“I don’t know if we have it. He could have kept it on him when we joined the hunters.”
Cora started off toward the horses. “He put it back. I saw him.”
Teryn blinked a few times, only realizing now just how unsettling it was that she’d been watching them the entire time. He followed after her and approached the horses. Berol launched from her branch and landed on Quinne’s saddle. She nestled down as if to sleep but peeped an eye open to watch Cora step up beside Helios’ horse. The mare was named Hara, if he remembered correctly. She was sleek and black, larger than Quinne. Cora opened a saddlebag while Teryn went to the one on the opposite side. Hara paid them no heed, for she clearly had a much better temperament than her former master. Teryn glanced over the saddle and realized Cora had to stand on her toes to get a look inside the bags. Meanwhile, his height provided him a clear view of the bag’s contents—several knives, flasks, waterskins, leather pouches of dried meat, articles of clothing. He moved the items around until he found a stack of folded papers.
He took them out and smoothed out the top sheet, angling it so that the fire illuminated it. It was a map of the lower half of Risa, its main focus on the three kingdoms that comprised the land once known as Lela—Khero, Menah, and Selay. The forested areas were marked with either anXor a circle. Most of theXs were written over the southernmost parts of Selay and Menah, with only a circle or two drawn over their northern forests. Within each circle was a number. The ones in Selay and Menah bore ones or twos. Meanwhile, the circles drawn over the forests in Khero were marked with numbers in double digits. Could it possibly be the number of unicorns found in each region?
His eyes moved to northeastern Khero, which was the part of the map that hosted the most notations. There he found marks dividing the forests into regions, with a name next to each. These regions were contained to a radius around Ridine Castle. This must have been thespecific areaHelios had spoken of. Teryn sought out his current location. They were in northeastern Khero near the southernmost region noted on the map. There he found the wordHammond. Just northwest of there was the wordDrass. Teryn remembered that name. That was whose hunting party Helios had pretended they’d come from when Gringe had questioned them.
Teryn gritted his teeth, his anger over Helios’ refusal to share intel still sharp, even after the man’s demise. What else had he been hiding? He moved the map to the back of the stack and studied the next paper.
His breath caught in his throat.
Two dark eyes stared back at him, keen, fierce, and intelligent.
He knew those eyes. They’d watched him from the other side of the fire mere moments ago.
Now they watched him from under the wordWanted.
No wonder Cora had looked familiar when he’d met her on the other side of her blade. It was because he’d seen her before, studied her likeness on the poster he’d found on his father’s desk.
It made sense now why Cora was so well versed in poison. How she’d killed six men without batting an eye.
His gaze dipped to the bottom of the poster, even though he already knew what it would say.For the murders of Queen Linette and Princess Aveline.
He swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry. When he’d first seen the poster, he hadn’t given the murders much thought, but he remembered the deaths. Remembered how the people mourned, even in his own kingdom. The killer had left no sign of a wound on either body. Poison, it was deemed, but other theories circulated, spoken only in whispers.
A witch, they’d said. A young serving girl who’d dabbled in the dark arts and held a grudge against her royal masters. The queen was known to have been with child when she died, while the princess…
Teryn’s chest felt tight. Princess Aveline had only been a young girl. He’d met her once when they’d both been children. Back when their kingdoms were friendly. Before her parents died in the plague that swept the continent for the better part of a year. At six years old, she’d been brave. Charming. Full of life and wit and beauty. She’d been his very first crush for all of the two weeks she’d spent as a guest at Dermaine Palace with her parents. She’d hardly looked his way the entire time, and yet he’d blushed and hid behind his mother’s skirts whenever she was in the room. Teryn had almost forgotten. Now that he remembered, his heart plummeted with grief.
He stole a glance at Cora, her brows knitted as she read the parchment in her hands, oblivious of the truth he’d discovered.
He may not have learned much about her, but he now knew one thing. She’d killed Princess Aveline Caelan.
His eyes slid back to the poster and settled on the next words.
Reward: 500,000 goldsovas.
26
Teryn didn’t seem to notice Cora’s approach, even as she paused before him. He was too entranced by whatever he was reading. “You were right, it’s a forgery,” she said of the writ she’d found. The seal was almost an exact replica of Duke Morkai’s crescent moon, but the wordCalloway—the name of Morkai’s duchy—was in the wrong script.
Teryn startled at the sound of her voice. He met her eyes over his stack of papers, his face a shade too pale. She opened her senses and felt his spike of alarm seep into her. But it wasn’t her sudden appearance that had him so rattled. It had more to do with whatever he was looking at. She furrowed her brow. “What did you find?”
He went to hand her the top paper but ended up dropping the bottom of the stack. She bent to gather the loose papers before they could get soaked by the dewy grass. When she stood, he handed her one of the sheets. “You’ll want to see this.”
She took it from him and saw it was a map. Her heart sank deeper and deeper the longer she studied it. If the markings represented what she thought they did, there were several more hunting parties. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. She’d begun to suspect as much when she’d witnessed Gringe interrogating Teryn and his companions. He’d too readily accepted that they’d come from another company of unicorn hunters. Sure enough,Drasswas labeled over the Cambron Pass, just as she’d heard Helios say.
Her lungs felt tight as she took a few steps back, slumping against the tree that met her back. “This is so much worse,” she whispered.
“Do you intend to hunt all of them down? To…poison them?” She felt his judgment then, his condemnation of her actions.
She met his eyes. “If you have something to say, say it. You insisted they were no friends of yours.”
He watched her for a few moments before averting his gaze, eyes unfocused. “No, they weren’t. Nor were they good men. Still…it was a bit reckless, don’t you think?”
“It worked.”
