod around the room, some attentive in their full uniform, others out of their armor. One, sitting on a stool, playing cards at a low table, perked up when the two of them walked in. "Oh, look, if it isn't our troublemaker," he said, eyes narrowing when he saw Skaria. Of course, one look at the man behind her made his eyes go as wide as saucers. "D...DEMON!" he screamed.
He reached for his sword while simultaneously trying to stand up and scurry backwards, which meant he fell back on his rear and pinned his blade down under his leg. "Relax," another guard said, sitting next to him, still holding some cards. "That's one of the Rangers from Alberion. He's from the freak division."
"The horns, the... the scales!"
"He's a Changed," the other guard explained. "Part dragon. Anyway, sit back up here. My cards are going to rob you of everything you got, and I'd like to do that sometime soon. You know, before I go on guard duty again."
The man sat up, resumed his seat, but his eyes didn't leave Laidu. "Forgive him," another guard, seated behind a desk, said. "He's not entirely there in the head, if you get my drift."
"Hey!" the guard snapped. He shot the guard at the desk a withering glare. Meanwhile, the guard next to him, who had promised to beat him at cards, took a quick look at the other guard's hand of cards, then returned to his own with a smug smile of satisfaction.
"Anyway," the guard at the desk said, "normally we're arresting you for getting into some fight. And you're not the kind of person who'd be confessing to a crime anytime soon, so there must be a reason that you two are here. You want something, don't you?"
"We need to see a dead body," Skaria said.
"If it's out of morbid curiosity," the guard said, raising an eyebrow, "I'm afraid I cannot help you with that. We don't allow civilians to look at the dead that we're processing."
"Processing?" Laidu asked.
"Paperwork kind of processing," the guard assured him. "What you're asking for cannot be done!"
"It's one that died in a specific way," Laidu said. "It will look rather nasty, cause quite a stir when it was discovered, if my notes were right. We're tracking someone, and I think he came up through here."
"Oh?" the guard asked. "What sex was the victim?"
"Female. There won't be stab wounds, but it will look like the body was skinned alive. Not flayed, but like the skin neatly peeled off."
The guard blanched at that. "H... how do you know about that?" he asked.
"That's the guy we're pursuing," Laidu explained. "He killed a woman that way in Sapharama, and a man I had taken into custody on the way there."
"Oh." He looked around. "Technically, you're civilians, but... you know about this. Frankly, we need all the leads we can get. I can get you ten minutes with the body. Is that enough?"
Skaria nodded. "That's plenty of time."
***
As they approached the mortuary, Skaria gagged on the stench. "Sorry, I'd offer you a perfumed cloth for the smell, but I can't requisition any out without filing a report. And I can't do it for civilians," the guard -who had said his name was Jessem- said through a grey bandanna over his face. "Sorry."
Skaria nodded, pinching her nose. Laidu frowned, wrinkling his snout-like nose, and grabbed something out of his coat. A scarf? Laidu didn't wear scarves. But he had one, patterned with small black squares, no bigger than grains of rice, on a field of grey. Or small grey squares on a field of black. Skaria couldn't tell the difference, and frankly, she didn't care.
She pressed the scarf against her face. Laidu's scent, a slight musty odor, something wild, like damp, mud-soaked autumn leaves trampled underfoot, the smell of the undergrowth after a rainstorm, filled her nostrils. Well, it beat the alternative stench of rotting meat. She'd take the smell of scales and reptiles over the smell of decay any day of the week.
Skaria tied it back behind her head. "So, how did you find this body? And where?"
"Well," Jessem said, "we found her... or it... curled up underneath a fallen crate in a blocked up sewer water outlet. Someone complained about the smell," he was explaining, "and normally that means a ghoul died and got stuck in the outlet. So, usually, we go in with giant hooks to fish it out. You saw them, the giant fishhooks on staves. We usually just fish out the dead ghoul body, and throw it out to sea. The sharks don't mind chomping down on them," he said.
Skaria shuddered. How a shark could stomach something that smelled so nasty, she couldn't fathom. More than one job that she had taken on had involved hunting down someone lost in the sewer, and more than one of those jobs ended with her getting ghoul blood smeared all over her armor. It smelled nasty, felt slimy, and stained so badly (and reeked even after you washed it five times over) that the only thing you could do was burn the clothes. Skaria wore smocks over her leather armor, making sure that she didn't ruin the hardened leather overcoat she wore. It was a gift worth a fortune, and she was not going to have it smell!
"So, you yanked the crates off and found her instead?" Skaria asked.
