Veyka watched with unhidden satisfaction as he pulled the dagger from his leg, blood spurting. He swayed on his feet, and her smile deepened. Only when he’d placed the hilt of the dagger into her palm did she release his throat and step away. Lyrena immediately stepped into the space she’d left.
Veyka reached down to scoop up a handful of snow, using it to clean the blade, careful not to touch a single drop with her own fingers. As if the male’s blood was repellant. Beneath her.
She was much, much better at this game than she’d let on. Admiration kindled like a small flame in my chest. Veyka had a plan—one she had not judged me worthy of sharing. The warrior within me admired the caution. But the male, the one who longed to be close to her at a level deeper than consciousness, growled with disappointment.
Veyka slid the dagger into the jeweled scabbard at her waist—the one that matched my own. A Joining gift, I guessed. I had not asked and she had not offered an explanation. There were too many questions between us, and too many of them threatened to scrape over raw wounds.
Veyka opened her mouth, no doubt to parry some sassy comment that would equally inflame and enrage me.
But a voice boomed across the plain. From behind us. From the battlements.
They were no longer empty.
“Welcome to Castle Chariot, Your Majesties.”
55
VEYKA
Every single one of them wore amorite. The slimy snake shifter I’d wounded wore a torque around his neck. The whisper-thin female that stood on the other side of the throne was practically dripping with gems—they fell in ornate configurations from her ears, a three-tiered necklace at her throat, multiple sparkling rings. The lord’s circlet was studded with them, as was the prominent signet ring on his left hand.
But it was not just the ruling trio. The guards stationed around the perimeter of the throne room each wore matching metal torques, two large chunks of amorite on each end with a gap of maybe an inch of bare skin at the base of the throat.
A reference to the mines commanded by the residents of Castle Chariot, or something more?
Arran was at my side, rigid as we approached the throne at the end of the great hall. The layout of the castle was similar to Eilean Gayl, though built on a barren plain instead of an island in the middle of a lake. But the black walls around us were foreboding. They swallowed all the light. Not a single tapestry or banner hung to soften the effect. Arrayed around us were ourcompanions, though I counted no less than twenty guards, ten on each side. Plus the trio waiting on the throne.
It could not be described as anything else. And on it sat the lord that had appeared briefly on the battlements above the gatehouse, his booming voice projecting unnaturally across the field. I’d have thought he had a wind-wielder in his employ, except that most elementals thought their terrestrial counterparts little better than beasts. An elemental would never willingly serve a terrestrial. And terrestrials loathed elementals just as much. I could still taste the fear I’d felt in the moments after Isolde’s disappearance. A potent reminder as we faced this new foe.
“Welcome, Venerated Royal Majesties,” the male said, his voice only slightly modulated now that we were indoors. “I am Lord Palomides, keeper of Castle Chariot and Guardian of the Mines.”
Not the amorite mines. Justmines. It could mean nothing.
But I doubted that.
Everything about this male was calculated.
I looked him over slowly. So slow, there was no way to miss the insolence.
No, insolence was the wrong word. That implied a power dynamic that did not exist.
Palomides of the Mines might think he had the advantage here. But he had no idea what he was facing, no matter what stories he’d heard about the Queen of Secrets and her Brutal Prince.
“You will forgive me, Palomides,” I drawled, tilting my chin so the braid across my forehead fell back, and my ears were fully visible. He was not the only one dripping in amorite. “In Baylaur, it is customary for vassals to bow before the High Queen.”
He did not move.
Arran did—so slightly, that I was certain I was the only one who had noted it. Palomides had chosen to fixate on me. Under other circumstances, I would have been pleased to be perceived as the bigger threat. Now it made me wonder—what rumors were spreading across Annwyn about Arran? Surely no one knew the details of his injury, but that he’d been parted from his queen and mate… those would be impossible to quell.
The ramifications difficult to predict.
Just like my mate.
He did not reach for the battle axe at his belt. There was no need.
The growl filled the hall, so deep at first that I felt it before I heard it. A slight reverberation, building with each second, until it thrummed in my eardrums. Not just for me, this time, but for everyone. The guards lining the walls shifted on their feet.
It filled the space around us until it felt like the force of Arran’s power had sucked all of the air from the room.
