Page 65 of Crownless King

“Who did it, then?” The newcomer demanded. “How? Where?”

“Anarienman. Over there, down the path. He shot her with arrows.”

“Hmm,” she hummed. Suspicion was etched on her wrinkled face riddled with thin transparent lines.

Rummaging through a canvas satchel hanging on her side, she pulled out a small ball of wool and unwound the end of the string from it.

“You’ll show me where.”

Flicking her wrist, she propelled the end of the string my way. It snapped around my forearm, winding tightly around it.

“What is this?” I sat up, shaking my wrist, but the string fit snugly and securely around it, not coming off.

“Show me where you saw Sova last,” the old woman ordered, tossing the ball out onto the path.

The string yanked at my wrist with so much power, I fell forward, face first.

The old crone chuckled. “You better keep up, girl. Or it’ll drag you through the mud and rocks out there.”

I scrambled to my feet, almost falling out from the invisible wagon, and stumbled after the ball that rolled down the path.

It had rained last night. My dressy slippers were quickly soaked with mud. The train of my gown dragged through the wet grass and puddles. But I couldn’t stop even to lift my skirts properly. The ball kept rolling along, bouncing over the puddles and pulling at my wrist insistently. I had to rush to keep up with it.

“Here!” I yelled when we reached the place where Sova was shot. Or at least I thought this was the place. I only managed a glance at the area as the ball kept dragging me up the path and toward the bridge over the Cloud River in the distance.

I was out of breath. Surprisingly, the old woman had no trouble keeping up with the punishing pace of the ball.

“Stop.” She snapped her fingers again.

The tension around my wrist eased. The wool thread slacked as the ball halted in the middle of the path. The woman bent over to swipe the ball from the ground. The thread untied itself from around my wrist, and she wound it onto the ball again then put it back into her satchel.

“Whereexactly?” She gazed at me with piercing dark-brown eyes. Their color was rich and vivid, and the expression in them focused. Her body might look old, but her mind remained sharp. It would do me good not to underestimate this woman.

“It happened here.” I took a few steps back and waved a hand around me. “In this general area.”

“Can you try to be a bit more specific, lady?”

From her, the word “lady” came out more like an insult than an honorific.

“All right.” I turned around, reconstructing the events of yesterday in my mind. “We were running this way, from the bridge.”

“Why were you running?”

“Royal guards were in the area,” I replied, keeping it as vague as possible.

Vaguewasn’t good for her, however.

“Why?” She folded her arms over her chest. “Why were the guards around, and why were you running from them?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I snapped. I had no idea who this person was. I had no reason nor obligation to be honest with her. “You wanted to know how your friend died, so I’m telling you how. Anarienman shot her with two arrows from a longbow from behind those trees over there. After that, the arrows exploded with light and killed him too.”

It looked incredibly strange when it happened. Now that I said it out loud, it sounded outright crazy. But the woman nodded, her expression contemplative.

“Was the man alone?”

“He was. At the beginning. I think he didn’t mean to kill her. He screamed something like ‘Got it!’ or ‘Got one!’ Then looked very confused when he saw what he’d done.”

“What an idiot,” the woman muttered under her breath. It was unclear whether she was insulting me again or the shooter this time.

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