Page 83 of Threaded

“You are the queen apparent?”

Mariah nodded, slowly.

Without further hesitation, both women sank to their knees in a low bow, dipping their heads.

“Oh, no, wait—please stand,” Mariah said, laughing softly and nervously. “There’s no need for that. Not here.”

Both women looked back up to her and silently rose to their feet. Mariah was glad she didn’t need to explain herself any further. The picture of these strange foreign women kneeling before her … it sent her pulse racing, her ears ringing.

She didn’t deserve that. Queen apparents weren’t terrified of their own castles. Didn’t hide from their own rooms.

“Our sincerest apologies, Your Majesty. We should’ve recognized you.”

“No. You wouldn’t have.” Mariah let a soft smile touch her lips, pushing down the panic trying to rear its ugly head. “So…you were invited to the palace.” They nodded.

A sudden wave of curiosity made it too hard for Mariah not to ask her next question. She had to know.

“What’s it like? In Kreah?”

The two women shared a quick, confused glance, a touch of amusement in their eyes. “That is … quite a question, Your Majesty. We only arrived in Onita recently, but we can say that Kreah is very different. Magnificent, but in the way only a desert can be.”

It was at that moment Mariah realized just howlittleshe knew of her world.

“Do you have magic? Is it … is it the way we have magic andallumehere in Onita?.”

The sisters stared at Mariah for a long moment, several heartbeats passing without a word.

Finally, the sister with brown eyes answered.

“Yes, we have magic. But it is not the substance you callallume. Our blessings are something else, entirely. Perhaps, one day, you might visit our home country and see. We think there is much that we could teach each other.” Her eyes darted to Mariah’s hands, where her magic still pooled, the skin of her palms glowing faintly with both silver and gold. Mariah glanced down and saw the light flooding from her fingertips, quickly spinning back those threads into herself. “And, perhaps, once you ascend your throne, you might be able to use those teachings. Make some changes in your own kingdom.”

Mariah looked back at the two women in front of her, their words making her mind whirl. She’d felt like such a pretender recently, hardly ever allowing herself to dwell on the future waiting for her. The reminder was sharp, but … it woke something in her. Forced a shift in Mariah’s soul she hadn’t known she’d needed.

Mariah decided, instantly, that she liked these strangers from Kreah.

“Yes. Perhaps, one day, I will.”

They both smiled. “Good. Now, Your Majesty, if you would please excuse us; we have an engagement we must attend.”

Mariah dipped her head to them. “Of course.”

On feet silent as a panther, the two Kreah women turned and strode from the stable hallway, blending back into the shadows.

Just when they disappeared, Mariah realized that she’d completely forgotten to ask them how they’d gotten past Feran, and what in Qhohena’s name two Kreah warriors were doing wandering the grounds of the Golden Palace.

CHAPTER38

Sebastian Riqueti always strove to be a good man. To make the right decisions, do the right things, set the right examples.

When he’d been one of the Marked, training every day with Ryenne’s Armature and the nineteen others who bore the dragon tattoo on their chests, he’d taken instantly to leadership. Most of the others had been wrenched away from their families, thrown into a strange city and palace with the promise of a life they never could’ve prepared for. Of course, he was, too, but unlike the others, he’d been able to keep a piece of his family with him when he’d journeyed north to Verith.

Maybe it was the fact that he’d had to be there for Matheo that forced him to grow up far faster than any boy should’ve. But he would be lying if he wasn’t thankful for the responsibility, the purpose it gave him in his life. He’d started off leading his brother, and because he was one of the oldest of the Marked, the others had simply fallen in with Matheo, taking Sebastian’s leadership without push-back.

He’d worried things might change when those lucky seven of them went from being Marked to Selected as Armature, swearing oaths to a queen they’d spent the last two decades of their lives preparing for. But his concerns were for nothing, and his brothers had settled right into their usual patterns, accepting his leadership and guidance easily.

Well … all except one. But he’d never really listened to Sebastian anyway, even before the Selection. Andrian was perhaps the best among them, but was always a bit of a black sheep.

It had been perhaps the best day in Sebastian’s life when he’d been selected by Mariah.

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