The buyer had paid 20,582 credits—the equivalent of 20 vron—only. A zero had been dropped. 180 vron were missing. Just to be sure, I went through the nearby purchase agreements, double-checking their weights and payments.

Nothing jumped out as being out of the ordinary.

What is going on? I wondered, slumping back in the chair.

And if Maazin had knowingly charged the buyer less than the value, why had he recorded it? Why had he left evidence of it? A trail that would lead right back to him?

Because he’d known that House Kaalium didn’t keep their records in the Halo, where these discrepancies would be discovered almost immediately when matched up with transaction history?

I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. I didn’t want to accuse Maazin of anything, especially without seeing the transaction payments through House Kaalium’s actual accounts.

Not that Azur would ever grant me access to those.

But didn’t he have the right to know what I’d found?

I need to be certain, I thought, rolling my neck. There were thousands of documents in this room, the thought making me dizzy.

I set my sights on another stack of records, pulling them toward me, double-checking that the door was still closed. Blowing out a breath, though my eyes were nearly going cross-eyed and bleary, I searched for Zor Koreen.

I didn’t find it.

But I did find Koreen Kos.

Same deal.

Five crates of lore this time, valued at 400 vron, due to incredible high demand for that particular year.

“39,560,” I whispered, rubbing at my eyes as I saw the amount of credits Koreen Kos had paid. This time, 360 vron were missing from the records.

When I went back another year, I saw the pattern. It had started small, likely that same year Maazin had begun to work at the keep. He’d only recorded a single crate that first time, but nearly 30,000 credits that should’ve been there weren’t. Last year had been the largest payment to date.

I was still deep in the records, hoping that I was wrong, when Azur’s voice made me jump out of my skin.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he told me, stepping into the room.

Just his voice made goose bumps break out over my flesh in anticipation. Deep and guttural. I could hear the need in it.

My gaze flitted to the records. My neck was stiff, my back aching since I’d been hunched over. How late was it?

Azur came to me, his hands plucking me easily off the chair, before pressing my backside into the desk. My hands quivered over his shoulders, but just as he leaned down to smell my hair—something he’d been doing a lot lately—I stopped him.

“Wait,” I breathed.

Azur stilled, pulling away though his eyes were already darkening with his hunger.

I took in a deep breath, uncertain if I should say anything. I hadn’t wanted to at first. But I’d found a pattern. And patterns—abnormal ones, especially—didn’t lie. Just like numbers.

“Does Zor Koreen mean anything to you?” I asked quietly, meeting my husband’s eyes. He frowned. “Or Koreen Kos?”

“Koreen?” he asked quietly.

“Yes.”

“It’s an old Kaazor family name. Why do you ask?” he demanded, his eyes suddenly pinned on me with careful, cold observation.

Kaazor?

“I—I found discrepancies,” I told him, shoulders sagging. I didn’t want to get Maazin in trouble. But if he was stealing from Azur, from House Kaalium, then I couldn’t help him cover it up. I turned away from Azur, reaching out to straighten the documents, tapping them with my pointer finger. “In the lore records. Dating back four years, but I haven’t checked beyond that.”

“What kind of discrepancies?” Azur asked me, his expression carefully blank, his hands leaving my waist to press against the desk, lowering himself down so he could scan the columns.

I pointed out one. The first one I’d found.

“The purchase price doesn’t make sense for the weight of lore,” I told him, worrying my bottom lip as I watched his gaze flit over the ink, suddenly nervous that I was making a fuss over nothing. But whatever Azur found, I watched as his shoulders tightened. “And here.”

I pulled the next year, navigating to the offending row, ten pages back in the stack.

“And here,” I said softly, going to the next one.

And then the next one.

A part of me was worried that he wouldn’t believe me. That he thought I was trying to simply make trouble, and my heart was pounding against my breastbone as I waited for him to say something.

“Raazos,” Azur said quietly, tension tight in his shoulders, and he ran a hand down his face—his suddenly tired face, and I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy for him. Of understanding.

He was the eldest son to the Kaalium. He had this entire keep to run. Entire villages of Laras below to oversee. The nation of the Kaalium that he managed with the help of his brothers. I knew there was trouble brewing in the north with the Kaazor.

This was just one more thing.

One more thing that added weight to his shoulders, especially with Laras’s harvest coming up.

“You…you believe me?” I asked, unsure of what to say.

“It’s blatant,” he rasped, turning his gaze to me.

Was that relief I felt? Relief mingled with dread because I didn’t know what this meant for Maazin. He’d been kind to me. He’d let me barge into his records room so I’d felt a little less lonely, so I’d felt like I had some small purpose in the keep.

“I…I can’t imagine that Maazin would do this,” I said, saying the name that hung between us in the quiet room. “I don’t understand it.”

“But he didn’t try to hide it, did he?” Azur murmured, pushing up from the desk. “Only if someone was really looking at these records. And he’s the only one that works on them. Until you came along. You were right—I should have had them uploaded to a secure system on the Halo long before now. If I had, then this wouldn’t have happened.”

I bit my lip. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ll take care of it,” Azur said firmly.

Just like that.

My lips parted. “But…”

“Put it from your mind,” Azur continued, collecting the documents into a neat stack and taking them from the desk. “I’ll take care of it, wife.”

I reached out to touch his arm. His gray skin was warm and hard beneath my fingertips. I held him, feeling something lodge in my throat. There was trepidation for Maazin. Relief too. Disbelief?

For so long, I’d been the one to solve all the problems in our household. I’d grown to hate it because it had always fallen on me, weighing me down until I’d wanted to sink straight into the earth and let it swallow me whole. Even when I’d wanted help, I couldn’t ask for it.

And so when I’d found the discrepancies in these records, I’d felt that familiar creeping of nausea and dread. Another problem to solve. Another anxious ridden thing that would eat me up inside until it was dispelled.

But not with Azur.

He’d taken it from me in the blink of an eye.

He’d taken control.

It was freeing.

Still…we were married. If I wanted this to be a partnership, I didn’t want him to bear all the problems alone.

“If you set up the secure database and guide me to it through the Halo, I’ll upload the records,” I told him quietly. “You don’t have to worry about doing that. I’ll take care of it.”

I held my breath. I knew I was asking for his trust. His trust when he’d just realized he’d been betrayed.

Azur eyed me. I watched the moment that hardened gaze softened. If I was shocked when he dipped his head to capture my mouth in a kiss, I showed it by clinging to him.

“Do it,” he rasped into the kiss. “But leave Maazin to me.”

Chapter 29