Falin released my arms and whirled around, dropping to his knees in the same movement. “My queen.”
The Winter Queen stood in the middle of the hal , her hands bal ed into fists at her waist. PC, who had apparently fol owed her, rushed past the ice guardians. I scooped him up and clutched him tight as the queen strol ed forward, holding the skirt of her long dress. She stopped directly in holding the skirt of her long dress. She stopped directly in front of Falin’s kneeling form.
“Did you real y think you could keep secrets within my own hal s, knight?”
Falin didn’t answer, and she slid her hand into his hair.
The movement started as the caress of a lover and ended with her fist clenched in the hair at the back of his skul . She jerked upward, and he rose with the motion. She was petite, so she had to release him before he reached his ful height. She stepped around him, dragging him by the front of his shirt until he faced me.
“I had wondered,” she said, running her hand down his chest. Not a muscle in his body twitched. “I cal ed my knight home, and he came, as he should have, even though he knew I was angry that he’d failed to kil the body thief in a timely manner. And then, when he knew I would have forgiven him soon, he went and broke out of my prison, at great personal expense to himself.” She jabbed her fingers into the side where he’d been sliced open when I’d found him. The edges of his eyes betrayed his wince, but he gave her no other reaction. “We had just heard rumor of a planeweaver. I thought that perhaps he’d gone to retrieve the planeweaver himself. Perhaps to present her to me as a gift to regain my good graces. But that did not happen.
Now I can guess why.” She rounded on me.
Falin was injured escaping the winter court? To get to me. I didn’t know what to say, so I met the queen’s eyes, saying nothing.
She hissed under her breath. Then she turned to Falin.
“Take yourself to Rath.” She glanced at me over her shoulder. “That would be the court torture chamber. Since you have no interest in my banquets, perhaps a visit there would interest you more.”
“My queen—” Falin started, and she dug her fingers into his side again.
“If you beg for yourself, knight, I wil forgive you. But if you beg for her, you wil not like the results.”
beg for her, you wil not like the results.”
He glanced at me, and then he squeezed his eyes shut and remained silent.
The queen turned toward the guardians holding Caleb.
“Take him to the dungeons with the rest of the resistant independents. You”—she pointed to two more guardians
—“take her to a chamber where she can await the return of my patience.” She turned to me, the frost in her glare deadly, hateful. “You should hope it returns quickly. A planeweaver who wil not join my court is of limited worth.”
Chapter 31
I struggled to keep a safe grip on PC and not trip and fal over the damn gown as the ice guardians dragged me away from the queen, Falin, and Caleb.
“Slow down,” I yel ed, stumbling. PC squirmed.
They didn’t slow. They didn’t even pause to let me get my feet under me. I twisted, glancing back at the queen. She watched, looking regal, delicate, and utterly smug.
“Are you holding a Sleagh Maith not of your court against her wil ?” a deep masculine voice asked in the corridor ahead of me. A corridor that had been empty a moment before.
I turned around.
In the center of the hal way stood an unfamiliar fae—
another noble Sleagh Maith, from the look of his almosttoo-handsome-to-look-at features. He had black hair pul ed back tightly behind his head, so I couldn’t see how long it actual y was, and a dark beard that formed a sharp point at his chin and probably saved his jaw from looking too delicate for a man. Behind him, the hal vanished into a large room shrouded in deep shadows. But the shadows were only in a diamond-shaped area around the fae; the ice cavern was visible everywhere else, as if a doorway had been torn open in the center of the hal .
“You.” I couldn’t see the queen, but her voice held al the warmth of a glacier. “You have no business here.”
“I beg to differ.” He made a motion with his hand and a scream crashed through the chil ed cavern.
Two inky black forms surged forward. Wraithlike, in tattered robes with their hair streaming in tangles behind tattered robes with their hair streaming in tangles behind them, the newcomers swung swords that trailed darkness in their wake, as if they leaked shadows. Of course, the wraiths appeared to be little more than animated shadows themselves. The ice guardians released me as they reached for their swords.
The cavern shook with the impact of the guardians and shadows. I clutched PC, stumbling back a step. The clang of swords rang in the air, and I ducked as an ice blade was deflected straight toward me. Not good.
“Alexis, this way,” the man in the rift yel ed.