Page 88 of Once the Skies Fade

Eyes widening, recognition lit across her face. “You’re the Emeryn general everyone’s going on about. You carried her to the castle. Danced with her at the dinner. You of all people should know better.”

“Know better about what?”

Hilde lighted a hand on my forearm. “How dangerous and volatile she is. After what she’s done to the Emeryn royal family?—”

“What do you mean?” I asked, lowering my face toward hers slightly.

Lifting herself onto her toes, she hid her mouth behind her hand—as if needing to ward against any eavesdroppers—and whispered, “She killed her husband.”

I released a long, slow breath, dropping my shoulders wearily. “Yes, I’ve heard the rumors.”

“It’s more than mere rumor; it’s the truth.”

“How do you know?” I asked, not wholly convinced this female was a reliable source regarding the queen’s possible guilt.

“I can soothe others’ emotions, general, but in order to do that I have to?—”

“To feel their emotions yourself.” I completed her sentence for her as she nodded along. “And you sensed the queen’s.”

“I did. When she first returned home from the burial, I was there in the entryway. The guilt she carried—and carries even now—is more than that of one who simply wishes they could have prevented a death.”

“Emotions can be difficult to interpret, even when we are the ones experiencing them firsthand, let alone sensing them as a bystander. That’s quite the accusation to make based on only that.”

Grabbing my arm, she turned me to face her, her brows reaching for her hairline. Her eyes searched mine frantically as if desperate to make me believe her.

“You didn’t see the delight she took in ripping those poor women apart,” she said, horror dripping from every syllable. “I could feel it, as clearly as if it were from my own heart. And she laughed, such bone-chilling laughter I’d never heard before. I’ll never forget it either.”

Memories of those children covered in their mother’s blood snapped into focus in my mind, and the bottom fell from my gut. How had I forgotten them?

Yet even now, reliving their deadened stares and silent tears, I couldn’t reconcile that horror with the queen I’d encountered both here and before Brennan’s death. Was she the monster Hilde believed her to be, or was someone spreading the rumors to oust her from power?

It could be both.

Hilde whispered something else, but I was too lost in my own thoughts to catch it.

“Excuse me?”

“No poison,” she said. I pinched my face, not quite following what she meant, and she clarified. “The king. There was no poison in his system. No marks on his body.”

“How do you know this?”

“When you have talents like mine, you work rather closely with the healers. I wasn’t there when they examined him, but I heard them discussing the peculiarities of his death.”

“Do you know how he died?” I asked cautiously, expecting her to withhold information as Ami had.

“Suffocated,” she said. “Like something choked him without touching him.”

Chapter 40

Calla

Iwas going to kill someone, and I didn’t even care who at this point.

A whole afternoon spent meeting with the competitors—my suitors—and I was ready to snap any one of their necks. Even Graham’s.

Especially his, perhaps.

I had expected the fearful meekness of Beck, the smallest male among the lot. Phillip wasn’t much better than him—unforgettable at best. Seb had been as pompous as ever during his time with me, describing his harrowing tales of surviving the forest, as if these might impress me in the slightest. Those were easy enough engagements, albeit dull and pointless. I’d learned nothing from those three males other than how miserable marriage to them would be.

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