A Queen of Thieves & Chaos (Fate & Flame, #3)

Zander smirks. He’s always amused by my ignorance. “The queen’s messenger. A bird of a sort. I have only ever seen it once when it arrived with a letter to Cirilea.”

“We believe it arrived through the Nulling,” Gesine confirms. “It is guided by Mordain’s hand, it travels at impossible speeds, and it never misses its mark. As far as we know, it is the only one left in existence, and the elemental who steers it acts by Queen Neilina’s order. However, if we can get hold of it, I may be capable of respelling it to our advantage.”

“So you can send more secret messages to Mordain?” Zander quips before shifting his focus to me. “What does the letter from Neilina say?”

With a deep breath, I break the seal and unfold the crisp paper, my insides suddenly in knots, as if she might somehow know that an impostor reads her words. This is the elven at the heart of everything Zander and Islor now face. She is part of the reason I’m in this world.

The handwriting is floral, the ink a deep, dark crimson. “It’s addressed to Tyree.” That makes sense. If this came a month ago, I was still in Cirilea, and Zander hadn’t yet lost his throne. “She’s received word that I’m still alive and within the castle. Her sources aren’t sure to what extent Zander trusts me.”

“We knew she had spies within the city walls,” he says. “What else?”

I read the next lines.

And my stomach drops. “They’re going to cross the rift. They plan to start a war.”





CHAPTER EIGHT




ATTICUS


By the time I reach the top step of the tower, my thighs burn. I’ve spent too much time pacing around my war room. I must get back on my horse and among my men.

Though, my weakness is more likely because I haven’t fed in a week. A stretch unheard of for me. I’ve been so preoccupied, I’m only realizing it now.

“Enjoying your accommodations?” I drawl, ignoring the fetid stench that greets my nostrils. “I imagine you’re not accustomed to such luxury.”

Prince Tyree sits on the straw pallet, his back against the wall. “I haven’t seen any signs of luxury since I stepped foot inside this squalid country of yours. I do not think Islorians know what that is.”

I smile at his response. Even caged and facing imminent death, his dark hair matted, his face covered in scruff, he keeps his arrogant chin high. I respect that. “Open it,” I order the guard holding the key.

Within moments, I’m pacing inside the cell. From here, the scent of his Ybarisan blood is more potent. Despite myself, I inhale that sweet smell. On Romeria, it used to rile my senses almost to the point of losing control. Once, during a heated night in her tents, I nearly did. She stopped me, insisting she couldn’t give me that part of her.

Even though she was giving me every other part.

In hindsight, I should have been suspicious, but how would I ever suspect such a thing as tainted blood?

Tyree’s blood will be as ruined as the three Ybarisans who died during the royal repast. Knowing that quells my taste for it. “Leave us.”

The two guards are gone in seconds, their armor clattering on their climb down the steps.

“Not worried I might overpower you?” Tyree asks coolly as I wander toward the window that overlooks the arena.

I give his limp body a once-over. The multiple merth blade wounds covering his arms from Abarrane’s sessions are in various stages of healing. “And how would you do that? You’re injured and weak. With those cuffs, you will have no access to your affinity until I deem it so.” Thankfully, Zander returned the tokens to the family vault after removing them from Romeria’s wrists. The first thing I did when I decided to keep Tyree alive was secure them to his. He’s too valuable to risk losing to festering infection, especially now that we don’t have a healer.

“Is it true you were born without an affinity? What must it feel like to be impotent?”

I answer with a laugh. He’s trying to get a rise out of me. “I didn’t need an affinity to raise an army and claim a kingdom, did I?”

“I suppose not. You are the great and powerful King Atticus, after all,” he mocks.

I tap my boot against his tray of food that sits on the floor, untouched. “Not hungry?” The stew they delivered the other day was laced with ground meat. The guards reported him curled into a ball for hours, writhing in agony.

“Not particularly.” He sighs, and all humor slips from his voice. “What do you want?”

I peer out the window at the gallows and the bodies dangling. The executions are happening daily now, each time a new mortal is discovered with tainted blood—when their keeper dies violently—or is found with a vial hidden in their clothing or their quarters.

Mortals who thought their lives would somehow change for the better through murder. Cobblers and farriers, seamstresses and cooks. Simple people, desperate to be free of their duties. In the end, standing at the gallows, they all plead for mercy from their king.

But their king doesn’t grant it. He mustn’t, because to do so would be to show the same weakness as the previous king. So instead, he hardens his heart and watches them hang, punished for Ybaris’s betrayals.

I haven’t had to punish them all, though.

That family presented in front of the assembly still lingers in my thoughts, days later. Anyone with half a sense could see those children had been terrorized by the minor lord from Freywich. I’m certain that’s why Romeria rescued them with a bag of coins.

Gracen … that was the baker’s name.

The moment I laid eyes on her, I could see why Danthrin appeared before my assembly, insisting she be returned. She is stunning—for a mortal, dressed in worn clothes, dusted in flour. Her features are delicate and refined, a contrast to a wild mane of curly blond hair she attempts to tame with ties, and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. But it was the intensity in her blue eyes that caught me off guard. For a mortal of perhaps twenty-five, they revealed more depth than many of the century-old elven who hold court positions. Or maybe it was the way she pleaded with me to save her, and then gazed up at me with admiration that momentarily seized my breath.

Had Gracen been brought to Presenting Day in Cirilea, the crown would surely have claimed her as a tributary. If I had seen her?

I would have declared her mine in an instant.

I don’t doubt Danthrin fed off her regularly—how could he resist?—but he’s obviously bred her too. The mortal has already produced three healthy offspring with no husband in sight. The fear and loathing that radiated from her body when Danthrin spoke told me all were likely sired by different mortal men, and none of the experiences were pleasant.