“Which is why she is not going to do it,” Percival said sharply.
Diana tugged her hand from his. “You are not my master. No one is.”
Wrong. She was held at the mercy of Veyka, me, and an entire castle of terrestrials. An untrained human, she had no defense here. My beast would snap her neck in a second.
But I was not thinking about Diana.
Lost in the void without the tether of a mate.
Veyka’s power… was it tied to me?
I stared at my mate, but she did not look back. She was watching Diana struggle to draw in breath after ragged breath. The wine was forgotten. So was the dagger. Veyka’s hand was flat against the tabletop, and I could hardly tell if she was breathing.
“He,” Diana breathed, looking straight at her brother. “Gorlois forced me. Before that, I was bound to the Lady of the Lake. Even you, shouting at me through the communication crystals whenever Gorlois was not speaking to Baylaur, were always telling me what to do. I can choose for myself. I can choose this.”
Cyara’s wings fluttered. Her hand was pale against Diana’s bare arm as she offered comfort.
But Veyka’s voice sliced through the room. A cold, frozen thing sharper than any blade. “There is a communication crystal in Baylaur?”
80
VEYKA
My soul was a void of roaring darkness. I was the void. There was no slipping into it, no traveling through it. It was part of me. Had always been there in the darkest corners of myself, waiting to be awakened.
“Who?” I asked, in a voice that I hardly recognized as my own.
Diana was trembling again. “I do not know. He never told me.”
Percival jerked his head to the side, gnashing his teeth in threat. As if he, feeble human, was any match to the darkness inside of me.
I stood, but I did not feel the ground. “The Dowager. It has to be.”
“Veyka,” Lyrena said slowly. “We knew she was involved with Gorlois. You said as much in the letter you sent to Gwen.”
Veyka.
Arran’s beast, brushing against my consciousness, trying to steady me. He did not know, not this Arran. He could sense my distress, but he did notknow.
I did not bother to walk. Why, when I was the void?
A heartbeat, and I was back in the bedroom, pulling the crystal from the travel pack that Cyara had not finished unpacking. Another, and I was back.
I must have said the incantation, for the communication crystal began to glow. But I did not hear it, even as the words passed my own lips.
“Answer me,” I commanded. Yelled. Not begged. I was not begging. “Answer me, you heartless bitch!” I screamed at the crystal. “Answer me!”
My cheeks were not wet. I was not crying.
The crystal did not glow again.
“Gwen may have received your letter by now. Igraine could very well be under arrest, in the dungeons or her quarters. Gwen may even be in possession of the crystal,” Lyrena said gently. So gently. Because I was broken, breaking. And those were tears.
I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “Guinevere. Gwen, your queen commands that you answer.”
No response came from Baylaur or anywhere else.
Veyka.
