Orthus nodded slowly, lowering himself back onto the rock. Ember considered her long list of questions; she would have to pick wisely since she only had limited information to offer in return. She had confirmation that Corax was gone, most likely to the south, but that he would return. The Martial Eagle seemed to be acting as the leader in his absence, though with or without permission she wasn’t certain. She also knew that Ophelia had been framed to improve public opinion, with the added bonus of removing her from the competition with Orion’s ruddy-feathered disciple.
“Okay. First, I want to know if—no, how—the mercenaries knew to infiltrate the forest now, when Corax is gone. It can’t have been a coincidence.”
One corner of Orthus’ mouth twisted upwards, acknowledging her question. “From what I’ve gathered, we had an agent on the mainland who knew about Corax’s absence—I don’t know if she was informed or found out herself—who was captured. She cracked under torture.”
“So that’s the leak they mentioned,” Ember remarked.
“Is that another question?”
“No. Your turn.”
Orthus wove his fingers together. “What were the contents of your father’s letter?”
She blinked, taken aback; she had been certain that he would ask about the attack, not something personal.
“You’re assuming I heard back from him,” she replied, stalling for time.
He spread his arms. “Call it a hunch.”
She sighed. Although it was private, Orthus was one of the people Ember trusted most about matters regarding her father, considering he’d told her to contact the dove, Kora, in the first place. “Well, he expressed his relief for my health, described my mother’s illness, and told me about her funeral-”
“What, exactly?” Orthus asked, leaning forward and looking more interested than Ember thought was justified. She barely stopped from snapping that it was none of his business, reminding herself that she had suggested the trade in the first place.
“He confirmed that it was her inside the casket and that there were mourners he didn’t recognize.”
“Anything else?”
“Nothing about the funeral, but he said that there was a new bishop in Ciradyl who was enacting stricter religious laws. This was before the news about the royals.”
Orthus gave a curt nod. “Okay. You can ask another question.”
The reference to the royals' flight, which Ember suspected had actually been regicide by the new Archbishop Matthias, brought a disturbing thought to mind. She hadn’t seen Corax since the end of January, so it was possible that the Martial Eagle had handled the response to that disaster too. “How long has Corax been gone?”
Orthus counted on his fingers. “It’s May 14th today, so just under three months.”
Since mid-February, then. Not long enough to interfere with the news of the takeover in Ciradyl. For a moment, the tension left Ember’s shoulders, only to be replaced with a new budding worry. “That’s a long time for our surveillance to be weakened. What if Matthias is amassing an army?”
It wasn’t her turn to ask a question, but Orthus waved his arm anyway. “He would not have left us unprotected. Don’t bother asking what he’s doing, though, because I don’t know either.”
Ember frowned. Did he just stop me from wasting a question?
“It’s my turn. How did the humans die during Ophelia’s exam?”
Ember steeled herself. She’d expected a question about the attack, although she thought Orthus was being a little presumptuous by assuming that she’d witnessed their deaths.
“Those injuries are from fighting,” the octopus said as if he’d read her mind. “I doubt that you fled the scene. Now answer the question.”
“One’s throat was torn out by another student, I killed one with a head kick and one with my knife, and Ophelia killed two with her venom,” Ember explained, recounting the story as she’d told the officials minus Jisu’s name; although the panther wasn’t hiding her role in the fight, it felt wrong to include it without her consent.
Orthus leaned forward, sweeping a lock of brown hair off of his forehead. He said nothing, but with an almost imperceptible change in expression—a slight lowering of his eyelids and a tilt of his chin—Ember realized that, inexplicably, he knew she was lying.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“There were hemorrhagic blisters on the big man with the tomahawk,” he said.
“So what?” Ember replied, a vein in her neck pulsing.
“Fireworm venom doesn’t cause those. It’s a neurotoxin.”
“And you heard that from the Martial Eagle?”
“Not exactly. That oaf isn’t one for the details, and the body also had signs of neurotoxic venom which are easily traced to Ophelia. It’s more like a personal curiosity.”
“Another student, then,” Ember said, almost flippantly. She was sinking, scrambling for purchase. “Or a poisoned weapon.”
“I know the names and species of the other students in your class. None of them have venom.”
“I understand what you’re suggesting, but my fangs are capped,” Ember said, opening her mouth and pointing at her new set. “A poisoned weapon is the only explanation. It must have happened while I was fighting the others and before Ophelia came.”
