<i>''Even if I''m forced to get rid of a couple of soldiers, I just need my puppets to take away a few important documents.</i>


    <i>''Once Ernas checks the vault and finds there''s nothing missing, he will think that the assassin has been caught stealing the secret information. No one will ever suspect that they actually came to put the weapons back in ce.''</i> Beilin thought.


    ***


    Later that night, Jirni and Orion met in his office to discuss their respective findings.


    "I must say that you never cease to amaze me." Orion said with a sigh while pouring Dragon Water for both of them. "We came here with nothing and in two days you''ve made more progress than Manohar in a week."


    "I ept thepliment but not the drink and neither should you." Jirni took the ss from Orion''s hand and poured it in the sink along with her own. "I heard about your problem with alcohol and you should stay away from it."


    "Look, I''m not here to argue. I just wanted us to have a polite conversation for our daughters'' sake. You shouldn''t meddle with my life since you are not my wife anymore." Orion said with a snarl, watching the amber-colored liquid go down the drain.


    "Not by my choice." Jirni said, sitting in front of him.


    "Really? Wasn''t it your choice to stage Quy''s death? To keep me in the dark for days and parade me like a bawling idiot? Wasn''t it your choice to put your precious n before your family?" His voice was cold and so were his eyes.


    "That''s not what I meant." Jirni felt guilty for her actions, something that waspletely new for her, just like Orion being so hostile with her.


    "Then exin yourself, o master of deception. Neither of us can take a step out of this room since we are both allegedly working our asses off on a case. We can use this time together to make ourselves clear and put an end to this story once and for all."


    "I mean that you kicked me out of our home without giving me an opportunity to exin myself!" Jirni stood up abruptly in outrage.


    "What there was to exin? You yed me and Deirus like a fiddle to get what you wanted!" Orion jumped up as well, towering over her. "You took all of my daughters away from me.


    "You left me grieving while Manohar, the Royals, and even the damn god of death knew everything! You admitted it yourself, and for me, it was more than enough."


    "I did it only because I love you!" Jirni started to sob, but Orion had seen her fake it so many times that he couldn''t believe her.


    "I knew that as long as Deirus was alive, he would have never given up. He had too much power and money to fail. Without the n that you despise so much, we could only force our daughters to live like prisoners until he made a mistake, or resign to their death.


    "Either way, we would have lost them. The gods know if I tried having Deirus killed, but he was too careful. He was so obsessed with revenge that he brought bodyguards and ced arrays even when meeting his lovers.


    "I couldn''t let our children waste their lives nor stand the thought of attending their funeral. Staging Quy''s death was the only way I had to stop Deirus. I now realize to have underestimated the pain that I inflicted you but what was the alternative?


    "Letting our baby girl die for real? Giving Deirus the time to n for Phloria''s death as well? You had to grieve just for a few days, yet you are still suffering so much. Imagine if instead of cursing my name for tricking you, you had to deal with the loss of one or more of our children." Jirni said.


    "Are you still putting our lives and feelings in your ordinate rows and columns?" Orion started to yell as well, rejecting her logic. "We aren''t a goddamn equation for you to solve. There is no eptable loss.


    "I was your husband and I loved you with all my heart yet you didn''t stop one second to think of how your scheming would affect me."


    "Affect you?" Jirni steeled her gaze. "You just had to grieve for a few days instead of that for the rest of your life. Quy''s life was at risk and I simply did what had to be done. You should thank me for saving our daughter!"


    "Thank you?" Orion froze for a moment as fury reced pain. "You saved my daughter and in exchange, you took my wife! Our was an arranged marriage. It took me years to find the courage to trust you yet you needed seconds to destroy it.


    "I always knew that a conspiracy might kill Gunyin, that an STD will sooner orter kill Tulion, and that with the dangerous life that our daughters have chosen for themselves they might die at any moment.


    "I worry for them and try to keep all of them safe because I''m their father and that''s my job, but I know I can''t keep them safe forever. What gave me the strength to ept even the idea of losing a single one of them was the certainty to have you by my side.


    "People may call you a monster, but until that day you have been the light in my life that kept all the other monsters at bay. Now I''m alone in the dark, and I can''t bring myself to trust you anymore."


    Orion fell onto his knees, his eyes empty, showing her how vulnerable and broken he truly was once the veil of rage that kept him standing had been removed.


    "I''m so sorry." Jirni hold him tight to her chest, not knowing if he was listening to her anymore. "I didn''t mean to hurt you, I was only trying to protect you. You are right, I treat everything as an equation because even though I know human feelings, I don''t understand them.


    "I know that I ruined everything and that at this point words can''t solve anything. But if you give me a chance to redeem myself, I''m willing to spend the rest of my life rebuilding what I stupidly took for granted."


    Warm tears streaked from her eyes and onto Orion''s head, who remained still. His heart and his brain were at odds, but he was too tired to keep fighting.


    ***


    Meanwhile, Quy and Manohar worked together on the hair samples that Jirni had taken from the clothes of the suspicious house staff, to understand the nature of the enemy before the actual confrontation.


    "Good gods! I swear that if your mother wasn''t already married, too old, too cranky, and if she didn''t scare the crap out of me, I would probably propose to her right now and then regret it immediately after."


    The god of healing managed to tap his feet, p his hands, and move his eyes akin to a child under a sugar rush due to the excitement. The hair had turned out to be something he had never seen before.


    Something that wasn''t even human, it just looked the part.