Page 51 of The Lost Prince
“Stay and help Lord Vession. Get him to the healers,” the Fireguard ordered them. I spared a guilty glance to Vession, who lay bleeding on that floor. I had been so concerned about keeping Shava from execution I’d forgotten it washisass being beaten.
“Come on. Side room,” I suggested to the Fireguard. Vession would be fine—there were already three Fireguards half carrying him out of the ballroom and down towards the infirmary.
The Fireguard shook his head, tightening his grip on Shava, who tried to spit in his face as she continued to thrash.
“I can’t help you here, Z,” he cautioned. “It was too public. She’s gotta go straight to the queen.”
I pulled on Shava, unconsciously trying to yank her the other way—awayfrom the queen. L would have helped me. He would have understood.
“Z, don’t do this. I know you’ve been trying to lie low. Fighting this is the opposite of that,” the Fireguard warned me. “Do you want to be like L, exiled to work in the mud quarter for helping you?”
Isthatwhat happened to him?
Shava’s foot lashed out and kicked me in my shin. I let go of her in surprise, standing in the corridor like a simpleton while the Fireguard pinned both of her hands behind her back and hustled her away.
I stared at nothing, my hands held out in front of me.
What was I doing?
For months I’d planned and plotted my strategies, and today I’d nearly thrown it all away, and for what? Some slip of a mud girl who didn’t even want to breathe the same air as me?
You’re well on your way to start writing your own poetry and joining the ranks of the besotted, dusty fools whose pathetic scribbles line the archives.
No. I wouldn’t be writing poetry toYuccaanytime soon. Time to stop thinking with my—Well, anyway.
A crowd was growing, filtering from the ballroom out into the corridor and down towards the throne room. They knew what was coming.
An uncomfortable lump swelled in my throat. I didn’t like feeling like this. I didn’t enjoycaring.Caring only led to loss and heartache. I needed neither.
I slipped into the seething masses and let them sweep me away down into the throne room, which was quickly growing crowded. I elbowed my way towards the front, to see Shava on her knees in front of the queen, hands pinned behind her back by the Fireguard, and another sat on the back of her legs. Blood dripped down her chin from a split lip, and fire burned in her eyes.
Need and fire bloomed in veins, my bloodmagick sparking gold along my skin.
Hold it down. Not here. Don’t play your hand so early.
“What do we have here?” The queen descended the dais from her throne, in a dress of midnight today, setting off her silver hair like a beacon of moonlight. Her preferred white diamonds glittered at her throat and wrists, emphasizing the silver of her eyes.
Her smile, as always, was pure poison.
“Ah yes,you. I’m surprised you’re still alive. All your little friends are dead, aren’t they?”
Shava writhed and twisted like a feral thing, but the Fireguard was much bigger and had her pinned solidly.
The queen stopped a few paces in front of Shava with that awful shit-eating grin. I’d like to think the queen had learned her lesson from me about getting too close to those you were insulting. How confident would the queen act without her Fireguards around her? Shava would eat her up and spit her out.
I grinned at the thought of both of them going at it, and certain parts of my anatomy twitched.
Dear gods.
“I knew your true nature would show itself, eventually. You must be thrilled,” the queen trilled, baring her teeth as she smiled.
“Anything that takes me away from you is welcome, even death,” Shava sneered back, spitting at the queen’s feet.
Did she mean that or was it simply bravado? I was impressed, either way.
The queen crossed her arms over her chest, sharp black fingernails digging into the skin of her own upper arms.
“What a joyous day for you to finally be reunited with your little mud friends,” she drawled. “Send her to the dragon!”
