Crush the King (Crown of Shards #3)(13)
“Evie?” Paloma asked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I growled.
I pushed my feelings aside, leaned forward, and rifled through Lena’s pockets the same way I had Ricardo’s. She also had several knives, but they were nothing special, so I tossed them onto the weapons pile. I moved on to the pockets in her leggings and other layers of clothing, but I didn’t find anything inside them, not even a few coins.
Frustration filled me, and I sat back on my heels. I was about to give up when I noticed a small lump on Lena’s chest, one that was somehow sticking up through her grubby clothes.
Curious, I leaned forward again and probed the lump with my fingers. At first I thought it was a button, but it seemed too large for that, so I kept pressing on and around the lump. Lena was wearing something underneath her clothes.
Even though her neck was a cut, bloody mess, I hooked my fingers into the tops of her tunics and yanked them all down. A thin gold chain glimmered around her throat. I fished it out of the thick, sticky blood that covered her skin, drew it up over her head, and held it out where I could see it.
A gold pendant dangled from the end of the chain.
At first glance, the pendant seemed to be a simple round coin, but a closer look revealed that it was stamped on both sides. One side featured two crisscrossed knives that resembled Ricardo’s and Lena’s weapons. The symbol seemed vaguely familiar, although I couldn’t remember when or where I had seen it before, so I flipped over the pendant.
A woman’s face was stamped on the other side. A common enough symbol, except for one thing—the woman’s eyes and mouth were all shaped like tiny coins.
I was so shocked that I almost dropped the pendant. I definitely recognized this symbol, although I wished I didn’t. A woman with two coins for her eyes and a single coin for her mouth was the crest of the Fortuna Mint.
“Oh, bloody . . .” My voice trailed off, and I couldn’t even finish the curse hanging on my lips.
Most people viewed the Fortuna Mint as a bank, since the Mint printed and accepted coins and currencies from various kingdoms, while other folks stored precious jewelry, artwork, and heirlooms in its supposedly impenetrable vaults. The Mint also dealt in rarities and hosted lavish auctions where everything from hard-to-find antiquities to exotic spices to unusual creatures was sold to the highest bidder.
The Fortuna Mint was run by the DiLucri family, as it had been ever since its founding centuries ago. In many ways, the DiLucris were an unofficial royal family who wielded their collective wealth and power to its fullest extent, influencing everyone from common merchants to lords and ladies to kings and queens.
I looked at the pendant again, then down at Lena, then over at Ricardo and the rest of the bodies. They weren’t members of the Bastard Brigade. No, the dead magiers had worked for the DiLucris.
Intimidation, kidnapping, extortion, assassination. The DiLucris would quietly help you with all that and more, but they were most famous—or rather infamous—for their bounty hunters. The DiLucris trained and employed a legion of bounty hunters to collect on outstanding debts owed to their Mint, as well as procure rarities and carry out special missions. You could run, but you couldn’t hide for long from the bounty hunters—or geldjagers, as they were also known.
I’d had the misfortune to encounter some geldjagers before, so I knew exactly how skilled and vicious they were and that many of them wore small gold-coin pendants to prove their identities.
Lena had said that her group had been sent to Svalin to torture whomever fell into their trap for information, but once Ricardo had realized who I was, he’d wanted to kidnap me instead. The thought of being casually sold from one horrible person to another like a purloined painting or a stolen necklace filled me with disgust, but I shouldn’t have been surprised.
After all, it had almost happened to me before.
Oh, yes, the geldjagers had definitely been working for the DiLucris, and I couldn’t help but think they were working for the Mortan king as well. I could imagine the king ordering me to be brought in alive just so he could have the pleasure—and certainty—of finally murdering me himself.
The DiLucris charged a high price for their geldjagers, but the Mortan king could easily afford their exorbitant fees. Or perhaps he’d promised the DiLucris something else. Contracts with Mortan merchants, fertile farmlands, or maybe even some noble title and a place in his palace. Or perhaps the DiLucris were breaking with their tradition of supposed neutrality and aligning themselves with the Mortans outright.
But all that really mattered was who Ricardo had wanted to deliver me to. The DiLucris, so they could fulfill their contract with the Mortans? Or perhaps Ricardo had been thinking about cutting the DiLucris out of the deal and taking me directly to the Mortan king. Either way, the DiLucris working for or with the Mortans was a disturbing development.
Paloma finished searching the last of the magiers and straightened up. “Did you find anything?”
I got to my feet to tell her about the pendant, but a voice cut me off.
“Highness!” someone yelled. “Highness!”
“Over here!” I called out.
Footsteps slapped against the cobblestones, and Sullivan sprinted into the alley, along with Serilda and Cho. All three of them were clutching swords, although they lowered their weapons when they realized the danger was dead.
Sullivan hurried over to me, reached out, and cupped my face in his hand. His blue eyes searched mine, and he gently stroked his thumb over my cheek. “Highness?” he asked, all sorts of worried questions squeezed into that one word.