Page 61 of Sword & Sacrifice

Penn had worked hard to keep his freedom, and he wasn’t ready to risk it yet. When he did attack the mage, it would only be once he had a solid plan to free Valerian.

Smiling cheerfully, Penn opened the door and gestured through it, “After you.”

Valistair arched a golden eyebrow but didn’t otherwise comment on the exaggerated gallantry as he led Penn down the street.

They found Niall stewing in the inn’s dining room. As soon as he spotted them, he jumped from his seat and exclaimed, “You found them!” He stared at the books in Valistair’s arms with a ravenous hunger, fingers twitching as if he wanted to snatch them up and devour them.

Valistair shifted the books away from his student’s grasping hands. “We’re done here. Pack up the room and prepare the carriage.”

Niall nodded eagerly and rushed to follow his master’s orders. Within the hour, Valistair, Penn, and the grimoires had been stuffed back into the carriage and they were off again.

As Penn watched the passing scenery through the carriage window, sticky dread clogged his veins. They were headed east, toward the mountains. Toward Arnsveld.

“Where are we going?” he asked again.

This time, the mage answered him. “Somewhere I’ve always wanted to see for myself.”

Before Valerian woke enough to register his surroundings, his blade was already buried in the belly of the man looming over him. Slick blood dripped onto his hand and down his arm, staining the sleeves of his nightshirt. He’d stopped sleeping naked the first time someone had tried to kill him in his sleep. Unfortunately, that meant he would need to launder or replace the shirt, both expenses he preferred not to incur.

Please don’t be the landlord. He’d warned the man a hundred times not to disturb him unless the damn building was on fire.

Valerian peeled one heavy eyelid open and looked at the man’s unfamiliar face. He grasped the man’s shoulder and shoved him backward off the blade with a wet, squelchy release. The man collapsed dead at the foot of the bed, staining the sheets.

Normally, Valerian only killed criminals or other trained fighters. People who could be stabbed in the stomach and keep going. The fact that the man had simply collapsed and died rather than fought back implied he wasn’t a professional. Dammit, did I kill some innocent drunkard fumbling around in the wrong bed?

Valerian shoved the still warm corpse onto the floor with a heavy thump. Hopefully that wouldn’t wake the downstairs neighbors. He crouched next to the corpse and searched through the pockets until he found an aged bounty notice, offering a nice reward for someone’s capture.

His own face stared back at him from the crumpled parchment, drawn in careful black ink. A few details were off—the shape of his jaw, the curve of his cheeks—giving the image a younger appearance. How many years had it been since he’d looked like that? However long he’d been running.

He looked older now, still half his real age, but the barkeepers no longer refused to serve him. Would that be enough to keep the bounty hunters from identifying him?

Would it be enough to fool the mercenaries he’d worked with over the years? Some of them were his friends, people who might hesitate to sell him out. But he’d been betrayed by friends before.

The payout at the bottom of the notice offered more than Valerian had ever made on a single job. He was almost tempted to turn himself in and tell Maksim to simply remove the amount from his debt. Valerian couldn’t expect anyone else to pass up that kind of money.

He had to leave before anyone connected the poster to him.

He gathered up all his belongings, shoving them into his satchel, never happier to have perfected the complicated expansion enchantment. It allowed him to quickly pack everything in the room except the furniture, which belonged to the landlord anyway.

Bag slipped over his shoulder, Valerian slunk down the stairs, avoiding the ones that creaked. Sunrise was still a few hours away. No one would notice he’d left until morning. Once he found somewhere safe to hide, he could change his face, his name, everything about him.

Maksim had made a mistake. Valerian had spent the last ten years diligently paying off his debt. He took measures to ensure Maksim couldn’t follow him—never used the same messenger service twice, never wore his real face or used his real name—but the son of a bitch couldn’t claim Valerian had welched on their bargain.

Now that he’d decided to hunt Valerian, to drag him back to Krasna Manor, Maksim wouldn’t see another gods damned coin.

Valerian slipped out the backdoor and inhaled the clean, crisp night air. It was almost freeing, to be a wanted man. He’d have to shed his former reputation, start from scratch, but he would work his way back up again. And this time, he’d keep every coin for himself. Save it for retirement. Maybe he’d open a shop somewhere.

While his eyes were locked on the starry horizon, picturing a brighter future than he’d ever imagined before, something smashed into the back of his head. The stars winked out and his bright future vanished.

Valerian didn’t remember waking up the second time. One moment he’d been knocked out, the next he stared up at Maksim’s face. There should have been events between—a struggle against his captors, the time it took to travel from Valerian’s small apartment to the massive estate—but when he tried to recall it, there was only darkness. Like someone had ripped out the pages of a book.

“Welcome home, Valerian,” Maksim said. His clenched jaw and the fury burning in his eyes put too much heat into the warm words.

Every part of Valerian ached. His head from the blow that knocked him out. His knees from kneeling on the hard ground. His arms from the ropes wrapped around each wrist, binding them to two wooden posts, stretched to their limits. His mouth from the cloth gag shoved into it, the tight fabric cutting into the corners of his lips.

He didn’t have the energy or the ability to tell Maksim exactly what he could do with his ‘welcome.’

“My father made a mistake sponsoring you,” Maksim said as he circled around Valerian.