Page 32 of Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales

He wondered briefly what sort of deals were being struck in the rooms beyond the balconies, but cheers from the gambling hall at his back sliced through any imaginings. The main chamber he sat in extended into a long, pristinely stocked bar and a collage of tables, the raucous noise of the clientele luring him in. Mystlight chandeliers swayed overhead to the beat of the music, and even the wood beneath Roremar’s boots shone.

The Mezz, it seemed, wasn’t subject to the same issues importing liquor as other businesses were.

He sipped his whiskey, fog drifting around them as patrons burned recreational incense and lit rolls of various herbs and crushed petals. None were designed for readings.

No, the Mezzanine was a haven of pleasure and sin, a place people went to forget everything else weighing them down. Even the phrase carved into the wooden doorframe when you entered declared it: Beyond these walls, worries wait. Within these halls, cravings sate.

And as Roremar gazed around the many Starsearchers littered throughout and dancers lining the stage, flowing skirts and glimmering silver chain jewelry showing off miles of smooth skin, he reveled in the release this place allowed.

But truly, he wasn’t looking at any of them. His mind was too fucking preoccupied with who wouldn’t have liked it there.

“Who hates the Mezz?” he mumbled as he took another hit of the drugs he and Desmond had been sharing before he zoned out, and the pungent scent melded into the others wrapping the air.

As he’d complained all night—to Desmond’s glee—he’d apparently taken one too many inhales of the substances he normally didn’t touch. At some point he couldn’t recall, Desmond had disappeared with a gorgeous woman whose curves his friend was ogling, but Roremar had opted to stay put. Stewing.

Combined with the whiskey, the drugs quickly made his limbs heavy.

His eyelids, too. They didn’t want to be fucking open anymore.

Fates, he was so tired, and suddenly all his worries melted away. His family. The breakfast this morning. The still-very-real threat of women going missing on the isle.

And his mind wandered…wandered…wandered…

Until a chilling scream traveled all the way down his spine.

He jolted upright, his mind struggling to clear as the music cut out. The Mezzanine’s more intoxicated patrons didn’t react, but the ones lining the gambling tables and the main chamber all turned toward the front entrance.

Brows creased, murmurs drifting over the air about what that could have been.

And when a second, undeniable wail echoed, feet pounded to the wide double doors that poured onto the Promenade of Revels.

Roremar followed, pausing in the entrance and reorienting himself with being upright. He wiped his palms down his leathers to ground himself, brushing off the ash smeared across his fingers. Other than the Starsearchers flooding the cobbled road toward the docks, nothing was out of place. There was no visible attack, no injury.

Not here at least.

Joining the throng of muttering warriors, he hastened with the crowd, his mind clearing more by the minute. Another scream sliced into the night, this one jagged. A lament he was all too familiar with as tears shredded the bearer’s throat. It sent his heart galloping.

Forcing his intoxicated limbs faster, Roremar wove in and out of the gathering warriors as they flocked down the Promenade toward the Eastern Port. He ignored the barked complaints as he pushed through, but how in the stars were they all moving so damn slow at hearing that wretched, brutal scream?

More heart-wrenching sobs had him racing down a narrow alley, stumbling to a halt when he collided with a wall of bodies. With little grace, he shoved through them. His mind was still a little foggy, but as soon as he emerged at the front of the crowd and his boots met a crimson puddle, the haze cleared.

On the stone, sprawled on her back with her throat sliced open and unseeing eyes reflecting the constellations, was a woman. Her ivory skin was splattered red, the lace crafting the bodice of her dress drenched. Two women sobbed and screamed on their knees beside her.

Warriors dressed in the fitted navy regalia of Lyra Isle Guard guided the crowds back and helped the friends of the victim to their feet.

Eventually, Desmond materialized at Roremar’s side. “What happened?”

“Pretty clear,” Roremar murmured, looking over his friend’s rumpled tunic. The laces weren’t even tied. “Pulled yourself away from your companion?”

Desmond smoothed back his tangled dirty-blond hair, knotting it at the back of his neck. “Bloody murder wasn’t the kind of screaming I was planning to hear tonight. So, what happened?”

“Like I said”—Roremar nodded to the body—“seems pretty clear.”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Desmond whispered, giving his friend a pointed look.

Pursing his lips, Roremar studied the deceased. He knew exactly what Desmond had been asking. What did Roremar see here that others didn’t? What had those practiced surveillance skills, honed during hours of reckless reconnaissance for their army, called to his attention that the insufficient law enforcement of Lyra would miss?

The crowd around them was still murmuring, many retreating with stricken gasps after realizing how gruesome the scene was. Someone down the alleyway retched as they ran away, but the blood speckling the stone didn’t turn Roremar’s stomach in the same way. He isolated the victim from the puzzle before him.