Page 66 of Queen of the Night
I force my eyes open, terrified I’ll be looking straight at the monster that has been attempting to eat us, but all I see are three more large figures splashing into the water around me. Then I realize this water isclear. I frantically struggle to kick tothe surface, and gasp for air at the top. Ikar surfaces next. I risk drowning faster to splash him with a faceful of water.
“Youthrewme!” My face dips beneath the water again before I resurface.
He wipes the water from his face, easily treading in the water that carries us farther and farther into the safety of the nymph lands, as pieces of our once-beautiful boat float around us. “You’re welcome.”
I can’t tell if he’s frustrated or finds it humorous, but it doesn’t matter because I can’t seem to kick hard enough to stay above the surface, going beneath and sputtering as I come up again.
“I would have jumped on my own,” I argue just as my chin dips beneath the surface, and I get a mouthful of water that I have to spit out awkwardly—at least it’s not full of gloam.
“You’d pet a deathstalker before you’d jump into gloamy Lucent River,” he says with such infuriating surety that if I weren’t half-drowning, I would throw more water in his face—buckets of it.
I spit out another mouthful, coughing. My pack floats along somewhere behind us, but the weight of my clothes and my boots are still too much. I’ve never been much of a swimmer.
I sink below again, and I kick to breach the surface, but I’m beginning to panic. I catch a glimpse of Rhosse and Darvy gathering our packs and making their way toward the bank, and I envy them for their skill in the water as my face goes below again; this time before I have time to take even one proper gasp for breath.
Ikar expertly strokes to where I am, comes up behind me, and wraps an arm firmly around my waist. I come up choking and coughing as my flailing legs tangle with his.
I instinctively attempt to turn around and climb up him forsafety, but he keeps me firmly beneath one arm, my back to his chest.
“Lean back and relax, or you’ll drown us both,” he growls near my ear.
His deep voice sends warmth through my chilled body and calms me enough to kick-start my logic. I know my odds are exponentially better with his help, so I force myself to relax in his arms, letting my legs drift with the current, as he leans back and begins kicking us toward the bank.
I sink into a surreal sort of daze. The water isn’t as cold as the gloam sections of the Lucent River, but it’s still cool, and the breeze that hits my exposed cheeks and drenched hair has me savoring the warmth of Ikar’s heat against my back. My magic takes the opportunity to scream for me to let it loose, and I’m so tired of it all that I almost do. But I can’t. I knot it up and keep it close.
We reach the bank too soon, and Ikar nearly carries me to the soft grass above.
He stops and whispers in my ear, “Darvy told me you’re retiring after this job… I think that’s probably good because it seems like you need me around.”
He practically drops me in a heap, and I glare at him, hating that it’s true. Don’t ask me how I survived all these years on my own. I’d be dead ten times over without Ikar these past weeks. I sit there, shivering and indignant, and look at the grave expressions on the faces of the three men.
“Who were they?” I ask as my teeth begin to chatter.
“Gloam masters,” Ikar and Rhosse answer at the same time.
I’m about to ask what they are, but the name seems to speak for itself, and I saw for myself how they manipulated the gloam creatures.
I look between the two of them. “It can’t be that bad, can it? There were only four of them.”
“Where there’s one, there will be more. Many more,” Rhosse says with dreadful promise in his voice.
I frown, even more scared now and wishing I thought Ikar was still a criminal so I could sit beside him, maybe huddle beneath his arm. “Where are they coming from, anyway?”
“They likely entered somewhere here in the Lucent Mountains,” Rhosse says as he sharpens a knife. “It’s the weakest part of the kingdom now. They were banished hundreds of years ago.”
“This is only the beginning.” Ikar speaks up, a graveness in his voice that puts me further on edge.
My thoughts turn as I try to make sense of it all. “And they want?—”
“The same thing I want.” Ikar’s smile is bitter. “A Black Tulip, I’m sure. I suppose the high king would be second, to be rid of him. But you’re an originator.” He looks hard at me for a prolonged moment. “So maybe they were aftermeand the flower I just retrieved.” He releases me from his gaze and stares pensively into the forest beyond.
I feel a knife of shock at his words.Same thing I want. A Black Tulip.All over again, I struggle with the reality that he’s the high king, thatheis the one who wants the Black Tulips. And apparently, now, so do the Gloam masters. I force my thoughts back to the topic at hand. Something deep in my soul warns me not to ask, but my will is no match for my curiosity.
My voice feels shaky and a bit too high. “Why?”
Ikar looks my way. “Why do they want a Tulip, or why do they want me dead?”
“Both.” The answer to the second question is obvious, but I don’t want to seem overlyinterested in the first.
