Page 72 of Of Rime and Ruin
I scrutinize the hole, trying to compute its purpose. An escape hatch, perhaps? But that doesn’t explain the marks. Something has been gettingin, not out.
My toe catches, kicking an object across the floor. I bend to pick it up—a small, blue scale, dark as midnight.
The same shade as the clawbeast’s hide.
My mouth goes dry.
Is the Beasthere, inside somewhere? Hope flares. I didn’t know he could venture on land, much less kept a room in the king’s castle.
“Careful, now,” Lucas warns. I leap from my skin. “Don’t want to go poking where we don’t belong.”
I turn to face the healer, clutching the scale in my fist. He pins me with a cautionary look and spreads his arms toward the stairwell.
“You’re getting lost, Princess. Better hurry.”
I tuck the scale into my front pocket and hurry up the stairs.
Chapter thirty-one
Aethan
Threecupsoftea,and I’m still not awake enough for this. I recline on my fur-lined throne, bracing my body against the wooden frame to keep from slumping over in my seat.
After minimal hours of sleep, I was dragged from my bed by an equally irritated Lucas, who so kindly reminded me I’d promised to hold court this morning. A fucking kingly duty, to endanger the masses.
An ache throbs through my temple, drowning out the complaints of my subject, who kneels before me in tattered furs. He’s a hunter, by the looks of his garb and the haunted look in his eyes. He’s middle-aged, gray hair streaking through his slick white braid. Siren ears poke through the strands, smoothed by his magic.
From his neck hangs a bone pendant, carved in the likeness of a pikewhale. With rough hands, he grasps it, drawing upon its strength, and mumbles something under his breath.
“Speak louder,” I snap. The ache pounds, a dull roar in my ears. A flinch crosses the siren’s face, and my stomach sours.
Lucas is right. I’m the shittiest king to grace this throne. I itch to stand, to distance myself from my ancestral seat. But I grip the armrest, holding myself in place. I take a steadying breath, then add, “Please.”
He straightens. “Thank you for granting me this audience, Your Majesty. Hunter Leon, at your service. I believe we’re long overdue.”
He releases the bone pendant from his fist and lets it swing from the string. I watch the bone figure move, back and forth, until it settles.
“This belonged to my son,” Leon says. “Not two weeks ago, I retrieved his body from my doorstep. Or what was left of it. Along with blubberchips and wine, stamped with the royal crest.”
My memory flashes, and I spiral back in time to the beach. The silver siren hair. Mottled, frozen flesh, ripped by claws. The day I severed Perrin’s foot.
“Audrina rest his scales,” I say, the words like ice on my tongue.
“May I speak freely, Your Majesty?”
I spread my hands in invitation.
“Twelve years ago, we moved ashore on your orders. We’ve been careful to avoid the water, and we’ve learned to hunt the beasts of the land. But it’s been hard. Joa, he…” He clutches the pendant more tightly. “You couldn’t take the water from my son if you tried, and I tried, Your Majesty. It was part of him. As it’s part of all of us. Frostcats and woollygoats aren’t as challenging to hunt as pikewhales. Where’s the thrill? Where’s the honor? And Joa’s not the first we’ve lost to the clawbeast. Now, we’re a dying breed. Forty hunters dead, Your Majesty. And the killings have only increased in frequency.”
I run the math. “Forty-two.”
His stare grows cold. “Too many. How many of our guppies must we needlessly bury before we act? Let me gather a hunting party and track the clawbeast. I’ll rid the Rime of it once and for all.”
The siren snarls, his face twisting with vindicated anger. Shame that his blame is misguided. The villain sits in front of him now, comfortably reclining on a throne of furs.
I sigh. “You will not win.”
“We must try.”