"Exactly," Jessem said. "She's right through here. And there's a bucket over there, if you need to vomit." He pointed to the rusty metal pail that was slowly melding itself into the floor, joining the creaking wood and disintegrating. "We did recover something else. It looked like a half-tanned hide. Or scraps of it, with some sparse fur. Or, rather, mostly sparse fur, except for one patch that was really thick. It looked like it had been... tattooed, too." Laidu and Skaria shared a look. That must have been Kazalibad's discarded skin. Disgusting, but it meant they were on the right track.
They stopped in front of a larger door, framed with what looked like copper. "Here we are," Jessem said. "Just a fair warning, it's going to stink even worse."
"I'll live. After falling into a few sludge pits, I'll be able to handle any stench," Laidu said.
"I'll be fine. This thing smells like big, tall, and scaly over here, which means its marginally better than the stench of a rotting, dead body. Laidu, you didn't keep this tucked under your bloody armpits, did you?"
"No," Laidu said, "And even if I did, it doesn't matter. I don't sweat. I've never had the problem of overheating. You know, fire powers and all."
"You have fire powers?" Jessem asked.
"Yeah, I do." Laidu frowned. "I'd rather not use them though." Jessen rolled his eyes. A skeptic, but then again, it was a natural reaction to have when someone told you they had powers but they couldn't share it with you. Laidu didn't seem to mind the guard's cynical skepticism. Then again, he was pretty relaxed about many things.
The guard opened the door, and Skaria gagged at the stench. "The University provides us with alchemical salts to chase away flies and other vermin. But there's no helping the stench." He sighed and moved through the room.
The walls were dominated by several cubbyholes sealed away behind hatch-like doors, each one with a label affixed on it. Jessem moved over to a book, flipped the pages open, and began to check. "Hmm... which one is it? Decapitation... immolation... no, not it... aha! Skinned. Here we are. West wall number five." He grabbed the big brass ring, protruding from the door, and pulled. "Here she is."
He wheeled over a wooden platform, designed to hold the body, and then the guard yanked the corpse out. It was on a large board, tied there by three thin cords.
Laidu looked queasy at the sight of the body. She might have been pretty, but not with everything showing. Red muscle fibers spanned most of the body, save where it faded white to connect to protruding bone. There was yellow mass too, probably body fat. Judging by where it was placed, on her hips and chest, it was almost definitely fat. But everything was too neat.
She hadn't been flayed alive. No tool had stripped her of her skin. Somehow, it had just separated from her body. Just like the last corpse Skaria had seen. "This is definitely his handiwork," she said to Laidu. Only Laidu wasn't there.
He was out, throwing up into the bucket. It must have been too much. "Are you alright?" she asked, moving over to him.
"No," he said. When their eyes met, Skaria was stunned. "He was after her. He had been hunting her. That," he said, pointing to the body in the other room, "was what he did to a random person. If that's the least he'd do to her," he began, before retching again. Her must have been Kyra. That could be the only explanation for the look in his eye.
"Let's go," she said, before turning to face the guard. "We're done here. And I think we can show ourselves out."
"I... I don't think that's allowed-"
"You know what, you're going to allow it, alright? You're allowing it right now, understand?" She spat the words out with all the anger she could. "Just give my friend a moment."
He did.
"Come on, Laidu. Let's get out of this place. Some fresh air might do us some good." She slipped her hand across his broad back and lifted him up. He was able to walk a bit straighter, farther away from the source of the stench. "Come on, I'll need you to focus. I'm figuring something out at the moment and why do you have to be so blood heavy?"
They stepped out of the guardhouse, past the guards keeping watch outside, huddling by their brazier, and into the snowy street. "You better now?"
Laidu nodded. "I... I just kept imagining what he'd do to Kyra. I couldn't bear the thought... it made me sick."
Skaria nodded. "Well, let's prevent that. We find Kazalibad, and try and kill him. My sword did a number on him."
"We don't know where he is," Laidu said.
"But we do have a lead. That lord. The woman who we just saw was his maid. And when his maid appeared in public again, she acted differently. She might have acted differently because she was different." She smiled. "Lord Cydari is our lead. At best, he's unwittingly sheltering Kazalibad. At worst, he's colluding."
"In that case," Laidu said, "we might need to pay him a visit."
"Maybe," Skaria said. "Hey. I need to go meet up with Karik'ar and Thaen. You want to tag along?"
Laidu shook his head. "I'm going to let things between me and Thaen cool down a bit. Thank you for the offer, but I have some other business to attend to." He walked away.
Skaria tried, but she couldn't get that look in his eyes out of her head, the look he had given her in the guardhouse. It was one part murderous rage, one part terrified fear, and one part vile, venomous, odious hatred. That was something she had never seen in his eyes. That wasn't him, or was it?
For the first time, Skaria was afraid of Laidu.