“Your majesty,” Nim said. “Mere days ago, I was stolen from the streets of Inara while about king’s business, kidnapped by Trust accountants and dragged below to what I can only presume was my father’s cell.” She could not feel a single intimation from the head of the Trust, but beside her, Rhen’s promised delight at her visit had blossomed into something tangible. Shoulders straight, Nim kept on. “He has since proceeded to trespass on kingdom property by invading my rooms, the castle gardens, a gathering, and a ball. While I cannot claim complete knowledge of the rules binding Trust associates, at least some portion of those events must be in violation of your laws, as they are certainly considered criminal offenses in Inara.”
At her side, Rhen had a nearly physical reaction to her words. She wasn’t certain if he meant to burst into laughter or cuff her on the back of the head.
The head of the Trust looked back at her, apparently unmoved, but the tip to the edge of her lips remained. She did not seem to dislike the affront Nim provided. Without speaking, the queen’s dark eyes shifted to her son.
“She stabbed me.” Rhen’s tone was smooth, the words somewhere between defense and quip.
The head of the Trust blinked. Rhen shrugged. He did not seem to be even remotely interested in adding that the dagger had been woven with Warrick’s magic, that his threat for recompense was the very reason Nim had come. Rhen tilted his head to give her a conspiratorial grin.
She realized she had turned to gape at him.
He bit his lip. “Well,” he said, “I suppose I should leave you to your bargaining, Lady Weston.” He gave a half-bow. “Mother.” Then he was gone.
Nim felt as if all the air had left the room. She wasn’t sure she was breathing. She didn’t know if she could remember how.
The head of the Trust stepped closer. Nim’s gaze snapped to her, and suddenly, her breath, her heart—her fear—had risen from the ashes to burn again. She cursed.
“Lady Weston,” the queen said, as if testing out the name and deciding it did not suit. She did not seem to have aged a day, and though Nim was not the little girl she had been during their first encounter, the head of the Trust seemed no nearer to Nim’s size.
Nim felt as if she was being towered over, as if the woman made her somehow smaller. She stared at her, the single person who had stolen so much from her, a being that felt of pure power, an unstoppable force.
The queen’s mouth shifted into a grin. Her incisors were sharp—a trait she’d given each of her sons, Warrick included. There was nothing warm and pleasant in her smile, though, and nothing teasing like Calum’s or gamesome like Rhen’s. The head of the Trust had no need to charm Nim, not when she had her on a tether to draw her near at will. There was no illusion of control—Nim was only alive because the queen was allowing it. Everything that had happened had led her to the queen’s hand.
“Get out of my head,” Nim said through gritted teeth. The queen’s grin spread to her eyes. Hands curled into fists, Nim stood her ground with what little strength she had left. “I have your heir locked in a cell, bound by contract.”
She shrugged. “I have another.”
Nim’s legs trembled so savagely she feared she might fall. If she did, she knew she would never get up. She would be crushed beneath the weight of the magic. Devoured. “What do you want?” She’d meant the words as an angry hiss, but they came out little more than a plea.
The queen took another step closer to stand directly in front of Nim then reached forward to tilt Nim’s face toward her. There was a moment of stillness in which Nim could only hear the beat of her own pulse, in time with the magic. It begged her to give in, to step from the edge of the precipice and fall to the darkness that waited below. The queen said, “Kill the king.”
Nim’s heart kicked hard once before resuming its pace. More games. “That’s not what you want.”
The queen’s smile returned. She was too close, the magic too intense, while Nim wondered if it had been a test and what might have happened if she’d agreed. The head of the Trust did not need Nim to kill King Stewart. She could have done so at any time. She only wanted control of his heir—the rest, she had surely worked out already. The heir was her son, after all. But Nim was her key to… something. Nim had been her plan all along—otherwise, the bargain the queen had given to her father would never have been that Nim would chose the heir’s fate.
The queen plucked her fingers from beneath Nim’s chin. “‘Get out of my head,’ you say, as if you were not rooting through our thoughts like a rabbit in the gardens.” She clucked her tongue. “Indecorous for a lady of your station.”
The words were a slap. Nim wanted to scream and rage that she was no lady, that she had no station, that it was all because of her, that the queen had taken everything. But Nim’s tongue could not be found, because somewhere in the back of her mind, beneath the terror and helpless rage, what she said had registered.
It was Nim’s doing. Nim had gotten into their heads.
The queen straightened. “Well. You’ve done it now. The Trust must claim recompense for your injury to an heir.” She shook her head. “Honestly, stabbing? Did you think to kill him with a mere blade, or were you aiming to steal his blood so that you might trap him in a binding as you’ve done to his brother?” Her words seemed to say, “how much trouble can you cause for my sons?”
Nim found her mouth agape. “You did this,” she managed. “You have orchestrated the entire—”
Nim’s words cut off as her throat was crushed, her feet dangling midair as she was suddenly jerked from the floor to hover at the queen’s height. “Hold your tongue, Miss Weston, should you ever wish to use it again.”
She had forgotten, lulled by the magic. The head of the Trust was not a woman, not a mere queen. A strangled gurgle was all Nim managed before she was unceremoniously let go from the chokehold to slam onto the stones below. Blood ran from her elbow, warm and thick, and her pulse slowed with the magic into a sleepy, muffled tick. Her head swam. Allister’s tonics had helped, but they would not be enough. She needed to get her cursed plan done. Warrick had made a deal not to come to the Trust. Nim had to make her bargain before he realized where she was, or it would all be for naught.
“Put her in a cell,” the queen said, turning away from Nim as if she were nothing. “Something dark and low.”
More figures shifted from the shadows, and Nim’s fear spiked anew. She hadn’t realized they were not alone. She had not sensed the others at all. Unable even to push up to standing, she scrambled toward the queen. “No, wait. I come to bargain. I come to—” To what—save Warrick? She’d done no such thing. Rhen had not even mentioned him. For all Nim knew, the Trust had no idea he’d been stabbed with Warrick’s blade.
The queen stopped before the shadows, not turning to look. Nim had the sense she’d not paused to listen to the entreaty, but she dared not waste the chance. “A bargain,” she said. “Leave Warrick alone.”
A thin huff of a laugh escaped the head of the Trust, one that said it wondered what the lady Weston thought she had to offer a queen.
“Just leave him be. Let him live. And I’ll give you… whatever you want. Whatever you want with me.”