"Closest I could get was across the road from the barn. Once they arrived, the soldiers and the clerk went in, and less than an hour later, they brought the bodies out, then fifteen soldiers went home, and the other five turned south towards Sytheville." The scout said easily, offering a shrug, looking like she had no idea why she was spying on a barn full of dead people.
"No one else was there?" Keana gave the young scout a look of disbelief and the young girl shook her head in response.
The scout's expression turned to one of worry. "No, sir. I didn't see anyone leave and when I went in to check, there was only a lantern and a table and a chair in the whole place."
Keana shook his head and let out a slow breath, not bothering to press further, though he knew that Vix, or Clara, or Lina had to have been there at some point. "Alright. You did well."
Whatever his former lover and protege's current name, he knew her well enough to know she was embroiled in whatever this was. And that just further complicated things for him. Since she had disappeared from his life, he had looked for her. Not on his own, but he had kept his network listening for her stumbling around, half trained. But he had heard nothing, other than rumours of spies and rogues working directly for the Queen of Aupana. Had he unknowingly trained a spy for the Regency that he had spent most of his life detesting?
The girl paused at the door, despite her dismissal, and turned back to look at him. "Sir?"
It broke Keana from his reverie and frowned softly. "Yes?"
She looked at her feet, then back up to him. "We're not going to be working for the other ones, are we? I saw those men, I saw those woods, and I've heard that the gold is cursed. That's why you've called it all back in."
"It's not cursed. There is no magic around it." Keana said testily, shaking his head. "You will do the tasks I tell you to do."
"Just so." The girl gave him a defeated look and shrugged, before slipping out of the room.
Keana looked at the purse of gold he had collected and frowned at it, putting on a glove and picking up a coin, turning it in the light and letting out a slow breath. This was another complication, one that he could not forgive.
"Sir, you asked for me?" A slim man knocked at the door before stepping into the room at Keana's motion.
Keana watched the man fall into a formal stance and slowly put the gold coin back in the pouch and raised a brow.
"Yes, Jus. We're cancelling this contract you agreed to. Return the money and tell them they can find new contacts to do their bidding." Keana said sharply, glaring at the man as if he caused all of their problems.
"I told you sir, it's just a meeting place, I leave the message and they leave the directions and payment." The man called Jus drawled, giving him a careful look.
Keana stood, glaring hard at the man as his anger came to a breaking point. "And THAT was your first mistake. You are on very unsteady ground as it is. You have possibly endangered this company from multiple angles. We do not deal with people who know more about us than we know about them. You know that. And your decisions have put us at odds with more forces than I care to have knowing me."
Jus nodded and ducked his head, picking up the purse quickly as he mumbled. "I know. I got greedy. I understand Sir."
"Watch your back, I'll be returning to Sytheville in the morning. When you receive a reply, you'll return as well and make your report." Keana growled.
"Sir" The man nodded and slipped out of the room, leaving Keana glaring at the wall in anger, fuming over the events of the last day.
He had been ready to shut down the contract when he had arrived far before he had run into Vix in the forest. Keana would never admit to her she was right about her assessment of this group or that he had agreed with her moral and self-righteous objections to the contract.
Those differences in opinions were something the two of them had always butted heads about, but he couldn't let it be known he was following the directions of a former pupil. For that was what Vix was, a former member of his company who had disappeared, only to return years later working for someone else.
Even those facts would lead to grumblings. But to bow his head and agree with her assessment on the poor decision would mean a very unstable company, in a profession where he needed firm control at all times. That he let her violate her contract without retribution was bad enough, though he had made it known that her leaving was a mutual decision, tactfully, long ago. Most people believe he had fired her, cut all ties, and that was why Vix left.
Keana cursed and rubbed the back of his neck, pacing to his fireplace and adding another piece of wood as he let his mind wander back to Vix. He had told himself that he had accepted her answer when she had turned him down, kept on her mask and left him.
He had even convinced himself that he had moved on and felt nothing more than nostalgia and friendship for the woman, and already he felt that same resurgence in his gut. She had walked out of the forest looking almost unchanged, despite the years that had passed. She may have had more freckles over her nose and cheeks, maybe, but other than that, Vix was the same woman he had known, taught and loved not so long ago.
Though the magic she used blurred his vision, coming from the pendant she kept around her neck, he could see her as she wanted to be seen when he didn't fight the spell with his own gift. He could have looked past it, could have touched that locket of hers and seen who she really was. But he had hoped that Vix would make that decision herself, that she would willingly show him who she was and tell him what she had been running from.
Keana led one of the more extensive information networks in Aupana, with branches and brotherhoods in other countries, now expanding to Sellexu with the treaties and peace talks. He had fought his way to the top and turned it from a band of mercenaries and assassins into something closer to a family. He provided those with less noble upbringings a chance to take hold of their destiny and forge a path to freedom from the monotony of the life of a commoner.
Keana still remembered finding a young girl with ferocious fighting ability and mediocre spying inclinations. A girl who had captured his heart with her unwavering conviction in things she would not explain to him. And, entranced, he had turned her into his protege. And promptly fell in love with her somewhere along the line.
He couldn't remember how it had all played out in an ordered fashion as his mind usually focused on that first time he met her, in the rain on the streets of Ilumnia or the last time he had seen her, telling him she was sorry and she was needed somewhere else.
"I don't even know her actual name." Keana breathed to himself, shaking his head in frustration, knowing that he could know everything with a little effort.
He could have searched her out and broken through the magic that changed her looks, followed her through to her employer and discovered who she was and what this grand war she was fighting was.
But he hadn't, wanting her to show him herself and still holding out hope that she would, even now. With a grimace, he threw his cloak on and slipped from his room. Before he could think better of it, he scaled the rough wall of the inn he was in. Sticking to the shadows, he crossed town on the rooftops. Keana only stopped when he found the inn that his intelligence told him that Vix was staying in. Shuddering slightly at a chill in the wind, he found his eyes searching the darkness and looking for a sign of the danger his sixth sense told him was around.
But all was quiet, so Keana settled on a ledge and watched Vix's inn. It wasn't long till he saw the movement he was looking for, smiling as he saw a form shift from the shadows and climb up the sheer wall, entering through a window at the back of the building. Keana told himself that he smiled because he had caught her up to some sort of mischief and not because she was back safe.
He almost followed her. Keana wanted to tell her he had cancelled his contract, that he had never even agreed to the contract. In private, he could even offer to help her with whatever she was doing. He even stood and moved to the edge of the roof, before he stopped himself with a shake of his head.
He could not let her win that easily. He had his pride, after all.
In the morning, when the sun began rising, he was riding south once more. Keana couldn't shake the feeling that he was fleeing something, his eyes scanning the trees he moved through.
He knew now that there were monsters in the dark that could rip apart soldiers and then hang them up neatly in trees. That these monsters wielded potent magic that he had struggled to break through, despite his natural ability to do so.
But Keana may have been fleeing the woman who was possibly waging war on them on her own.