His hands had been behind his back and his head cocked slightly to the side.
He’d done the exact same thing, standing in her room, when he said he’d hit his knuckles on a wall. Gods. How had she never noticed that before?
And in that moment, she began to doubt everything Dornar had said and done.
Her mind ran with a riot of questions. If Mathos wasn’t on the road to Kaerlud, then where was he? And how was Cerdic involved? Could the tears on his knuckles be caused by punching someone? Maybe someone who had scales? Gods.
She let her breath out slowly, concentrating on keeping her face blank, desperately hoping that they wouldn’t realize that she didn’t believe them.
And there was something she still wanted to resolve. She turned to Dornar. “Thank you for the wine you sent up, Lord High Chancellor.”
He raised his eyebrows curiously. “What wine?”
She kept her voice even as she replied, “The wine and berries that the sergeant brought for me.”
“I never sent any.” Dornar gave a small shrug. “Your Majesty, you’ve been overwhelmed and exhausted. It’s perfectly understandable that you’re confused. But I never sent anything. You went up to your room and didn’t come back down. I simply assigned guards and left you to rest—as I imagined you wanted.”
She shook her head vehemently. “No, I’m not confused. It’s in my room right now.”
Dornar’s frown returned. “We have to investigate this immediately. If someone was able to reach you….” He turned and marched up the stairs with Lucilla and Cerdic following behind him, the other soldiers watching curiously from their place near the fire.
Within a minute they were back in her room. It was exactly as she’d left it—the single candle burning on the side table, curtains open to the small, dark window, her trunks and satchels lying beside the bed. But no tray. No wine. No half-empty crystal glass.
She reached out and ran her hand over the empty table. “It was right here.”
“If you say so, Your Majesty.” The disbelief dripped from his voice.
She firmed her spine. “It was. I know it was. Someone must have come in and taken it.”
Dornar nodded slowly. “In that case, I think we had better assign more guards. From now on, you will have a quad with you at all times. Sergeant Cerdic, you may lead, but you report directly to me.”
Gods. The last thing she wanted was four guards with her, watching her, at all times, especially guards led by Cerdic. She gave as gracious a smile as she could manage. “Thank you for your concern, but that won’t be necessary.”
“Your Majesty, I must insist. As Lord High Chancellor, I am also the Commander of the Blues, and it is my duty and my honor to deploy the guards. I simply have no alternative but to take any necessary steps to ensure your safety.”
“But I don’t want a quad of guards following me everywhere.”
Dornar reached out to pat her shoulder. “Of course you do. How do you think your guards would feel if something happened to you because they didn’t have enough men to keep you safe? How would you feel if your guards were hurt, or even killed, because they were outnumbered?”
“I… uh….”
“There, you see. This is for the best.” Dornar looked down at her and smiled. His smile was warm, understanding even, and she imagined he thought it was reassuring. But it didn’t reassure her at all.
Chapter Ten
Mathos shivered relentlesslyin the darkness of the freezing burial mound. Even his scales couldn’t keep the chill from settling deep in his bones.
The bleeding from his shoulder seemed to have slowed, but it was still oozing, and his fingers were tingling and aching as the initial agony settled into a relentless, inescapable torment.
This was what it felt like to be an insect pinned to a card. An interesting specimen to investigate and then discard.
Don’t fucking think about insects.
It was too late. His skin crawled as he imagined scuttling feet and slithering bodies churning around him in the total darkness. Nasty crawling beetles with little skittering legs and eggs to lay. Spiders with clinging webs and vicious bites…. He heard a quiet scrape.
His head filled with images of ancient bones in tattered rags scratching their way free of their stony niches. Their claw-like hands reaching—
Fucking stop it!
