33. That fucking bastard Kaplan

Chapter 33: That Fucking Bastard Kaplan

"Eto Shapan, you are under arrest for the murder of Lyra Manreal and Kael Corver," the captain said again, louder this time, chains rattling in his fist.

Eto didn't move. Didn't understand a single word past his own name, and something in his face must have shown it because he took a step back into the room, eyes flicking guard to guard, counting them without meaning to.

One of the younger guards leaned toward the captain, voice low but not low enough. "Rumor's he's Keth, sir. Doesn't understand shit of the local tongue."

"Anyone here speak Keth?" the captain asked, looking down the line.

"Heard the woman he's with does. Some kind of translator." The young guard's eyes drifted past Eto into the room, toward the bed.

Toward Mikaela.

Two beds sat in that room. One untouched, sheets still tucked flat and cold. The other held her, curled small under the blanket, red hair spilled across the pillow, still lost somewhere in sleep she badly needed.

Eto saw where their eyes had gone and moved before he'd decided to, putting himself square between the doorway and the bed, fists closing slow at his sides.

"Captain," the young guard said quickly, "maybe involving her ain't such a good idea. You hear about his match with Maku?"

"What about it."

"Gave a B rank adventurer a bloody nose. Didn't even look like he was trying. Word is he was still holding back."

The captain's jaw worked, weighing it, but he didn't lower the chains. "Strong, I get it. Doesn't change what we've got to do."

He stepped forward anyway, close enough now that Eto could smell the oil on his armor, and held the chains up between them.

"Put your hands up, mate."

Eto looked at the chains. Looked at the man's face. He'd caught two words clean out of all of it, Lyra and Kael, and beyond that the rest slid past him like water, meaning nothing, and it wasn't hard to guess the shape of what was happening even without the words for it. Men didn't bring chains for good news.

Footsteps came fast down the hall behind the crowd of guards, and a voice cut through sharp enough that half the men turned.

"What's going on here."

She came through the press of bodies in a knight's uniform, His Majesty's colors on the shoulder, and the guards parted for her without needing to be told twice.

Freya Mikaelson stopped dead in the doorway.

He stood bare chested in the middle of the room, scars old and new laid out across skin that looked carved rather than grown, dried blood crusted dark along his jaw and down one arm, bruising blooming purple across half his ribs.

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"Lady Mikaelson." The captain straightened. "Morning. What brings you here."

She didn't answer him. Not yet. Her eyes had gone wide, fixed on the man across the room, and something in her chest had stopped working right the second she'd laid eyes on him.

"Eto," she said.

He looked at her. No surprise in it. No shock. Just recognition, plain and calm, like she was exactly where he'd expected her to eventually turn up.

"Captain Alaric," she said, finally tearing her eyes off him, "what is going on here."

"This man's under arrest for the murder of two people. Trouble is he doesn't speak the tongue."

"That's because he's Keth. Only speaks Keth." Freya's voice had gone tight.

"You know of him, my lady?"

"I know him." She swallowed. "He saved my life in Little Edelmere weeks ago. My whole squad was killed and he's the reason I wasn't."

The captain's shoulders eased half an inch, something in his face going almost apologetic. "Then I'm sorry to ask this of you, my lady, but he's the last man to have seen our two victims alive. Would you translate? Explain the situation."

Freya turned to him.

He'd made her nervous from the very first time she'd laid eyes on him in that forest, and two weeks apart hadn't done a thing to fix that, her pulse picking up now despite the chains, despite the blood, despite all of it. She started speaking in Keth, low, steady, greeting him first, telling him it'd been over two weeks, that she hadn't expected to see him again like this.

Then she laid it all out. The murders. The chains. The reason for all twelve men crowded into a rented room at dawn.

Eto listened to every word of it without moving, and when she finished, he smiled, small and easy, like none of it had landed the way she expected it to.

"I come back," he said, and turned from her.

He crossed the room to the bed and crouched beside Mikaela, one hand settling gentle on her shoulder, shaking her awake.

Her eyes opened slow, then all at once, taking in the room full of armed men in a single sweep, and she was sitting bolt upright before she'd even finished blinking.

"What the." Her eyes found the chains, the captain, the number of guards packed into a space built for two people. "That fucking bastard Kaplan. He sold me out. He actually sold me out."

"No." Eto's voice cut across hers, quick, firm. He took her hand and pulled her up, leading her toward Freya before she could argue, and pressed her hand into the knight's like he was handing off something fragile. "Tell Mikaela," he said to Freya.

Then he turned back and offered his wrists to the captain.

The chains closed around them cold and heavy, and the captain led him toward the door without another word, boots heavy on old floorboards, twelve guards falling in around him.

Mikaela stood frozen where he'd left her, staring after him, and it took a full five seconds before her voice came back at all.

"Freya, what the fuck is going on. Why are they arresting my man."

Freya's mouth opened and nothing came out for a second, the word landing somewhere it had no business landing, my man, said with the same certainty a person might use for the sky being blue or water being wet.

"Alright." Freya caught her arm before she could bolt for the door. "Stop. Let me explain."

Mikaela wrenched forward anyway, half a step toward the hall, eyes still locked on the doorway Eto had just vanished through, and Freya held firm, planting herself between the girl and the corridor.

"You'll get nothing done chasing after guards half dressed and screaming," Freya said, low, steady, the voice she used on soldiers about to break formation. "Let me explain what I understand, and then we figure out what to do next. Together."

Downstairs, Eto was walked past the bar, past Erik, who stood with a rag still in hand and his mouth hanging open, staring at the sight of it, twelve guards and a Keth in chains, blood dried down the side of a face that had eaten breakfast in that same room not twelve hours ago.

Out into the street the morning had already gathered a crowd, faces turning one by one, murmurs rising and falling as the procession moved past, and Eto walked through the middle of it without a flicker of shame or fear on his face, eyes forward, calm as still water.

Then he looked up.

On a rooftop above the street, morning light catching him full in the face, Kaplan stood watching. Beside him, a shape that didn't sit right against the daylight the way the rest of the world did, something robed, something that seemed to drink the sun rather than stand in it.

Eto smiled.

This was going exactly as he'd expected.