Page 115 of Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales

Muscled arms crossed, playful light gone from his eyes, he looked ready to charge a battlefield. Emmeline had never seen this brutish side of him, but she’d always suspected it was lurking there.

“I know it’s been you,” she began. The hissed accusation rang through the night, the dark waves and empty shores gobbling it up, the stars above their savage witnesses.

“Tell me how you truly think I’m the murderer,” Desmond barked in disbelief.

“That’s why you wouldn’t tell me what we were doing out here tonight.” The betrayal layering Roremar’s voice sliced through her, snapping all the strings of trust they’d so delicately tethered to each other. But she didn’t allow herself to feel that severing pain. She couldn’t, or she’d never get through this. “You better have a damn good reason for this, Huntress.”

She dared a glance at him. The gentle sea breeze lifted his dark waves, but his expression was impassable. It didn’t surprise her; she’d known he wouldn’t have believed her simply with the accusation. She only hoped he would listen to the evidence.

Right now, the treachery in his eyes was her own fatal undoing. Lacing up that tempting hurt, she turned back to Desmond.

“I followed you the night of the first murder.”

“Des was the guy you followed?” Roremar asked, angling toward his friend as if searching for an explanation. “That’s not possible—he was with me. We were at the Mezzanine.”

Desmond ignored him, severe stare holding Emmeline’s. “Followed me where?”

“I was out on the cliffs beyond the vineyards, and two men came through the jungle. I couldn’t see their faces, but I recognized you the second time we met.”

“Why not the first?” Desmond tilted his head, but he didn’t flinch. Didn’t deny it.

Emmeline almost laughed. “As soon as I met you, I knew you were familiar—that I’d heard your voice before—but it took twice to place it. Next time check your surroundings a little better.”

“Desmond was with me, though,” Roremar repeated, but as soon as he said it, his eyes widened. “Fuck—no, he wasn’t. Not all night.” He turned doubtful eyes on his best friend, and a hole ripped wide through Emmeline’s chest at the hurt in his voice. “When you disappeared with that woman—you went all the way to the lake?”

Desmond grunted. “Hell of a rush to get there and back so quickly, but you were passed out for a while.”

“It was you then?” Roremar barely breathed. He looked for all the Fates like a lost child, his normally analytical and observant brain stuttering over each fact, unable to shape a single piece. Emmeline’s eyes stung with each blindsided blink.

“Really, Rore?” Desmond asked, jaw dropping in his first show of emotion beyond anger. “You’re going to let her pretty little lies fool you? All for a set of pouty lips and nice tits?” He scoffed, and that narrowed-down description of who Emmeline was stung. “I’m your best friend. Think of all I’ve done for you—for everyone in my life—then tell me you think I’m the one whose been brutally killing all those women.”

“No, I don’t think you’re guilty!” Roremar snapped, rubbing his eyes. “But you just admitted it was you she followed. I need an explanation, Des.” He flicked a glance at Emmeline. “I need to know why she thinks it’s you.”

She.

As if Emmeline was nothing more than a nameless stranger.

In the lengthy, burning silence that followed, the waves beat the surrounding rocks, and Emmeline couldn’t help but think back to the sight of the second victim, on that tainted beach in the morning air. A different sort of death was occurring tonight. A breach of trust and severance of whatever confidence she’d fostered with Roremar. More of those threads between them snapped with each passing moment—friendship, reliance, safety. Snip, snip, snip, the Fates cut them all.

“Go on, darling.” Desmond said the name like a slur. “Tell him the rest of your case.”

“The tattoos are the easy one,” she began.

“My work would never be so shoddy.” Desmond snorted. “I have a steady hand and pride.”

“Deranged bloodlust can change things,” Emmeline retorted. She pulled at the Fates whirling through her blood, trying to dig up all backing for her evidence. “You’ve been hanging around the docks, and there are questionable imports coming into Lyra. We’ve suspected from the start they were involved in the case, and thanks to the War Master of Alvan we know many of them include imbued ink. Running a parlor is the perfect cover for anything you receive. And ransacking it yourself—disposing of any evidence in the process—threw off suspicion. It’s both the means and the opportunity.”

“None of that is incorrect,” Desmond said. Shock bolted through Emmeline, even her magic pausing to an eerie, calm hum. That was nearly a confession. “Go on. Give us the last point: Motive.”

Voice threatening to shake, Emmeline added, “Your Fate ties.”

Roremar’s attention whipped toward her, but she had to keep blocking him out. She focused instead on the impressed smile tilting Desmond’s lips.

Pride flared in her chest. “Who are you tied to Desmond?”

“Arenothos,” he said. The Fate of Wrath and Redemption.

Emmeline paused, the realm hanging on her next question. “Arenothos…and?”