Whose taste lingered on her tongue.
She hated it. She hated him.
“You will answer my questions, Aldric Hargrave,” she informed him, leaving no room to argue. “And you will answer them truthfully. Once I am satisfied, I will decide what is to be done with you.” A beat. “Agreed?”
“Agreed,” he rasped without pause as his gaze shuttered itself, unreadable once more.
Good.She no longer wished to know what he felt. Not about this. Not about her. Not about anything at all.
She just wanted thetruth.
Though the warmth of the hearth now lapped against her back, she barely felt it for the cold seeping into her bones when she asked, “Who gave you the blade?”
He answered immediately. “Edmund.”
“And where did he get it from?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.” Thinning his lips, he clarified, “I didn’t want to know.”
Fury caught flame inside her at his words. He didn’t want to know? “It was Arath, clearly,” she snarled, nearly spitting the words at him. “Where else would he come by such a thing?”
Aldric didn’t answer. He just clasped his hands in his lap and stared at her, as if waiting for her next question. The question she didn’t want to ask.
The question she had to ask.
“When?” she whispered, almost choking on that single syllable. “When did he give you the blade, Aldric?”
The Crow drew in a deep breath through his nose. He held that lungful of air for a single moment. And then he expelled, “On Nerina Reef.”
The room spun. Her stomach lurched.
Nerina Reef.Edmund had been allied with Arath even then.
If only she had known.
If onlyhehad told her.
If only she had not been blind enough to trust him—trustEdmund—trust any of them.
Mysai.She could have saved Mysai.
“Get out!” she shouted, the words ripping from her throat as she flung her arm toward the door. The door behind which their friends were waiting, probably able to hear their row. But she didn’t care.
Let them hear.
Let them all know that he was aliar.
That he was herenemy.
“I want yougone,” she continued, the words pouring from her like molten metal. She couldn’t have stopped them even if she had wanted to. “You march for Arlund tomorrow, Crow.”
He flinched at her use of his moniker. But she didn’t care. She just kept going. Kept shouting. Kept giving orders like the queen she was.
Like the queen she should have always been from the start.
“Uphold your end of the bargain and I will continue to hold up mine. I will win you back your throne. I will wrest it from Edmund’s cold, dead fingers for you simply so that you can sail across the Straight back to Drakmor and I never have to see you again.”
She could hear her own voice, sharp and cold, but it felt distant—echoing back at her as though spoken by someone else entirely. A woman made of marble. A queen carved from ice. But she wasn’t carved from ice. Not truly.
