The Act of Duplicity [General Kirigan]

twenty-five

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    Nataliya pulled at the reigns of her horse to make it stop galloping and slowly come to a full stop in the courtyard where the black coach also came to a halt. She demounted the horse when the door to the coach opened and out stepped the General, followed by Zoya and Ivan. Once she locked eyes with Kirigan the memory of the moment they shared in her room earlier that same day came rushing back to her.

    The feeling of his intense gaze given by his dark eyes stayed with her, engraved deeply in her brain as she silently waited for him to kiss her. But he didn't. After he said that last sentence he stepped away without any particular expression on his face and walked out of the room. Nataliya was rooted to the spot the whole time and it didn't make any sense to her. Only after a good amount of time did she shake her head to wake herself from the trance and realise that he was the reason she was feeling so queasy. And not because he would be manipulating her, but because he managed to awake a fire inside her that she thought she had long ago put down. And now again she had no idea how to feel.

    Nataliya stepped up beside Zoya and Ivan just as Kirigan joined as well. They were looking at the coach that was situated behind the fence and oprichinki nearing it steadily.

    ''And?'' asked Kirigan.

    ''The wagon matches the one that was reported stolen from the palace,'' said Ivan.

    ''They may have continued on horseback, faster, harder to track,'' Zoya spoke her thoughts aloud.

    Nataliya was thinking the same. One look at the General's face had her know that he was in a critical thinking moment. She turned her head back to the carriage and waited as the oprichinki came closer to it. Once he opened the door there was a loud boom as a gun was fired and the oprichinki fell to the floor on his back. The gunshot rang out through the streets and people started screaming and gathering at the scene. Nataliya set off into a jog to the coach but she could already see from afar that there was no way the guard survived that. In any case, her instinct told her to check. When she couldn't hear any heartbeat from him she looked behind her shoulder as the other Grisha observed and shook her head.

    The rumpus noise of people coming out of an inn made her turn her head that way. She looked back at Kirigan and motioned to what she was watching and he took the lead to check the place out. The group didn't make it far when three people exited the building with panic looking faces. A guy in a black coat, a smaller bronze girl and a guy in a fedora. Nataliya widened her eyes as she recognised the girl that now wore a deep blue suit, whereas back at the fete she was the rope dancer in a rainbow attire. It seemed like Polina, the Inferni that came with also recognised her as a yell of 'no!' escaped her and she started running.

    The little group of three misfits dispersed and started running as well. Nataliya stayed only long enough to see Polina's flames graze some people further up the alley before she ran after the guy that was wearing a fedora. She distinctly remembered the way he was holding his guns so he wasn't hard to spot when he started climbing some stairs. Nataliya was light on her feet but she wasn't sure if she was being necessarily quiet at the time.