The guards hesitated.
“Kill. Him.”
They moved together, one striking Herron’s neck, the other his torso.
He went down with a cry and lay beside the queen, blinking slowly and then he closed his eyes.
The queen started to laugh, and then coughed, blood spraying from her lips. “The queen is dead,” she said, her voice a weak croak. “Long live the queen.”
Ava rose to her feet, frowning at the words.
“Going to kill her, too, warlord?” Her aunt turned her head to Luc. Laughed again and then fell silent.
The palace guards who had killed Herron stood, anchorless and confused.
“What should we do?” The one who Luc had tripped this morning asked.
“Take off my restraints.” Ava held out her hands, and the man couldn’t move fast enough to get them off.
“And them?” The other guard asked, pointing to Luc and Oscar.
“They are on my side.”
“Then who is against us?” The guard lowered his sword.
“Are any of you against me?” Ava asked the crowd.
There were murmurs. It sounded like plenty were against her, but none brave enough to step forward.
“I was just getting used to you being a princess.” Luc turned in a circle as he spoke, looking for threats. “Now you’re a queen.”
“Funny.” She turned as well, watching the roofs and walls for shooters, but if they were there, they weren’t shooting.
Perhaps because their paymasters were both lying dead at Ava’s feet.
“What should we do now?” The guard asked her.
“Now, you should go open the city gates.”
Chapter 40
“I’ve put the clothes you came in on the bed for you.” Lucinde called.
“Thank you.” Ava rinsed off her arms in the bath. She listened for Lucinde’s footsteps to leave the room, and for the door to swing shut before she stood.
She didn’t have time to linger in the hot water, although she really would have loved to.
She wiped herself down with the linen cloth Lucinde had set out for her, and wrapped it under her armpits.
She stopped short when she stepped out from behind the screen and found a man standing beside her window.
“The messenger from the Grimwalt Court.” She should have remembered he was somewhere in the city. She knew this was his likely destination when he’d run from the Rising Wave.
Too much going on, she acknowledged to herself. Too many balls in the air.
He moved over and sat on her bed, checking over her clothes. He looked like himself this time. So whatever working he’d used to hide his face had either faded or he’d stopped using it.
“No black silk, that I can see,” he said and tossed them to her. “Put them on.”
She moved back to step behind the screen.
“No.” He held a throwing knife in his hand. “I’m very accurate. You put them on where I can see you.”
She slid the pants up under the linen wrap, and then shrugged the shirt over her head and tugged the wrap down.
It fluttered to the floor.
“How long have you been in Fernwell?” she asked him.
“Long enough to know I was lied to by my boss.” He gave a grimace. “The welcome here was not at all the warm one I was told to expect.”
“So, why are you still doing his bidding?” Ava asked.
“There’s still something in it for me, as long as I have you with me.”
“How are you going to get the Queen of Kassia out of the city?” The Rising Wave was everywhere. He had to know it would be difficult to get far.
“This.” He held up a necklace. “The last of its kind, I’m told, since the Grimwaldian who made it died. Changes your appearance. They won’t think I’m leaving with the queen, because you will not look like the queen.”
She knew the necklace worked. She’d seen it with her own eyes.
“The Speaker never told me about your connection to Kassia. I had no idea.” He shook his head in disappointment. “But we won’t worry about him, because you’ll be making me some things on our way there that will put me in charge, not him.”
These people who kept thinking she could be coerced into doing their bidding.
“No.”
“That’s not the answer I’m looking for.”
“Throw your knife at me, then, because I’m not interested in being dragged to Grimwalt by a deluded criminal. I have no idea what these things are you’re talking about, and I don’t care, either way.”
He stared at her. Threw the knife.
Not to kill her, she noticed, as he aimed for high on her right shoulder. It somehow missed.
“That should have hit you.” He rose from the corner of her bed. “There is no way I could have missed.”
Ava shrugged. “But you did.”
He threw a second one, and Ava saw he had five sheaths along his belt.
He aimed at the same spot, and it went astray again.
He stared at her in horror. “You’ve got some protection. Something I missed.”
Ava looked around for a weapon. Her own knife was gone, and she hadn’t had a chance to look for something in the armory.
The two knives he’d thrown at her would do, she decided, and turned to see where they’d landed.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” he said, suddenly. “You’re wearing something magic-worked. You were just feigning ignorance.”
As Ava bent to pick up the first knife, he threw a third, and she felt the handle skim along her back and clatter to the floor.
“Maybe hands around your throat will work.” The words were guttural.
She had misjudged his rage and frustration.
He slammed her up against the wall, and began choking her, but where he was touching her shirt she smelled burning and then he threw himself back with a scream, batting at his chest.
The door flew open, and Luc suddenly filled the doorway.
The messenger calmed suddenly, lifting his shirt.
Ava could see red welts across his stomach.
“I’ve tried and tried, and I can never get her,” he said to Luc. “I really hate her and I’m glad her friends in Grimwalt are in prison. I hope they die there.”
He moved slowly to the window, a throwing knife in his hand.
“I’ll find a way to get you,” he said to her. “Don’t think I won’t.” He climbed out, clutching at the sill. “You can’t be wrapped in protection all the time.”
A knife suddenly lodged in his eye, and he fell back with a scream.
Ava looked across at Luc, who was lowering his hand from the knife throw.
“He might have known which friends and where they’re are being held,” she said.
He shook his head. “Or he might have come back while you were in your bath and killed you.”
“Maybe.”
The palace guards burst into the room, and Luc waved at the window.
By the time Dak and Deni had spoken to them about how he got in, and the body had been removed, the sun had set.
As soon as they were alone, they walked toward each other, and Luc bent down to kiss her.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was related to the queen.”