The group rode out of the forest and into the city with the purposeful clip of a goal dangling just before their eyes.
Mather took a step forward, watching them vanish into the multicolored buildings.
“My lord?” Hollis questioned.
“What would a noblewoman need with a group of soldiers that large?” Mather wondered.
Trace grunted. “Nothing good.”
“Exactly,” Mather agreed, and pushed into the street, following the group. No one questioned why he chose to go after the soldiers rather than enter the palace, and honestly, the only excuse he could think of was that the knot in his gut compelled him on. So many men, led by a woman who, despite her Ventrallan mask, emanated an air of malice—nothing good could come from this at all.
And he knew Meira well enough to realize that she would most likely be wherever the bad things were happening.
They kept a few blocks between themselves and the soldiers as they moved deeper into Rintiero. The sun beat dying tendrils of heat onto them, evening creeping in, their shadows toying with giving them away. Mather pulled the Thaw back, dropping as far behind as he could without losing the contingent.
So when the confrontation finally happened, Mather and the Thaw only reached the square as the Summer king’s body fell, the conduit on his wrist proclaiming his status to all around.
“Damn it,” Mather cursed, yanking Phil into the shadows of the alley that had almost dumped them into the fray. The rest of the Thaw crowded behind them in the darkness.
The noblewoman, whose threatening speech gave herself away as the Ventrallan queen, turned to a Summerian girl, immobile with shock, her eyes on the king’s crooked neck. Mather didn’t hear whatever the queen said to her, blood pounding in his ears as he gaped at the body on the cobblestones.
The Ventrallan queen had snapped the Summerian king’s neck somehow. Without remorse, by the way she lorded it over the girl now.
Dread rushed up Mather’s body and he turned to stone, one arm still pinning Phil to the wall beside him.
If the Ventrallan queen had killed the Summerian king . . .
What had she done to Meira?
Mather’s eyes shot around the square, but no other bodies lay there. What about the palace? They needed to go back. Was this some kind of coup on the Ventrallan queen’s part, or was the king also involved? Did he have Meira—was he tormenting her the same way this queen tormentedthe Summerian girl?
The dread in Mather’s body caught fire, burned cold and hot all at once as he spun back up the alley. He couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear anything, just the thumping of his heart pushing images into his mind of Meira’s body lying in these too-pretty streets—
“Mather!” Phil grabbed his arm, but no, there was nothing else in this city, nothing else in this world, just him and Meira and hewould find her—
“Mather!”Phil snapped. “Look!”
Phil whirled him around just as a projectile caught his eye, something flat and circular cutting a line from the Ventrallan queen to a roof across the square. The queen roared outrage and grabbed her shoulder, glaring at the object.
Mather lurched forward.
It was achakram.
He noted the building it came from and every tightly wound muscle sprang into action.
“Follow me,” he said, and shoved back into the alley, sprinting around buildings, cutting up side streets, making a haphazard path around the square toward the building from where the chakram had come. Adrenaline numbed everything but the barest, most instinctual thoughts—Soldiers were climbing up the building, gaining on her, but only five, easily dispatched; were those swords clashing? The queen must have turned onthe rest of the Summerians—
A shadow flashed over him, yanking his attention to the sky. A few more shadows followed, soldiers in pursuit, and Mather jerked to a stop.
“Trace, get to the next roof—you’ll be our ranged weapon. Everyone else, go up the south side of the building—quiet, though. Surprise is all we have.”
They dove into action, and just as Mather leapt for a window ledge on the building, something dropped off the roof and clattered to the road.
Meira’s chakram.
He plopped back onto the cobblestones, swept it up, and scurried up the building with renewed force. She was up there—she was alive.
Frigid ice above, he hadn’t realized how horrified he’d been until he felt the relief those words brought: like fresh air chasing away the rankness of a battlefield, like the cooling respite of herbs healing the agony of a wound.
