Page 43 of Bound to the Shadow Queen
The air thickened, frost creeping along the edge of the table.
Eryx cleared his throat and I snapped my gaze up to meet his. His dark features pulled taut.
“What is it?” I demanded.
He hesitated, a fraction too long.
“It would have been far worse without the Visionary.”
It was as close as he would come to asking where she was. My jaw ached with the force of my teeth grinding together.
I had avoided thinking about her since my return. Her griffon would be slower with two riders, but she would be back soon, my wife’s sister in tow. Another complication.
Assuming they were safe. But they had to be. Nevara was strong and had her Shard Mother on her side. She would be fine.
“She’ll return tomorrow,” I told him after a beat. “And her companion needs to be hidden when she does.”
He narrowed his eyes, then nodded.
“Scouts report a horde of Wretches near Hailmarsh Valley,” he said finally.
The evenness of his tone was a little too careful. As though there was more he might have said but chose not to.
Still, I couldn’t dwell on that when monsters were flooding every corner of my kingdom.
Shards damn everything.
Hailmarsh lay in the heart of Winter, hemmed in by lakes that left it isolated and exposed. It was honestly surprising that it had gone untouched for so long. But if the Wretches breached those waters, they wouldn’t just take that valley; they would seep outward, spreading like rot through the Court’s core.
I stood, my chair scraping against the stone as it flew backward.
“I’ll take care of it.”
Eryx furrowed his brow, a muscle in his jaw going rigid. “Do you want reinforcements?”
“No.” My voice cracked like ice. “Fortify the palace. Keep the stonemasons working and double the patrols.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes. I want to know why the hells we haven’t heard from our spies in the Wilds.” It took time to travel here, but that didn’t account for the complete and utter silence on that front since the day Everly had been taken.
He nodded, but he didn’t turn to go.
“What is it?” Impatience crackled in my tone, but my Lord General didn’t flinch.
“And the queen?” he asked, dry as winter grass.
Frosted hells.
He couldn’t resist, after all.
A muscle twitched in my jaw as I glared down at him.
He didn’t cower, didn’t push any further either. Instead he held my gaze in an unspoken acknowledgment.
He knew she was here. He just wanted me to know that he knew.
Bastard.
