The man tips his head down, while the mist billows at his sides.
“Yes,” he says, and the sudden sound of his voice sends a shockwave down my spine. It sounds rough. Labored. As if he hasn’t spoken in a very long time. His expression too is flat, no pulling of his cheeks, no creases in his lips. Perhaps he always looks stony and blank. “That is what I was bid to do.”
My back stiffens. “And you think you’re going to do that now?”
I’m a second away from calling out to the others when he shakes his head. “That doesn’t matter now. I have been watching, Queen Malina, and I don’t like what I’ve been seeing.”
I feel my brows pull into a frown of offense. “I beg your pardon?”
“Do you not feel it? The magic in the air?”
“If you’re not going to kill me, then you can turn right back around and leave this place,” I snap. “I should have you drawn and quartered for what you did to my saddle and guards.”
“You could try,” he says. “But you wouldn’t succeed.”
Anger curls down my back. “You’re ruining my day, and I was having a rather good one.”
“That’s just it,” he says, taking a step forward, and it’s far too close to be appropriate. So close, in fact, that I can feel the heat from his body as the misty shadows around him follow his movements, nearly stroking over my skin and making me shiver, making my pulse jump. “You’ve been having a good day every day since you’ve gotten here. You haven’t questioned anything at all.”
“What would I question?” I reply with scorn. “I’m a queen, this is a castle. They’re treating me as they should, especially after the ordeals I suffered.”
The man makes a noise that I think is supposed to be a laugh, though it sounds like gravel being scraped against glass. “I thought you were supposed to be at least a little bit intelligent with all of that cold bitch cunning.”
“How dare—”
“Look around you,” he says, cutting me off. “See. Observe. You can’t trust the people here.”
I scoff. “Coming from the assassin who’s here to kill me.”
His dark eyes go flat. “Maybe I should finish you right here and now, since you’re so unwilling to listen.”
I open my mouth as if I’m going to reply, but instead, I shout out as loudly as I can for help.
The man doesn’t move. He doesn’t so much as twitch. The assassin simply watches me with dark eyes that I think might be made entirely of shadow. My heart slams against my chest when I hear footsteps running my way, but I can’t look away from him.
“Wake up, and don’t smell the flowers, Cold Queen, before it’s too late. You have to find a way to break whatever bargain you’ve made, because at this point, I don’t think your death is going to cut it.”
He pulls up his hood and disappears in a swirl of fathomless smoke, and by the time the three men reach me, there’s nothing here but gray-tinged light coming in from the window.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” the twins ask, faces synchronized with concern.
I have no idea why I lie.
“Nothing,” I answer, shaking my head, putting on an unadorned smile. I already feel so much better with them here. “I twisted my ankle and thought I would need help to walk back to my turret, but I’m alright.”
They look at me with worry. “Are you sure, my queen?”
“Yes. Could you have luncheon brought up to my rooms later? I think I’ll stay up for the rest of the day.”
They both bow at the waist, cutting a bend into their crisp shirts. “Of course, Your Majesty.”
I nod in thanks and start to turn, but not before I see Pruinn watching me with a frown. I turn and walk away, limping slightly as I go, warily eyeing the mist outside each window.
Yet by the time I get back to my rooms, when I’m basking in the bath soon after, the shock of seeing the assassin has faded. As I breathe in the perfumed steam, I sigh in contentment, all my worries bubbling away with the suds of the soap.
He was trying to scare me, trying to deter me from gaining power, because I’ll bet he can’t kill me while I’m in this castle. Fassa and Friano are too powerful. I’ll bet the assassin simply hoped to lure me away so he can finish the job. Trick me so that I don’t end up more powerful than Tyndall.
He said he’s been watching? Fine. Come the new moon, he can watch me rise up to glory and be rewarded with power.
Then he truly won’t like what he sees.
CHAPTER 45
AUREN
Three timberwings soar through the sky, cutting lines into the clouds and leaving trails of vapor behind.
We’ve been flying hard, day and night, only stopping for a handful of hours so we can all sleep and the timberwings can have some much needed rest and time to hunt. Being around Argo while I practiced my gold-touch helped me not be quite so scared of him, but it’s still a bit terrifying to be strapped to his back hundreds of feet up in the sky.
Although, I have it easy. Slade keeps me tucked against his chest, layered in coats and blankets, his strong body the perfect pillar for me to sleep and rest against while he holds the reins.
He’s been exhausted for the whole trip, ever since he expelled so much of his power into the rip. And even though he never complains, I can see the weariness clinging to him every time we dismount. I offer to take the reins so he can rest instead, but he always declines.
Stubborn male.
The other timberwings always ride close enough to see. Digby sits behind Judd, and just past him, on a timberwing with more snowy feathers than the rest, is Lu. I think they might be keeping an extra eye on Slade, just in case.
When we packed up our meager camp this morning out on a mountaintop of rock and snow, Slade told me if we made good time, we’d be arriving at Fourth Kingdom tonight.
I felt it several hours ago—the permanent change in the air. Steadily but surely over the past few days, the air has become less stark, the whipping wind not as frigid. Now, as dusk descends, the temperature is almost...warm. I keep trying to steal looks below, desperate to see the landscape of Fourth Kingdom, but we’re above the clouds, the coverage too thick to see through.
And then, night falls.
That’s exactly what it looks like, too. A brooding darkness seems to tumble over the sky, crashing against the lingering dusk and shattering it into obscurity. But this night is different. It’s not shoveled out to the bare bones of sparse cold. It’s not sharpened with pricks of frigid ice or whipped through with the bluster of frozen wind to beat against our backs.
Instead, there’s a warmth beneath night’s cloak, one that I haven’t experienced in a very long time. Ten years of living and breathing the numbing cold that never ends. Of footsteps crunching over snow, of eyes that never saw the unhindered sun. Of skin always covered against the arctic elements.
In my part of the world, in Highbell and even in Fifth Kingdom, the sun never could break through those frozen clouds. Never could compete with its blizzards and sleet. So as we fly through the night, I bask in the warming air, feeling like a layer of perpetual frost is slowly melting away from me.
When I’m nearly lulled to sleep by its balmy comfort, I feel Slade lean down against my left cheek. “We’re here.”
My breath catches in my throat, and I turn around to ask him how he knows, when Argo suddenly lets out a loud call that knocks me back. Slade’s arm tightens around my middle, hand splaying over my stomach. “Hold on.”
I might’ve gotten a bit used to flying on Argo’s back, but his landing dives are another thing entirely.
My hands grip the saddle strap in front of me, thighs locking around the beast just as it points its nose at the ground and starts to drop. A scream threatens to spew from my mouth, but I manage to grapple it in my throat.