Page 56 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers

I breathe in deep, my mouth watering sickeningly at the taste of roses.

I sense the prince’s cold eyes lingering on my skin, and my gaze snaps back to his. I smooth my face into a mask of calm and try to mirror the infuriating nothingness that Wolf probably came out of the womb mastering.

The High King points a gnarled finger at the line of us, letting it roam tauntingly. A thin sheen clings to the skin above his lips. He settles back into his throne, head tilting too far to look entirely natural, and narrows his eyes.

My heart hammers.

His crooked finger stops on the girl who barely looks old enough to be named an heir. The one who risked a smile at me, behind her grandmother’s back. Even though I know I should hate her, that she’d probably kill me the second she had to, something in me softens.

“Show us what skills make you worthy of our throne,” the High Queen orders then, and I’m not the only one who stiffens. Murmurs go up from the crowd—

She didn’t saythisthrone. Orthe High King’s throne.

She saidourthrone.

As though she—aCymrean—has a claim to any part of our isle.

The girl—Caitria—casts a frantic look over her shoulder to the older woman.

On the dais, the prince’s expression is cold—bored, even.

Finn’s familiar voice fills my mind.

Hesitate and die.

Caitria chokes, her throat working. “I… I don’t have any special skills.” Her voice cracks, her wild gaze flying back to her grandmother. “You said all I had to do was—”

From the crowd behind us, a single figure steps forward. Clad in a sweeping cloak of crimson so dark it blends into the shadows, the figure moves in an unimaginably fast blur and slashes a ser-rated knife across the young girl’s throat.

Caitria’s scream sputters.

Blood sprays out in a violent burst, streaking over the marble floors and slashing across the High King’s booted feet, curled up on his throne. He laughs, trails one finger through the blood on his toes.

The Lady of Shadows.

Ice runs through my veins.

The royal spymaster. The only name we whisper in the streets with as much fear as the High King’s.

She’s here.

The prince doesn’t show so much as a crack in his icy exterior as grim silence stretches over the crowd. His navy eyes find mine and freeze me in my place before moving back dispassionately to the first victim of the Assay.

The High Queen taps her heavy golden rings on the throne and nods to the crimson-cloaked figure. The hood is drawn up over her head, but the hint of a sharp red smile is clear as she lets go of Caitria’s small body and melts back into the crowd. The girl falls in a sickening smack, blood spilling in a pool over the floor in front of us.

None of us move.

Not even as the tendrils reach my toes, and I feel the hot dampness seep into my soles.

“Rulers do not get the luxury of preparations.” The High Queen rises, pale eyes merciless. “If you are not ready to adapt to each new threat at a moment’s notice, your throne will crumble from under you. Hesitation risks more than your life. It risks the entire realm.”

Her glare darkens. “And a queen who cannot adapt is a queen we cannot allow.”

I can only imagine the way the crowd must look behind me—eyes darting, shared warnings in the flashing of glances or tiny shakes of the head.

A new brush of fear fights to sneak in through any weak spot it can find in my armor.

I fight it back, inch by mental inch.