“It would behoove you to reconsider before you speak,” slithered a voice from around a corner that never failed to chill my blood by several degrees.“Or you may find yourself quickly relieved of your wagging tongue.”
Rafaela Eudova, who was mother queen consort of Zaraga last time I saw her, and who appeared to be every bit the queen still, sauntered onto the second story landing with a goblin, face flushed blood-green, at her heels.
I’d heard the goblin’s approach but not hers, and my hearing was as sharp as my eyesight.
She padded silently down one spiraling staircase like a large jungle sneakle, all purposeful, graceful movements, all rippling raw power.
The scouting calm before the strike.
My mother was as captivating and commanding as ever.Her astute eyes roved quickly over the parvnit, guards, and goblin before landing on me.The woman whoneverfaltered—whom I’d not once seen flustered or even surprised—stumbled sideways to clutch the railing, her other hand pressed to her chest.Her eyes … those eyes that always seemed to reveal my every vulnerability … bore into mine.
Chapter10
You Will Never Have Authority Over Me
The goblin attending my mother rushed to her side.In the instant it took the goblin to reach her, Rafaela had already composed herself, and stood strong.
The goblin didn’t dare touch her.It was as if I’d imagined that moment of unpreparedness.
Not one of Rafaela’s hairs had escaped its plait, a braided circlet atop which she wore no crown.
She wore … no crown.
Fuuuuuuuck.Not good.So not good.
Rafaela always, always,alwayswore her crown.Teo and I used to joke that she probably slept with it on, but we weren’t reckless enough to creep into her bedchamber while she was sleeping to check.
Cosette’s beady little eyes flickered curiously over me as my mother descended the stairs, a fierce stare on me the whole time.
“Move,” she commanded the two guards standing between us without glancing at them.
Like Alonso, she’d been raised a royal.But where he’d been an heir to his throne, she wasn’t heir to hers.
Didn’t mean she wasn’t every bit the monarch he was.
Whether the guards recognized who she was orwhatshe was, they didn’t look to Cosette for approval before sliding out of Rafaela’s way.Nor did she have to ask Arno and the other who stood beside me to give us space either, though Arno didn’t shuffle off as far as his fellow guard did.
Those behind me took a giant step backward.
Only Cosette remained in swatting range, along with the white-haired goblin with the satchel.
Directly across from me, so close we could embrace, Rafaela only stared.
“I … I can scarcely believe it … here you are.”
She dragged just her fingertips along my bare arms as if she, as much as the white-haired goblin, feared I was an apparition.Her butterfly-light touch sent a shudder racing down my spine.
“How are you here?”
“I was captured and imprisoned.”I glared at Cosette.“By her.”
Only after I said it did I realize the explanation applied to two different, relevant scenarios.
The irony was a swift kick in the ass from my old frenemy, the cage.
Rafaela’s head swiveled toward Cosette.“You will release her at once.”
The parvnit, who evidently had a death wish, chuckled breezily.“Of course I’m not going to do that.She’s myprisoner.She’s amurderess.”
