Gathering Darkness (Falling Kingdoms 3)

The boy pulled himself out of the barrel and cast a dark look at the drunk. “Mind your own business, old man.”

“You burn down our home and it’s my business. I’ll drown you in that barrel if you don’t do as I say!”

The boy didn’t offer anything more than a rude gesture in the drunk’s general direction and a dour glare at Jonas before he jogged away.

“What was that all about?” Jonas asked.

“My idiot fire-obsessed son,” the man replied. “He likes to experiment with ridiculous concoctions that do little more than burn his eyebrows off. Tonight his excuse is that he is honoring the fire goddess by causing his trouble throughout the village with these works of fire. Foolish boy.”

Jonas had no time for chitchat with drunken locals about their troublesome sons. He needed to join Felix at the tavern in time for their meeting.

With a mumbled farewell and a word of good luck, he successfully slipped away from the man. Before he reached the tavern, he sensed someone else following him.

Two someone elses, to be exact, one of whom stepped out of the shadows and blocked his way.

“You look like that rebel the king’s after.” The man was a half-foot taller than Jonas and had a long, crooked nose.

“I might look like him, but it’s not me,” he said.

The second man had blond, greasy hair and a thin, rodentlike face. He yanked Jonas’s hood right off his head to get a better look at him.

“Yeah, you’re the one who stuck a dagger in the bitch queen. Don’t be shy about it. We applaud you for a job well done.”

All the more reason to avoid them if they were the types to celebrate the death of a woman.

“Let me pass,” Jonas hissed.

“C’mon. It’s a night of celebration. Try to be friendly.”

“Let me pass,” he said again, “or we’re going to have a problem.”

The bald man laughed and elbowed his friend. “Not very friendly, is he? And here I thought you might be able to help us out.”

Jonas glared at them. “Really? And how did you think I might help you out?”

“The reward on the posters . . . it’s a hefty one. While I appreciate anyone working to send the king back to his land of ice—to be buried in it, preferably—I could use that gold.”

Only more proof that the vast majority of Auranians were greedy and selfish.

Jonas didn’t hesitate to fight his way out of the situation. He slammed his fist into the bald man’s jaw, sending him staggering back to fall in a grunting heap on his backside. The blond one grabbed him from behind, and Jonas immediately felt the sharp, cold edge of steel at his throat. He stopped struggling. The bald man wiped the blood off his bottom lip with the back of his hand and pushed himself up off the ground.

They were alone in the street. It was dark, and the tavern was still a few streets away.

The bald man crossed his arms and grinned at Jonas through the darkness. The other one didn’t move, his dagger still digging into Jonas’s throat. “Yes, the king’ll pay good coin to get his hands on you. It’s your choice now, dead or alive. I really couldn’t care less which.”

Before the bald one could signal his friend to cut Jonas’s throat, Felix’s voice sliced through the night, stopping them.

“Again? I leave you on your own for mere moments and you find yourself in yet another tight spot?”

“Afraid so. A little help, please?”

The bald man spun around and eyed Jonas’s sizable friend with alarm.

“The reward is large enough to split three ways,” he said.

Felix crossed his arms. “Reward, huh? How much?”

Jonas stopped breathing. When all was said and done, he’d only known Felix for a couple of weeks. Did he have any true assurance that he wouldn’t switch allegiances the moment it suited his purposes?