“Do you have news of the girl’s whereabouts?” Irina asked.
Lord Kiffen shook his head. “I know only that some believe the mountain girl with the gyrfalcon could be the princess, and the boy who is with her could be the prince. They are sometimes on our lands with a man who acts like their father, and there are those in our village who have dedicated themselves to protecting their location in case the rumors are true.” He blinked as an idea occurred to him. “Your Highness, it pains me to confess that I have not questioned those traitors as I should have. I beg you to allow me to rectify that error.”
Irina’s smile stretched wide enough to hurt as she leaned closer to the man. “Oh, I think I’ll come along and question them myself.”
Another apple fell from Lady Kiffen’s mouth and smashed against the ground, spreading a circle of black rot that instantly destroyed every blade of grass it touched.
“And your wife?” Irina asked as she took Lord Kiffen’s arm. “Should I let her down and forgive her of her crimes against me?”
Lord Kiffen never even glanced at the woman pinned to wall. “Traitors must be punished, my queen.”
“Indeed.” Irina stepped away from the wall, Lord Kiffen by her side.
“Frederick?” The woman’s voice shook, but Lord Kiffen didn’t look back.
Irina looked at one of her guards. “I’m traveling to Lord Kiffen’s lands by the end of the day. Send for a coach and have my maid pack a trunk. And have someone gather several barrels of apples as she produces them. I’m going to need them.”
TEN
KOL AND HIS friends shifted out of their dragon forms in the Hinderlinde Forest just north of Ravenspire’s capital. After dressing in their finest travel garments and procuring horses from a livery at the edge of town, they entered the capital with Jyn riding point and Trugg bringing up the rear.
The streets wound neatly among well-kept homes with steeply gabled rooftops and brightly painted shutters. A cobblestoned road cut a wide swath through the center of the city. Carriages of polished wood were filled with ladies dressed in bright silks and fancy hats. Ravenspire men in silk cravats stood outside shops, smoking pipes and talking. A few nobles from the western kingdom of Akram, their white robes edged in scarlet rope, were scattered here and there, doing business with tapestry shops and fabric weavers. Occasionally Kol caught a glimpse of merchants with olive skin and dark hair driving wagons loaded with crates that all bore a likeness of the Súndraille flag. And over it all, the majestic spires of Queen Irina’s castle rose toward a sun-kissed sky.
The poverty and violence that Kol had seen in Tranke had yet to truly touch the capital. Kol was grateful. The Eldrians couldn’t afford to be the cause of a mob here.
“Ready?” Jyn asked as they reached a steep hill bisected by a road paved in white gray-flecked stones. At the top of the hill was the gate to the castle.
Kol felt sick to his stomach as his spine snapped into the rigid, academy-approved posture he’d spent so much of his last four years mocking. If Irina wouldn’t see him as an equal, wouldn’t listen to his request, or wouldn’t accept his terms, he would be out of options.
Eldr would be out of options.
He lifted his chin and assumed the formal royal expression that had always made Father seem so distant and difficult to understand.
Irina would listen. She would negotiate. She would use her magic to save Eldr.
Kol wasn’t leaving this castle until she did.
“Jyn, you do the talking. Announce me by my full title. Request a meeting with the queen on a matter of dire importance.” His voice, thank the skies, didn’t shake. His hands remained steady on the reins.
Years of pretending indifference to being called before the throne to face the consequences of his actions had finally come in handy.
No one spoke as their horses trudged up the steep hill that led from the city to the castle. Behind them, cathedral bells tolled the hour in deep, sonorous tones that echoed across the entire countryside.
“What in the skies above is that?” Jyn sounded horrified as she crested the hill.
Kol spurred his horse forward and then pulled it to a stop beside Jyn as he tried to understand what he was seeing.
A woman old enough to be Kol’s grandmother was pinned to the castle wall beside the gate by what looked like unnaturally long, limber branches growing out of a nearby apple tree. The branches were lashed around her wrists and ankles, holding her spread-eagled against the stone.
“She must have done something against Irina.” Jyn’s voice was taut.
The woman began to convulse, her mouth gaping wide as something large and round pushed its way up her throat.