A lovely traitor. Concubine to the tyrant.
I strode forward, neither hurrying nor dawdling, staring her down as the equal I should’ve been. No—her superior, as I never would’ve so merrily bent a knee to the false emperor. Sondra and Ambrose followed behind, a half step after, guarding my back and flanks. But the queen didn’t glance at them. She returned my stare with a hard and crystalline gaze.
She could have been a wax sculpture of a woman, but for the living gleam of her pale eyes. Her gown of rich material spilled like fresh blood over elaborate underskirts that must’ve been held out with bone, wood, or wire, the way they stood in artistic forms. A high collar of worked silver rose to frame her face, with hair of the same scarlet serving as cushion to a crown that rivaled the stars for its glitter.
Amid all that, her face should have looked tiny. In fact, she might be petite under all that scaffolding. But she was far from small, her personal intensity overriding her elaborate costume. She’d coated her face with some kind of pure-white makeup that contributed to the image of her as carved from marble. Crystals glittered on extravagantly long lashes—surely fake—that weighed her lids so she should have looked sleepy. But those eyes … I walked right up to the bottom of the steps and, studying them, found them to be gray, with a faint shading of blue, the color of rain on a misty morning in Oriel. And those eyes were about as sleepy as a stalking mountain cat.
Her mouth, painted into a perfect bow of glossy crimson, lifted on one side, a jewel at the corner of her lips rising with it. Something amused her. Me, no doubt. One slim hand rested—no, braced—on the great arm of her throne, and she leaned forward ever so slightly, poised to pounce. On her left hand, an immense orchid glowed as if lit from within. The Abiding Ring.
I said nothing. Did not bow or otherwise defer. Neither did she. Stalemate.
The temporary détente gave me the opportunity to revise my opinion of her. This was no idle royal chit, frittering away her days in pleasurable luxury. Anure was a fool to think he’d collared her and brought her to heel.
For the first time, a glimmer of hope lightened the crushing despair I’d carried. Ambrose might be right about her. Magic sang through her, thick and heavy as honey, so strong even I could sense it, and the steel of determination shone in her like a honed blade hidden in a sheath of embroidered silk.
In respect for that, I inclined my chin, a bare deference to her territory. “Queen Euthalia,” I said. “I am the Slave King. I’ve come to meet with you.”
The other side of her mouth turned up. Not a smile, however.
“I’m so sorry to disabuse you of such a charming notion, King of Slaves,” she said in a cultured voice, fluid and like the brush of a cool breeze on hot day. “But this shall be your only audience with Me, as you, and your companions, are now My prisoners.”
I was going to kill Ambrose.
15
The man called the Slave King fumed like a lidded pot left too long over the flame. I half expected steam to leak from his ears, perhaps for his head to pop off entirely, spouting blood and flame to burn Calanthe to bare rock. I refused to show fear, though the first sight of him had nearly dropped my stomach through the floor.
I hadn’t thought he’d be so large. He wore armor, of a kind I’d never seen, and a badly made, roughly stitched cloak of leather. Made from the skins of his enemies, so the rumors had said. His black hair hung loose around his face and fell down his back in ropes. It wasn’t only the armor that made him look big, however. His square-jawed face spoke of strong bones, eyes a startling shade of fulminous gold intense beneath heavy dark brows. Though pitted and scarred, he wasn’t entirely ugly. Not handsome or elegant, however. Even cleaned up this man would never be mistaken for anything less than a dangerous, violent brute.
Inside the corset, cold sweat ran down my spine.
He was indeed the one from my nightmares, the wolf in a man’s skin. The one forever haunting me, holding out that hand, demanding and beseeching while the manacled wolf howled with a broken boy’s voice. I’d known it, so I shouldn’t be at all surprised. The orchid ring billowed on my finger, breathing of fate and disaster. And the presence of magic foreign to Calanthe—coming from the younger man with the Slave King. Slight, giving the appearance of youth, he leaned on a staff that oozed power. He stared at the ring, his gaze fascinated and green as Calanthe’s deepest forests. A wizard? Perhaps I’d been sent a gift along with this disaster.
Interestingly enough, the Slave King’s other companion was a woman, a warrior in armor. Somehow the rumors had left out that the rebels included fighting women, much less this one who must be his lieutenant. Unless she was his lover. Possibly both.
She might’ve been a great beauty once—with periwinkle-blue eyes and hair the color of morning light, straight and fine as silk, that many court ladies would envy—but her complexion, like his, bore pits and scars. They both looked as if they’d been roasted over a slow flame. She returned my study, noting my makeup and clothing with something like contempt.
None of them had replied to my pronouncement, though I thought the Slave King, at least, understood my words. No matter. They couldn’t argue with me, regardless. The plan had worked perfectly, to my great relief, with no blood shed. Not yet.
I waved to the guards. “Relieve them of their weapons and take them to their cells.”
“Why?” the Slave King demanded, his voice startling in his hoarseness, all the more so in his anger, now that he’d given up all pretense of being polite. Though I hadn’t missed that he’d addressed me as one monarch to another, with no honorific.
I raised my brows in inquiry, not playing into his hostile demand for answers.
“We came here in peace,” he said. “Is this the hospitality you offer all those who seek to meet with you?”
Tertulyn laughed, bitterness beneath it, and the sound echoed through court, though with more gaiety. Everyone had turned out to see this spectacle, eager to lay eyes on the Slave King and his retinue for themselves. This gossip would feed the parties for days, if not years.
The Slave King twitched, the wolf raising its hackles. I almost imagined a shaggy coat and fangs. I would not laugh at him, as I knew well what kind of beast I’d caged. A man who employed a wizard in his cause was no blundering feral.
“Peace?” I echoed. “Did you also go to Keiost in peace? And Irst and Hertaq? Perhaps you came in peace to countless other places before you tore down their walls, murdered their people, and pillaged their stores.”
“What do you know of it?” he challenged.
Truly I shouldn’t allow him to show me such disrespect, but I found his direct rudeness, the stark impact of his presence almost … exhilarating. For all that I knew well the danger he posed, I was fascinated—and fatally curious. How had he found a wizard when none had answered my calls all these years?
“Clearly I know more than you expected Me to,” I replied, having seen the surprise in his gaze, and in the woman’s. “Also, clear logic tells Me that you acquired your armies from somewhere. There can’t have been all that many of you who escaped from the mines at Vurgmun.”
The court whispered with excitement at this revelation, while a few people smugly nodded. I hadn’t expected the information to stay under wraps for long—and I hadn’t needed it to. Only long enough to wield against this man who presumed to lecture me on hospitality. He didn’t show a reaction to my words, but the woman did, her mouth thinning with some concern.