“Enough,” Orthus said, and if Ember wasn’t mistaken there was a hint of amusement beneath his serious expression. “I’ll drop it. But next time, coat your knife in venom so that there aren’t dual puncture wounds.”
She stared at him, chest rising and falling quickly, and a series of events flickered through her mind: his appearance in the forest near the Saline Lake, his weird interest in her family, his knowledge of her venom, their coincidental meeting in the office, and—oh god—his asking for her scale as payment.
With Ember’s nerves already frayed from the attack, it was a simple thing for this newest development to snap her last thread of control and plunge her back into the desperation rippling in her subconscious.
She darted forward, hands closing around Orthus’s neck. He toppled from the rock, and they landed in a painful tangle of knees and elbows. “You’ve been keeping tabs on me!” she hissed.
Orthus’s cloak had come undone in the struggle, and his skin changed color, matching the dark brown earth below them. For a split second, Ember was disoriented, and Orthus wriggled like a worm from her grasp. She went to grab him and he changed color again, this time into a mixture of rock and sky.
Gritting her teeth, Ember reached for what she could see clearly: a swathe of black that she thought was his shirt. She snatched at it, and it came away in her hands. “Damn you, Orthus!” she snapped.
The octopus, now shirtless and dark-skinned, held up his hands. “Why don’t you calm down?” he asked mildly. “Talk like civilized people?”
Ember’s infrared flared to life and she went to grab him again, clutching the back of his knees and lifting him off his feet in a tackle that sent him crashing into the ground. Striking was too difficult with his camouflage, so she clasped her hands together around his ankle in a heel hook submission hold.
He grimaced, but even when she shoved his body back with her other leg he didn’t relent: he was too flexible. She shifted her grip, planning to convert the hold into a leg lock when he grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it into her face.
“Ugh!” she shouted, one hand shooting up involuntarily to scratch at her eyes. Orthus tried to extract himself, but she followed him with her infrared, fighting through the discomfort and pushing him back down. She felt a little like a child scrabbling in the dirt.
“Not everything is about you, Ember!” he yelled, panic creeping into his voice.
“Yeah?” She challenged, pinning him down with a knee on either side of his torso and crossing her wrists over his neck. “Not spying for Corax, then?”
He paused a beat too long. “I fucking thought so!” she hissed, pressing down.
“Okay, okay,” he choked, “yes, but not on you.”
“As if I would believe-”
A hand shot up, and something collided unceremoniously with Ember’s head. She flinched back, silenced, and stars danced in her vision. But when Orthus’s slippery body tried to wriggle free again, she tightened her legs and held him down through the wave of pain.
She touched her head, and her hand came back red. He had stopped struggling and was watching her with wide, half-blue and half-orange eyes. A fist-sized stone, stained red, lay discarded by his hand. “You hit me in the head with a rock?” she asked incredulously.
He had the gall to look chastised. “Well, you wouldn’t see reason…”
Ember laughed—really laughed, her head tilted back and her throat exposed. It rang, the sound jarring against the backdrop of the forest. Orthus twitched but stayed otherwise unmoving, still bracketed in by her knees.
Some time passed before she sobered. Her eyes still stung from the dirt, and there was a persistent ache on the side of her head. Her injured ankle and ribs, which had hardly begun to heal, weren’t fairing much better. “Okay, who were you spying on for Corax if not me?”
“On the Martial Eagle,” he said slowly as if she were a wild animal. “Corax doesn’t trust him.”
“That explains the secret passage, but not the scale,” Ember said, narrowing her eyes. “Why ask for it if not to deliver it to Corax?”
One side of Orthus’s mouth twisted into a grimace. “If you get off me,” he said, slightly pinched, “I’ll show you.”
Ember rolled off his torso, and he stood and dusted himself off. His skin was multiple colors at once, betraying his irritation, and his dark hair was sticking in all directions. Ember resisted the urge to let out another laugh.
Once he had retrieved his shirt, he reached into a pants pocket, withdrawing a small coin pouch. When he upended it over his palm, not one, but two gold scales fell out.
Ember stared at him as he placed them gingerly in her hands. She recognized the one she had given him right away—it was still bright gold, with hard edges—but the other was dull and peeling.
“This is old,” she observed, turning it over, “but I haven’t had scales for long, so how…?”
Orthus said nothing, his expression vulnerable. The explanation came to her like a punch in the gut, the weight of it settling thickly against her ribcage. “This is my mother’s, isn’t it?”