My forced smile eased my tension. “It’s nothing.”
He lifted one eyebrow along with his knife, the point directed toward Queen Davalon. “It’s everything if it makes you feel unsettled.”
I loved him for saying it. For meaning it. For knowing Iwouldn’t tell him, and still offering to slash through the world if I asked him to.
His gaze lingered. The way he watched me, ready to burn down kingdoms if I asked, made heat pool low in my belly despite our dangerous surroundings. My deadly, devoted shadow.
I focused on the room instead of the portrait, from the nobles eating their soup and dabbing their lips with napkins, to them murmuring to their neighbors. No one else seemed disturbed by anything.
Queen Naveer lifted her goblet and sipped as if her dead, possibly murdered, mother behind her wasn’t staring at me, trying to unravel me from the inside out.
The painted lips moved again, forming words that chilled my blood.
Come to me, child. We have much to discuss.
The whisper slithered directly into my mind, bypassing my ears. Around the table, dinner continued as if nothing had happened.
But I could feel her dead fingers already reaching for my soul.
Chapter 19
Reyla
The painted queen's whisper echoed in my mind.
“What did you just say?” My voice cut through the dinner conversation.
Across from me, a woman startled so violently her hand hit her wineglass, and it toppled, sending crimson liquid across the white tablecloth like spilled blood.
“Lady Hesta,” the queen chided, glaring in the flushed woman’s direction. She lifted her hand, and guards stomped across the room, surrounding the lady. They ripped her chair back, and while she shrieked and kicked, they dragged Lady Hesta from her seat and out of the room.
Silence descended, though only for a blink before low conversation and the clink of spoons tapping against glass bowls drifted through the room again.
Lore’s hand tightened around mine, and he glared at the door where they’d taken Lady Hesta.
Queen Naveer behaved as if nothing had happened, speaking with a man beside her.
“What did you do with Lady Hesta?” My words shot through the room, bringing the conversation and bowl clinks to a halt again.
Queen Naveer turned, her gaze settling on me. “Follow her, and you will not only find out, but you will also join her in her punishment.”
“Punishment?” My eyebrows lifted high enough to brush tendrils of hair dangling on my forehead. “She accidentally knocked over her wine. She didn’t stab her knife into the woman seated beside her.”
That woman stiffened but remained in her seat, looking down at her soup.
“She soiled the tablecloth,” Naveer drawled. “Surely you agree that she made a mess.”
“But she?—”
“Don’t do this,” Dorion whispered in my ear.
Biting back my anger, I jerked out a nod and swallowed.
“You’re quite right,” I said in a stilted voice.
Queen Naveer fed me a smile that didn’t reach her dark eyes. “I thought you’d agree.” She turned back to the man to continue her conversation.
The servants swept in again, removing our soup bowls, their expressions blank. They moved like they’d been choreographed, replacing the soup with the second course, a long, thin slice of fish draped in pink sauce and ringed with bright red seeds. Delicately placed strands of multi-colored vegetables lay beside the fish like seaweed washed up on a shore. The fishy scent overwhelmed me. I took one bite and set my fork back down.
