The goddess’s smile lost its sweetness. All that was left was a biting edge, showing too many teeth, and everything about it had Quentin’s instincts screamingdanger.
He glanced sharply at the group of pirates. Darius’s face had leeched of color, eyes wide as they bounced between Krilene, Quentin, and his father.
Varyn simply stood deathly still, as if he were one of the pillars towering in the great temple room.
“Quentin of Verith.” Krilene’s voice rang out, filled once again with her wild, fluidic power. “I knew who you were the moment you set sail upon the seas. It is why I brought you here.Why I sank your ship and sent Darius to fetch you from the wreckage.
“You are the second-born bastard son of Varyn Draethos. By the laws of the sea, you may challenge your father at a time of your choosing, but before the year has turned, to claim all his rights, titles, and assets. It is either that, or your death.” Krilene’s eyes flashed with magic, shifting for a moment into a dragon’s slits.
“Welcome to the family.”
Chapter 90
Birch tree branches snapped in Ciana’s face. The underbrush tore at her already ruined skirts, ashes and fallen leaves crunching beneath her slippered feet.
Seeing Andrian there, free and fighting with Mariah, had been a shock. She didn’t know the name of the young priestess who’d beckoned her into the woods. The girl’s dark hair was long and unbound around her shoulders, her features aristocratic in a way that told Ciana she was more than a common-born priestess. And the way Sebastian and Andrian had recognized her piqued Ciana’s curiosity.
That was, if she weren’t hurtling away from a battlefield with a squadron of bloodthirstymudaeon her heels.
Leaving Sebastian there to face the onslaught tore a piece of her heart from her chest. Why must the Armature all be so self-sacrificing?
Yet she couldn’t ask him to run away with her. Though it shredded a piece of herself—and a piece of him, too—he was duty-bound to Mariah. More than that. His very soul was bridged with their queen’s; leaving her to fight a battle on her own would kill something even deeper in him than his heart.
So, when he’d told Ciana to go with the priestess andrun, she’d listened.
The priestess glanced over her shoulder, her honey-brown eyes wide but hardened. “Hurry, my lady.”
Ciana ducked beneath a low-hanging branch. “Iam?—”
They broke past a particularly thick cluster of underbrush, ivy snagging on the frayed edges of her dress. Laying on the ground, hidden by the thick foliage, was a crumpled figure in crisp white robes.
A figure with graying blonde hair and a recognizable, hateful face.
Ciana froze in her tracks, shock catching in her chest.
“Wait—is that?—?”
She didn’t need to finish the question. She knew the crumpled figure was Ksee, Qhohena’s former High Priestess. Her heartbeat thudded in her chest as her gaze landed on the small silver dagger embedded in her neck, at the dark blood staining the forest floor.
At the same dark blood splattering the priestess’s dirty white robes.
A hand gripped Ciana’s arm. “My lady.”
Caution rose in Ciana like a tide, the ring on her pinky burning. The priestess hesitated, glancing between Ciana and Ksee’s body.
“It was the only way I could escape,” the priestess whispered. A haze ghosted across her pretty eyes. “She asked me to burn Mariah. I refused.”
Ciana blinked. Some of her caution settled. If she’d been in the priestess’s shoes, would she really have done anything different? “Good riddance to the bitch, then.”
The specter of a smile touched the priestess’s lips. Amudae’ssharp scream pierced the still air, snapping both their attentions up. The priestess’s expression returned to one of grimresolution. “We have to go. Now. I know a place we can hide in the square and wait out the battle.” She tugged on Ciana’s arm.
Ciana hesitated. “But Sebastian said we needed to run deep into the woods. Try to vanish in the trees.”
Anniliese shook her head. “No. Kol’s army may be traveling along Xara’s Road to Verith, but he keeps his legion ofmudaeclose. They’re nesting deep in the woods. If we head in that direction, we run the risk of finding much more than just the few squadrons Kol’s called here today.”
Ciana blanched. Moremudae? “Why doesn’t he just call them all here now?”
“Arrogance? I don’t try to understand the decisions he makes. Only someone as mad as him could make any sense of it.”
