The walled royal complex included not only the castle and the gardens, but also barracks and an armory for the royal guards, stables, and a chapel. Dante didn’t have access to any of it aside from the chapel.
He’d spent a day there, feigning piety in the hope that the princess would visit. Instead, he learned the princess preferred to worship the two gods of Hosta, Solin and Lunin, in her own way. He had brought one of Sol’s youngest, cutest street children with him. The girl’s curiosity about the princess had the older priestess grinning as she gently explained it was unlikely to ever run into Her Highness there.
So Dante changed course and found himself in the large, public area of the bailey set aside for vendors to peddle their wares.
In the ten days since he’d accepted Sol’s assignment, he’d been here nearly from sun up to sun down. The complex closed at nightfall, and Dante knew there was no point in staying after dark. The princess would never be outside the castle walls once the sun went down. Not that he’d had much more luck spotting her when the sun was up.
Still, he’d gathered information. He’d gleaned she was attended twenty-four hours a day, though most often just by handmaidens. But guards were stationed everywhere, so he had to figure out a way to lure them away and strike when only a couple would remain close enough to be a hindrance.
Dante had glimpsed the princess once. It was late in the afternoon and she was walking through one of the arched hallways that opened to the bailey, though she had approached from another hall and quickly turned away from the open-air market. He hadn’t seen her face, but knew her from her white dress and long, thick ash-blond braid, his days of scouting revealing she always presented herself so. She walked with an older brunette woman in a grey dress, likely some kind of tutor. That was four days ago, and he hadn’t seen a hint of her since.
The sun was beginning to set, and with it, the vendors began to pack up. Dante had stationed himself at a cart that sold dried game meat, the peddler being someone he was friendly with from the Cavs. He helped the man pack up in thanks for his cover, and as the bailey emptied of city-dwellers who had no right to be there after dark, he found a spot in the shadows by the wall to linger a bit longer. Despite his inconspicuous position, a familiar mustachioed man approached him.
“If you’re looking to make more money, surely there are more lucrative avenues than peddling jerky?” The man fingered Dante’s off-white tunic, eyeing his simple tan pants. Both were too small. “Is this my shirt?”
“Your pants, too,” Dante answered gruffly.
While in Hogard, Dante was usually working. Which meant he was usually wearing his black leather outfit that was so well worn and fit him so perfectly he could move swiftly through the streets like nothing more than a gust of wind. But such an ensemble would be too commanding in the light of day, and certainly within the royal complex. Dante’s formidable size and muscles alone made him stand out, along with his thick, bushy dark hair. The latter was an easy fix; he usually wore his long, wild locks tied back in a knot when he wanted to avoid attention. His body was harder to tamp down, though dressing in everyday, non-threatening clothes helped. He didn’t keep any such articles in the city, so had borrowed them.
The mustachioed man lifted the corner of his mouth as he opened his arms wide, and Dante obliged his friend by stepping out of the shadows and clapping him on the back in an embrace.
“How have you been, brother?”
“I’m here, so that should tell you enough,” Dante admitted as he stepped back. “It’s been too long, Blukke. Where have you been? I nearly asked Sol after you.”
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Blukke, knowing their duties required stealth, reigned in the laugh he would have barked had the men been in private. “Gods, you must have been desperate. I had no idea I meant so much to you.”
If Dante had asked the Lord of the Lawless, he would have paid for it twice over. First, by admitting how much Blukke meant to him. Second, by the golds Sol surely would have demanded for the information. But if he still hadn’t heard word of his friend in a couple more weeks, Dante likely would have made those sacrifices.
Dante ignored the words; Blukke did know how much he meant to him--he was the only person outside of Marnie and her family that he cared about--just as Dante knew how much he meant to Blukke. Though not blood, they were family.
“My last job had me in Pitson. It was worth it though, I have two thousand golds waiting for me back at Sol’s. Would you like to accompany me to collect it?” Blukke asked, wagging his eyebrows.
Dante reigned in his laugh as well. He would never visit Sol unless he absolutely had to. “How’d you like to make it a hundred and fifty thousand golds?”
Blukke’s amusement winked out of his blue-violet eyes as Dante shared the impossible task he was attempting. When he finished, his offer to split the job laid before his friend, Blukke just blinked at him. “Are you mad?”
“I take that as a yes?” Dante asked, keeping an eye on the royal complex that was now almost entirely emptied of the public. They would only have a few more minutes before the guards did their sweep and locked the gates.
Blukke shook his head, clapping Dante’s shoulder as he left their concealed nook by the wall. “Absolutely not. But I’d like to have a drink with you before you get yourself killed. Meet me at Tabor’s at nine.”
The pub wasn’t so seedy as to be located in the Cavs, where anyone would be listening to them and report back to Sol, but it wasn’t nice enough to be on this side of the city. It was the perfect place for them to meet without prying eyes and ears, and where they had met for years whenever they both found themselves in Hogard at the same time. It seemed to happen more and more infrequently over the years, as if Sol purposely offered them jobs that kept them separated.
Dante nodded before the men clasped forearms and shook. “You know I’m staying at your place.”
Blukke looked over his clothes on Dante’s form. “Yeah, I figured. But if I find me a woman at Tabor’s tonight, you better find somewhere else to be.” With a wink, Blukke padded out of the gates.
Dante watched his friend go, then scanned the castle once more. He saw only guards and a couple servants through the open archways. His gaze turned toward the bailey in front of him, and he took in the guards now prowling, ushering out the few stragglers. A blonde fae guard flapped her wings at a skinny young woman who seemed to be disinclined to leave. She was attempting to get past the guard, to venture toward the castle instead of the gates, claiming to have lost a precious golden necklace. The fae guard didn’t seem to care and continued pressing her toward the exit.
Dante looked to the area where the woman was pointing. Heightened senses were part of his gift, and he could easily see the necklace on the ground, now half buried, just as he had easily heard the woman’s pleas from across the wide space. It would only take a thought for him to send his power to pluck it from the dirt and deposit it into her flailing hands. He was about to do just that when a red-headed guard approached and crouched low to collect the necklace.
The woman was now in tears, the fae guard still pushing her toward the gate, when the red-haired guard--a feline shifter by the look of his eyes--placed a hand on the fae’s shoulder. She immediately straightened, obviously under his command. The man must be a kern, one of the officers. He said nothing as he jerked his chin, dismissing the guard, then placed the necklace in the woman’s outstretched hand. He only smiled kindly when she thanked him, and watched as she fled the bailey. After she crossed the threshold, he turned and stalked away. The guards’ eyes no longer on the open gate, Dante quickly slipped out himself.