Page 53 of Fae Champion

My insides quivered, and even Rush’s presence beside me felt as cold as Nightguard’s icy rivers.

“No one plots an escape in my palace without paying an appropriate price for the betrayal.” The queen stared out at her audience with those sky-blue eyes, twinkling as she relished whatever else she was about to say.

Another loop of her fingers and I rosefrom the bow to stand ramrod straight. Only, if I fought her hold, I suspected I might break free of it. For now, I didn’t attempt it.

“Guards, bring out Sandor,” the queen cried.

I fought every single one of my instincts not to turn to Rush and ask him,What in dragonfire does Sandor have to do with any of this?

Moments later, royal guards shoved Sandor to his knees beside me. Rush, Hiroshi, Ryder, and West took a step back.

Sandor had been the one to cast the potion at me in Nightguard. The last time I saw him, he was a strong, somewhat arrogant man with vivid gray eyes. He was now pale, his eyes bloodshot, and his brocaded tunic splattered with blood.

“Tell me how you betrayed me, Sandor,” the queen said, her command worming across him like one of the many continually slinking serpents beneath us. “How I gave you my trust and you released Elowyn from where I’d ordered her locked up so that she could defy me and my rightful reign.”

She stared at Sandor expectantly. So did everyone else. I wanted to, but felt a subtle tug that told me to remain unmoving, and hurried to obey.

“Sandor,” the queen pressed as my heart decided to begin beating in my throat. Her patent vehemence faded, replaced by a petulant playfulness that was perhaps worse. “Confess your sins and perhaps I’ll let you live.”

“Answer her, man,” Hiroshi whispered to Sandor, who only grunted in response.

“You heard our queen,” Ryder added. “Don’t make her wait.”

Sandor croaked some more, something odd about the sound. I wrestled with the desire to study him while unease caressed the patches of my bare skin.

“I don’t think he can answer,” Rush offered gently.

The queen smiled—delighted, amused … wicked. “Ever the smart one, aren’t you, Rush? So observant.” At that, she looked meaningfully at me—as if I needed the reminder that I’d become too friendly with a man with one task: to please his queen by keeping tabs on me.

She waved a hand nonchalantly, and whatever hold she’d had on me vanished. My body went to sag but I didn’t allow a muscle to so much as twitch. The queen was a spider clicking her pincers, closing in on the prey in her web.

Her stare fully on Sandor, I dared a look at him. His clammy skin was coated in a sheen of sweat, and the gray of his eyes was fevered. Blood crusted the corners of his dried, cracked lips.

The queen crossed one ankle over the other andtskedas if bored. “Oh, that’s right. Sandor is no longer possessed of his tongue.”

She tossed her head back and laughed.

Not a single other person there, not even Braque or Ivar, immediately followed her lead.

I barely breathed as Sandor let out a soft whimper.

16.DEN OF INIQUITY, WHERE NO FANTASY IS TOO GREAT

Ivar and Braque were the first to join in on the queen’s amusement. Though both men could hardly be more different—the one thin, the other rotund—together they shook in identical mirth. They clutched their stomachs and bent forward, as if pained by how funny Sandor’s torment was.

The men took on a whole new level ofeeriein my mind. Whatever darkness infected the queen must have rubbed off on them long ago.

Next, like a wounded seal, the king laughed too, and finally, most of the courtiers.

The bunch of them sounded like deranged hyenas.

Disgust rolled through me, but I schooled my features not to reveal it. My earlier bravado, when I’d yelled across the arena at the queen, calling her out for some of her injustice, failed me. With evidence of how easily the woman would inflict horrific pain on me—or anyone else I cared about—fear stayed my objections.

I despised myself for it. If I didn’t speak up for the man at my right, still on his knees, still whimpering, who would?

Rush, Hiroshi, West, and Ryder were silent as well.

I had no particular sympathy for Sandor, who’d subdued me in Nightguard and delivered me to this den of iniquity. The man had been, however, following orders, and even if he hadn’t been, I didn’t suppose anyone deserved this kind of treatment.

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