Page 25 of Queen of Ever

‘How many dead?’I asked.

Ves shrugged.‘Why does it matter?Let’s just get out of here before something else happens and we join the tally.’

I rubbed at my shoulder, casting my eyes down the hallway, where I had stumbled over other injured and dying on my way out of the explosion site.There were fewer of them than there had been before, and many were in the process of hobbling down the hall in the company of palace servants and attendants.The stone floor was smeared with blood.

‘Where is everyone being moved to?’I asked.

‘Dreadhold.’

‘Dreadhold?’I repeated, snapping my gaze back to him.He was rubbing a hand through his hair.

‘What did you expect?’he asked, spinning on his heels and throwing the words over his shoulder.‘You’re the only one who lives there.It’s not like you don’t have the room.’

Chapter 10

Tarian

Bythetimewearrived at Dreadhold, half the battered and beleaguered court was already there.Clusters of High Fae courtiers milled about in the gardens, muttering and hissing to one another, eyes darting about like they were watching for a threat.I didn’t care about the wary gazes that clung to me as I headed for the entrance to the castle, though I had the strange sense that I was being discussed.But I had other things to worry about.Things like my mother’s advisors gaining access to Arun’s office and going through his papers and correspondence.The heaviness in my chest drew breath, gained substance, as I thought of someone else touching my personal guard’s, myfriend’s, desk, opening drawers and taking possession of the intelligence he had devoted his life to gathering for me, discovering his network of informants and the information he had collected on the Unseelie Queen’s council and advisors.OnImogen.

I paused on the threshold, turning to Vesryn.‘Make sure Briyala is alive.Then find Madam Hetia.Ask her to watch Arun’s office.Anyone who tries to get in can go through me.’

Ves raised a brow.‘Would you like fries with your order, Your Majesty?’

‘PleaseVesryn.’

He rolled his eyes, then performed an exaggerated flourish of a bow, his hands flicking out by his sides.‘Ever an obedient lapdog for you, cousin.’But he had a sly gleam in his eye when he straightened.‘One day you’ll have to repay me all these favours.’

The mention of favours reminded me of Ruisin, and I suddenly wondered if my visit to him was somehow connected to the explosion.As though by going to him, I had reminded him he had some kind of vendetta against the Unseelie Queen.The idea sat uncomfortably on me as I walked on in search of the staircase to the upper levels.There would be a call for discovering how the attack at the palace had happened and who was behind it, but one thing at a time.

A not-too-distant scream echoed down the stairwell and I paused, hand on the banister, recognising the shrill notes of extreme pain.Pivoted as I turned back down the stairs to follow the sound.Hoped it wasn’t someone in my household.

The scream cut off as I approached The White Room, a chamber I never entered.One of my grandmother’s many eccentric renovations, though less eccentric than the carnivorous garden.Just a huge, empty room dressed all in ivory to house a collection of portraits of our family line, many of which were larger-than-life renderings of herself, often engaged in acts of violence.There was one depicting her and my mother together, one of the few images I’d ever seen of my mother before she’d been queen.That was the one that caught my eye as I entered the room, maybe because the woman in the painting was so different from the flesh-and blood version standing in the centre of the room.The painting Moriana was softer, smiling slightly in a way I’d never seen on her real face.Sometimes I wondered if it had been an invention of the painter, or if it had been a real expression she’d occasionally worn a long time ago.

The current Moriana seemed to no longer be possessed of that unruffled calm she’d presented me with directly after the attack.Now she was all sharp edges and glittering rage, mouth twisted in a scowl, eyes glinting below brows drawn tight.Some of her council and advisors littered the room, clinging to the edges as though trying to stay out of her line of sight.

‘Explain to me again how some lowly imp crept intomycourt under the eyes of my entire retinue of palace security and detonated an ironthorn seed,’ she demanded, her voice the dominant sound in the vast room.

The soldier she was addressing, to his credit, seemed to be trying to hang onto his composure, even from his position at her feet.No whimpering, despite the screams of moments ago.He was pulling himself out of his slump on the floor, straight-spined too.Which was a pity as far as outcomes for him went.She’d get bored sooner if he broke faster.The stubborn grip on his pride would just make torture more engaging for her as she pushed to see how long it would take for him to crumble.

‘I don’t know, ma’am,’ he said, his face grave as he looked up at her, voice hardly betraying his recent suffering.

She bent towards him.‘Do you think not knowing is a good enough excuse for your incompetence?’

‘No, ma’am,’ he replied.‘We have failed you.’

‘You have.And I have no use for guards who cannot guard.’She straightened again, casting her gaze around the room, roving over all those shadowed witnesses who seemed to shrink as she beheld them.‘Nor do I have use for advisors and councillors who don’t know the first damn thing about a plot to attack me in my own palace.’The words echoed through the chamber, louder at the end as her anger flared hotter.

‘Y-your Majesty,’ stammered one of the High Council.Taldore.His was an old line of Unseelie nobility, a relative of mine actually, not that the expression on the queen’s face as she turned her attention to him suggested as much.Though, I was her son and look what she did to me.Perhaps rage and ire were marks of affection in our family.‘What happened today was unprecedented, unpre—’

Moriana flung out her hand, and his sentence ended in a scream.He dropped almost instantly, hitting the stone with a thud, where he writhed in agony for a few moments, his shrieks splitting the air and scraping against my ears.I shuddered, averting my eyes until the screaming receded and Moriana’s footsteps could be heard clicking across the room towards her newest victim.

‘How clever or wise can you be called if the only things you can predict are those that haveprecedent?’she hissed.‘Andnowyou wish me to follow your counsel in how I respond to this request from the Seelie King?When you have so dramatically proved your counsel is worthnothing?’

Immediately, my attention left the cowering Taldore.My sympathy wasn’t much good to him, and I was about to do better than pity him, anyway.I crossed the room.‘What request?’I asked, loud and clear.A provocation, but it was a sure-fire way to get a response.

By the time Moriana had turned on me, all that rage had smoothed away.

‘There you are, darling.You’ve been missing a while,’ she purred, as though I’d just nipped off for a nap and hadn’t been near mortally injured when she’d last seen me.I wondered what she would have done if Ves hadn’t scooped me out of the rubble.Perhaps she would have been disappointed; in death, I’d be out of her reach.No more puppet to dangle where she liked.‘It seems there was an attack on Seelie lands almost the same moment as these imbeciles let that little lesser slip into my palace.The Seelie King has called a conclave to discuss the threat.’

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