Page 119 of The Threadbare Queen

“The poison is wearing off.” Massi’s legs were quivering, and Luc wondered if she had been standing over him like that all night.

He had a feeling she had.

He circled his wrist with his thumb and fingers, pressing the embroidery Ava had stitched under his cuff hard against his skin, and took another deep breath.

He got onto his knees and slowly pushed himself up, looking back to the Rising Wave. He couldn’t see any new troops there, so the question rose up again. Where had Ava come from?

Someone made a strange sound, like a trapped animal, and he turned in that direction.

Eduard, one of the veteran Cervantes warriors who’d come with them from Versai, was standing with a knife to a young soldier’s throat.

Luc stared at him, and then realization hit.

This was the boy who’d served them the ale.

“Who poisoned the ale?” he asked.

Eduard’s gaze snapped across to him briefly, and he saw the flare of relief in the old warrior’s eyes.

The boy hunched his shoulders and said nothing.

“He hasn’t spoken a word,” Eduard said.

“Luc!”

Luc turned and saw Revek had dismounted and was walking toward him across the field.

A flurry of movement exploded on the Jatan side, with bows drawn and swords pulled from scabbards.

“No further!”

Luc recognized the voice of the Jatan officer who shouted to Revek. He had heard it while Ava crouched over him, working her magic, in a back and forth with Massi.

Revek stopped and slowly backed away, into the front line.

“Who is that one?” he asked Massi, nodding to the Jatan.

She lifted a shoulder. “Says he’s Baclar’s aide. Captain Bartholomew.”

Luc studied the man. He was agitated, and his gaze kept going to Baclar.

Ava was bent over the high-general now, he saw by the shadow that blurred the high-general’s right side.

If he were to take a guess as to who was responsible for this mess from the Jatan camp, he’d choose Lieutenant Hurst. His father had been killed yesterday, and Luc had a feeling the lieutenant would have been thirsty for revenge.

Interesting that he had gone after not only Luc, but his own leaders, as well.

He moved even closer to Massi, and breathed into her ear. “Where is the unit that Ava came with? Is it enough to tip the balance of numbers in our favor?”

She turned her head, looking him straight in the eye. “What are you talking about?”

“Ava.” He was on dangerous ground here, but Massi had indicated in the past she suspected Ava was a spell caster, although Ava had never taken her into her confidence.

Massi had been in the grip of a spell when she had first met Ava, and she had not been her normal, welcoming self to his heart’s choice.

It had caused a distance between the two women he was closest to, and it would take more time than they had had so far since they took Fernwell to bridge it.

“Ava is here.” He had to tell her this. If Ava had not come with a unit, he didn’t understand what was going on, and Massi had at least been awake and aware since last night, unlike himself. “How else do you think I’m standing right now?”

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