The tree was the prison. This was where the other Sellas had come from—and there were still more emerging.
“My, how terrified you look,” Razel mused. “I’d almost forgotten how much I enjoyed it.”
My throat had gone dry, my hand seeking my bow. The clearing was big enough for Res to take flight, but escaping would mean leaving Ericen behind to die.
I looked at the prince, his dark hair casting shadows along his face. In sleep, he looked peaceful in a way he never did when he was awake. As if this were the only time he could bring himself to let down his guard.
In sleep and around me.
Ericen was my friend. With the way my heart beat wildly against the idea of leaving him behind, I knew he might be more. Even without that, we needed him. He had vital information on Illucian battle tactics and insights into his mother’s mind the rest of us didn’t.
I wouldn’t leave him.
“You really do have a bad habit of trusting people you shouldn’t,” Razel said with a smile.
I shivered. I’d forgotten how cold that smile could make me feel. How much I hated it.
She looked as comfortable as a queen at court, as if she already owned these woods and the people in it. As if she already owned me.
Her eyes alighted on Res, a hungry, possessive look filling them. “You want to save everyone, and in the end, it’s what will get you killed.” She stepped aside, revealing a ragged-looking man, a scowl on his cracked lips.
Onis.
I stared at the crewman, my mind turning and turning and turning. We’d left him on Samra’s ship. How—?
“That rebel filth’s crew is dead.” Razel’s words struck my thoughts still. “All save this one, who told me a very interesting story.”
Everything inside me went cold. “No,” I whispered, as if that simple word could change the past. They were gone, all of them. Talon, with his joyous laugh. Darya, whose warm voice wove worlds. Luan, who’d saved Kiva’s life.
“I’ve known about the Jin forces gathering outside of Shalron for weeks, but I was content to let them play at rebellion for now. Until Onis told me about the alliance forming against me.” Indignation hardened her words, as if the idea of her conquered people turning against her offended her as much as it infuriated her. She smiled her knifelike smile. “By now, the contingent of soldiers I sent to Ira should have killed every last rebel.”
Pure horror twisted my gut, and I backed into Res’s chest, the urge to run from what she’d said, from what was happening nearly overwhelming me. This couldn’t be true. The Jin forces dead?
“And the most interesting story of all?” The queen ran a finger along the length of one moonblade handle. “That rather than turn my traitorous son aside, rather than kill him as you should have, you kept him with you. You advocated for him. You even seemed to care about him.”
“You promised me a reward,” Onis growled, laying his hand on the queen’s shoulder.
She stilled. My warning died in my throat as Razel spun, freeing a moonblade from her back and slashing it across Onis’s throat in one smooth movement.
He gaped, hands clutching at his neck, trying to stem the flow of blood. But it ran through his fingers in rivulets of red, streaming down his chest and arms and staining the grass a dark, muddy brown. The gurgling noises scratching from his ravaged throat made me gag, and I turned my face away as he collapsed into the earth.
“I won’t come with you,” I said.
She laughed, the sound as cutting as I remembered. “Tell me, what progress have you made with your crow? How fast can his winds push aside a glass arrow?”
One of her archers aimed a translucent arrow at Res’s chest.
“I can make more of him. All I need is you.”
On reflex, my bow was in my hand, an arrow nocked and aimed at the archer’s chest. “Move, and I’ll put an arrow in your heart,” I warned. But it was pointless. The archer didn’t even blink. She would die if it was required of her, and Razel would let her. And that still left the second one.
Be ready to armor up, I warned Res.
“She is meant to be ours,” Valis said in a low voice.
The humor turned to ice in Razel’s eyes. “And she will be, when I’m finished with her. We had a deal.”
“Our deal had an expiration.”
