178 The Morning After (2/2)

The Patriarch was attacked by nearly twenty members of the Claw, minus the ones fake Luca and I killed, and they'd discarded poison in favor of good old stabbing. Too bad for them that Darah herself guarded the Patriarch's rooms.

In the cloister garden where I once had a chat with him, Darah and Thors painted the stones with drow blood. They even left one survivor for interrogating purposes.

Apparently, the reason there were so few Crippling Blades lying in wait to ambush Aura's escape party was because the rest of them were attacking Chris Pint and his entourage in the palace's east wing guest suites.

Ashley explained that Chris Pint didn't even bother to fight them and left the management of stopping the assassins to Thea and his other female companions.

\”He's got a lot of those,\” I chuckled. \”A full-on harem.\”

Ashley caught me staring at her.

\”Don't even think it, Dapper, or I will smack you silly,\” Ashley warned.

\”I wasn't thinking it at all,\” I protested. Then I quickly changed the topic back to the earlier discussion. \”So what happened to the Crippling Blades who went after the Lord of Stars?\”

\”I was told that the enemy didn't last long against the Starfall clan's elites,\” Ashley told me while her eyes narrowed. \”Somewhere down the line, we're going to be fighting them too, won't we?\”

I shrugged. \”All alliances end… and this one hasn't even been finalized yet.\”

I recalled Chris Pint's warning while we stood together on the palace battlements and surveyed the city below.

\”He really likes the view,\” I repeated, almost smiling to myself as I imagined that fight, if it came, was probably going to be the hardest one yet.

\”The Under Ring also had another target besides Aura too,\” Ashley told me.

The Under Ring's assassins weren't just after the head of Aura, but they tried to take out the Inquisitor too. Apparently, the Justiciars have become a thorn in the Underworld's side, especially with regard to the slave trade, and they must have believed eliminating the woman who'd been given the nickname 'Breaker of Chains' was the first step in ensuring the resurgence of a flourishing slave trade outside of the Undercroft.

\”That's a lot of good intel you have there,\” I noted.

\”The Inquisitor discussed it with us after Aura beat the hashashin,\” Ashley explained.

\”Breaker of Chains… that is a cool title,\” I whistled.

\”Certainly better than the Boy Touched with Fire,\” Ashley chuckled softly.

\”I didn't ask for that, you know,\” I countered as I leaned back on my seat. \”That bastard Ardeen Spellweaver thought of it on his own.\”

Despite our long and at times loud conversation, Luca had barely stirred.

Ashley explained that the mental attack that was done to him was a lot more severe than we thought. The hashashin literally siphoned his memories off him and he needed time to recuperate from that.

While the visual of the hashashin sipping through a straw attached to Luca's played in my mind, Ashley began unwrapping the basket in her lap.

I peeked inside and saw that it was filled with cookies, the Mudgardian kind. Oven There were at least a dozen double chip chocolate cookies inside. They had a fresh from the oven aroma that wafted up to my nose that nearly made my mouth water in anticipation.

\”Dude, these are my favorite,\” I whistled.

\”Yeah, Ty told me,\” Ashley smiled, and for a second, I thought I witnessed the shadow of a blush on her cheeks.

I blinked and they were gone, but I could have sworn I saw them.

Ashely pulled out a cookie and offered it to me. But she pulled it away when I tried to take it from her hand.

\”What—\”

\”—You're injured, so just this once, I'll feed you by hand, alright?\” she said.

Yup, I was most definitely blushing now. But I nodded all the same as I imagined I was about to enter an entirely new territory I've never explored before.

Ashley placed the cookie within inches of my face, but as I opened my mouth to take a bite, the sound of laughter reached my ears.

I turned toward the door and found Darah standing there grinning from ear to ear.

\”Hope we aren't interrupting anything,\” Darah teased.

Behind her were A sheepishly grinning Thors, and to my utter horror, Aura — her face turned away from me.