“Where is it?” Brenna shouted, her eyes locked on Ewen’s face. She stabbed at him again, but this time she swung beyond her reach and lost her balance, falling forward. Ewen made to grab her, and she sliced at his arm, then scrambled backward, right into the fire.
“Grab her!” Kelsea shouted, wriggling wildly. Ewen was trying to pull Brenna from the fire; he let out a cry as the flames seared his hand. Brenna’s shrieks echoed through the tiny stone building until Ewen finally succeeded in hauling her free, but her thick dress was flaming and there was nothing to tamp the fire. Brenna screamed in agony as Ewen hovered over her, helpless. A stomach-churning smell had begun to fill the air, one that Kelsea remembered well from the Argive.
“Roll her!” she shouted at Ewen. “Roll her on the ground!”
Ewen gulped and began rolling Brenna with his feet, trying to damp the fire. But Kelsea knew it was already too late. Brenna had stopped screaming.
“Glynn.”
She looked down and found the Red Queen lying beside her. Her eyes were only half open, but Kelsea could see a red gleam between the lids. Something awakened inside Kelsea, an atavistic instinct that spoke of danger, but she asked, “Are you all right?”
“No.” The Red Queen gestured toward her body, which was a bloody mess. “But I am back, at least.”
“Majesty?” Ewen asked in a broken voice. “Majesty, I tried my best, she . . . I think she . . .”
“Ewen, come here.”
“Majesty—”
“I need you to cut my bonds.”
Ewen scrambled to his feet and hurried over with his knife. Kelsea wriggled to one side as he began to cut, then her wrists were suddenly free and she clasped them in front of her and stretched, feeling her shoulders sing in relief.
“You listen to me, Ewen,” she ordered. “She would have killed me. She would have tortured me for pleasure, and then she would have killed me. And she would have killed you if she could have caught you. But you didn’t kill her. You asked a prisoner to surrender her weapon, and she refused.”
Ewen nodded, but a shadow had fallen across his face, and Kelsea did not think it would be an easy shadow to dispel.
“How did you come to be here, Ewen?”
“The Captain, Majesty. He sent me here. Me and Bradshaw.”
“The magician? Is he here?”
“No, Lady. He went to fetch the Captain, days ago. It’s just me.”
Kelsea pushed herself to her feet and crossed the room to stand over Brenna. Her body was a blackened ruin, and Kelsea felt a stab of grief. She had despised this woman, but in the end, Brenna’s grudge had been legitimate. The truth had been staring Kelsea in the face for weeks: executing Thorne had been a terrible mistake, and what she had done to him in the process had been even worse.
“Ewen,” she muttered. “There are cloaks in the wagon outside. Bring them here.”
Ewen hurried away, his face betraying relief at being given an easy task. Kelsea drew a deep breath and regretted it immediately; the air stank of charred flesh.
“Glynn,” the Red Queen whispered again, and Kelsea returned to squat beside her, picking up Brenna’s knife along the way.
“When we get back to town,” she told the Red Queen, “we’ll tend to your wounds.”
“No need. Look.”
Kelsea looked down and found that the gashes in the Red Queen’s thighs were already healing somehow, flesh reassembling itself from nowhere.
Ewen returned, almost running, with the cloaks, and Kelsea directed him to throw them over Brenna’s corpse. She planned to cremate the remains, but that was nothing Ewen would need to see.
“Glynn,” the Red Queen croaked again. “Send the boy outside.”
Kelsea nodded to Ewen, who hesitated for only a moment before he left the tiny house, closing the door behind him. Kelsea turned back to the Red Queen and caught another flash of red in her eyes.
“I am changing,” the Red Queen said steadily. “Changing into something else. I am no longer master of myself. Something in my blood tells me to kill you, and I want to listen to it.”
Kelsea drew back.
“I could stand feeding on flesh. In some ways, I have done nothing else, all the years of my reign.” The Red Queen smiled, her eyes deep red flares. “But to be controlled by another, never directing my own fate . . . I lived that life long ago. I cannot face it again.”
“What happened to you?”
The Red Queen offered a hand, and Kelsea saw Finn’s sapphire sitting on the Red Queen’s palm.
“Would you see, Glynn? If you would, you must do me a kindness in return.”
Do me a kindness. The words echoed inside Kelsea’s head, and she saw Mhurn, his upturned face smiling as she cut his throat. She was suddenly frightened, even more frightened than she had been when she had woken and found Brenna standing over her in the dark.
“I wouldn’t kill you before. What makes you think I’ll do it now?”
“It is different, Glynn. Now I am begging you.”
Kelsea shut her eyes. Something pawed at her hand, and she looked down to see the Red Queen prying open her fist, depositing Finn’s sapphire into her palm, and then squeezing her hand closed again.