The Queen’s long fingers curled about their mug, each one heavy with rings of marble and crystal. The kyda crystals were gorgeous, each one of a different shade. Apricot and rose, cerulean and sage. They each had an iridescent sheen to them when they caught the sunlight, making them glitter like gems.
“While I have no direct proof on the matter,” they began, “I am almost certain Lord Morvir is here to determine where Ayador would stand should a war break out between Kalthos and the Library.”
The subtle changes in Allaster’s posture would have been lost on her weeks ago, but now Kasira saw the way he sat a little straighter and the muscles in his jaw tightened.
“And?” he asked.
Queen Sarren eyed him discerningly. “And it is not this queendom’s practice to immerse itself in foreign wars. We have long been a state of neutrality, a custom we wish to continue. We will not aid Kalthos, but I hope you can understand that, despite your help here today, nor can I pledge my people to the Library.”
“We just saved your life,” Kasira said incredulously. “This is how you repay us?”
The Queen raised their brow, and Allaster hissed warningly, “We are not in the habit of expecting reciprocation for doing ourjob.”
Kasira scowled back at him, and Allaster’s hackles rose further. “Perhaps you’d like to take a walk in the garden?” he ground out as diplomatically as he could. “Cool down from the stress of handling the Syovar.”
She glowered at him but set aside her coffee and swept from the room, more than happy to let him think she was still worked up from the fight. He would have been suspicious if she had refused toaccompany them or asked to leave, which meant she’d had to make him send her away, something that required little effort on her part.
Her body still felt tired and wrung out, but she had strength enough to return to the garden in search of Morvir, only to find it empty. How much of the palace could she search before Allaster found her absence strange?
She slowed beside the spot where the Syovar had been, the white marble singed. Though Syovars carried fire in their bellies, they couldn’t breathe it the way their cousins, the northern dragons, could. Still, as she knelt beside a scorch mark and ran her finger along the marble, the intensity of the leftover heat made her shiver.
Maybe it was her exhaustion, or perhaps her frustration distracting her, but she didn’t hear the boots behind her until it was too late.
A cloth fell over her head as her hands were wrenched painfully behind her, forcing her to drop the sword she’d managed to draw. She kicked back at her attacker, but they shifted aside, shoving her to her knees.
“Bind her hands tightly,” said Lord Morvir’s voice. “She’s ridden with magic.”
“Allas—” Her shout was cut off by a blow to the head. Dizziness overtook her, and she swayed in the grip of the person holding her. Another took her by the legs, and they hefted her from the ground. The world turned, nausea rising in her stomach as she swung precariously in their grip.
“It’s clear,” called a nervous voice, and she tried to focus on what that meant. Morvir and another person holding her, a third scouting ahead. Three, she could do. Anymore and—they released her, and she hit the ground hard. She rolled to get her feet under her, but a boot found her stomach, winding her.
A moment of distant muttered curses, and a door slammed. Then the hood was ripped from her head, taking a few strands of hair with it. She snarled up at Morvir’s smug face, her sword now hanging at his hip. At his back stood an even larger man. The third one was nowhere in sight, likely guarding the door from the hall.
She pushed herself up and back against a wall, the faint silver light from a balestone revealing a large storage room full of crates of fertilizer and shelves of gardening tools. She spotted a sharp-tipped spade propped up on the wall behind Morvir, but there was no way she could reach it before he stopped her. Something very close to panic surged high and tight in her chest, her awareness of the walls and the restriction of her hands only worsening it.
“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded. “I am Assistant Librarian Eirlana Corynth. You can’t just—”
Morvir laughed, the sound rough and grating. “I know Lady Eirlana, you thieving bitch. You are not her.”
Dread, cold and thick as oil, pooled in her stomach. She had thought he’d recognized her as Kasira, but it was Eirlana he knew. She had assumed the two wouldn’t be familiar with each other, but they must have crossed paths at some point.
“What have you done with the real Lady Eirlana?” Morvir snarled.
“Nothing,” she replied. “You’re mistaken.”
He backhanded her across the cheek. Her already fuzzy brain grew woollier, and she shook her head, but that only made it throb. She began to sink inward, the reflex to detach from her body too deeply ingrained. She was bound, trapped, each breath thinner than the last.
“If you lie to me again, I will start taking fingers.” The nobleman crouched before her and withdrew a blade from his belt. “Who are you, and what have you done with Lady Eirlana?”
Kasira forced herself to breathe, to focus on that blade. She had been in some pretty bad spots before, but few of them measured up to this. She was restrained, Allaster didn’t know she was in trouble, and Morvir was looking for a reason to hurt her. She could see it in the gleam of his eyes.
She blinked rapidly, trying to clear her blurry vision, then reached for the stream of magic, but it felt as shaky and unclear as the world around her. Her body screamed in protest, and Lord Morvir, seeming to realize she was trying something, grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her so hard her teeth cracked together.
“If you so much as try magic, I will gut you here and now,” he snarled.
The door opened a fraction, and Kasira’s heart leapt, but it was only the scout poking his head in to whisper, “They’re still talking.” He then retreated back into the hall.
Kasira seized the opportunity. “Allaster will come looking for me. We’re connected. He can find me anywhere.”
