Cosette must genuinely not know of my mother’s reputation, because she went nowhere.
Finally, Rafaela addressed the white-haired goblin, who clutched his satchel tightly.“You found her?”
“Yes, Drakess.The prison curera is a third cousin.After she attended the princess, she shared with the network.”
The goblin network, the most reliable spy system within Zaraga.
The goblin bowed low.“If you’ll forgive me, Drakess.I didn’t want to inform you of my suspicions before I was certain.I claimed the authority of the drake to divert her here.”
Cosette gasped.
Rafaela said, “Thank you, Rodrigo.”Rodrigo?“You’ve done well.Now go find Alonso and tell him to meet me at once in my chambers.”
“Yes, Drakess.And shall I inform him of the reason?”
“No.I’ll surprise him.”
Rodrigo was Marina’s cousin.When I last saw him, to my memory just days earlier, his body had been strong and straight as an arrow.His hair had been black as night.His feet had been covered in scales that shone bright as a flame’s orange.
The goblins dispersed.Only the parvnit didn’t take a hint—or a mercy—and remained when Rafaela folded me into her arms and held me close to her bosom.
Her heart beat steadily against mine, my own seeking to align with the only mother I’d ever truly known.
The last and only time she held me like this, I was eleven, freshly plucked from a fighting pit I barely survived—only for she herself to kill me less than a day later.
Chapter11
Let the Father Battle the Daughter’s Fear
Rafaela and I climbed halfway up the spiraling staircase before she spun—quick, like the foxlike feethle—and bared fangs down at Cosette, who buzzed at our backs like a circling insect about to bite.
“Let me make this as plain to you as possible.Stay away, or I will make you.And if I don’t, Soravelle will, and she won’t hesitate.”
Cosette flicked a grapeseed-sized glare between me and my mother.
Rafaela stalked down a step so they were face to face.Such a strange sight, when Cosette was barely taller than Rafaela’s perfect, never-been-broken nose.
“I’ve waited to get my daughter back for so long that I lost hope I’d ever see her again.There is absolutely no chance I will allow you to take her away from me.”
Cosette harrumphed.“I’ll involve the emperor’s office?—”
“Do that.I’m eager to inform my good friend Junot how his ‘investigatory soldier’ is preventing a distraught and grieving mother from reuniting with her daughter.”
I almost snorted at the incongruousdistraught motherpicture Rafaela was painting.But just the scant minutes in her company were sufficient to bolster my self-control.
The woman was as much a cunning, opportunistic predator as thesängmortaránspider.Though smaller than my thumbnail, the sängmortarán was the deadliest of its kind in all the Opalese World.Its venom killed instantly.There were no known antivenom, since none could act quickly enough.
All the sängmortarán had to do was spin its web … and wait.When it finally struck, its meal received no second chances.
Rafaela had already given Cosette more chances than I’d ever known her to give anyone.
Stepping onto the second-floor landing, I glanced back.Cosette was finally gone.
My shoulders relaxed a smidgen.
“Parvnits are such pests,” Rafaela said, turning in the direction of her and Alonso’s chambers.
With my dirty, bare feet so out of place amid the shiny, iridescent marble flooring, I followed.
