“Thank you.” Yrsa shut the door. “You must leave.”
She rushed to the spot in the wall where Luccan had hidden a gateway. With a poke of a dagger to her finger, blood welled. Yrsa applied the blood, and the gateway opened, the light flooding the dark office. “Go, Father. They cannot find you or the queen here.”
Lord Riis strode to the gateway, Inga hanging from his arms. One step through, and he disappeared.
Geiravor followed the spymaster. Then the Virtoris siblings and Livia. But Thyra and I stayed put, staring at the trapdoor in the ceiling, willing our mates and friends to join us.
Where were they? Sváva was causing a ruckus out there, and they’d understand what it meant. Maybe they were holed up somewhere until it was safe to come here?
“You have togo,” Yrsa said to me and Thyra.
My heart squeezed. “Can you find them? Hide them?”
“I’ll do my best.”
I looked to Thyra, then the Valkyrja waiting for us to make the call.
“We can’t be caught,” Thyra said. “And they’re smart and strong enough to get themselves out of binds. Have done so a hundred times.”
She was trying to convince herself.
Outside the door, heavy footsteps sounded. Yrsa waved for us to move. “Go! I need to close the gateway after you!”
Torn between seeing my mate and friends and not wanting to harm Yrsa, I made a choice that didn’t sit right with me, and tugged on Thyra’s hand, leading her through the gateway. Light blinded me before I stepped out of the portal and into Lord Riis’s office in Myrr. Astril and Freyia followed, and the gateway closed. I swallowed, hoping that Yrsa would find the others.
“Nooooo!” A howl shattered my own worries and sent a shot of fire through me. Had someone followed us?
“Inga! Come back to me! Inga, please!” Lord Riis’s voice sounded little like him. Too desperate. Too agonized.
“What’s going on?” I asked Geiravor. She stood over her father, her stance stiff.
A cry of despair that would haunt me to my dying day rang out from Lord Riis as he clutched the queen to his chest, rocked her.
“What’s going on?” I asked again.
Geiravor raised her gaze to mine. “The queen stopped breathing.”
Interlude
PRINCE RHISTEL AABERG, HEIR TO WINTER’S REALM, HOUSE OF THE WHITE BEAR
The uneven steps creaked as, guided by a single faelight, the heir descended into the ship’s stowage. The glow caught first on the bastardborn’s red hair. His half-brother, thanks to the harlot who had opened her legs for a merchant.
Rhistel’s face twisted into a smirk thinking of his mother.
Not long after they placed Inga in the dungeons, they’d began dosing her with a potion that nullified her magic and stripped away her life, only to give the queen the antidote just in time to keep her alive. She’d missed the most recent antidote.
Those who had taken Inga would be wise to take her death as a sign—an omen—that any resistance, any fight they put up was futile. Especially now that Rhistel had the strongest and most respected warrior in the kingdom in his grasp. Any worries those in the army might have had would vanish once they witnessed Vale fight for House Aaberg once again.
His feet struck the bottom of the stairs, and Rhistel directed the faelight to the back, where he found them waiting asleep, bound, and propped up against barrels of water for the long journey.
“Wake up,” he demanded.
His twin twitched awake. The Riis bastard was slower, his head lifting slowly, his gaze fixing on the prince. Glazed eyes, the both of them. He’d have to fix that.
Rhistel reached out with his magic, twisting and tweaking the control he had over their minds. With slight adjustments, the glazed appearance vanished. The pair looked like normal traitors now.
“Stand up, Vale. Put your left hand on that barrel.”
