Page 97 of Rise of the Vicious Princess

Mother’s mouth curved into a cruel smile. “I have no interest in paying the Rakuuna or in dealing with Rullenvor at this point, Ambassador Shyrn. You have been insulting and duplicitous, and it’s clear the High Emperor and his ally are no friend to Calera. As for your fear of facing them with your failure, you need not worry. You’ll be too busy in our dungeons giving us every piece of information we need to ever set foot in Rullenvor again.”

Charis met Mother’s gaze as she quickly ran through the questions they needed Shyrn to answer. There was precious little information about the Rakuuna in Brannigan’s texts, but none of the brief passages described the fearsome underwater creatures as having ships. Did the armada stationed at Portsmith belong to Rullenvor? Had they been sinking Calera’s ships all along as a way to force the queen to accept their terms? Or was something else going on? Some sort of dangerous political game between Rullenvor, the Rakuuna, and the owner of those ships? Somehow the jewels demanded as payment were the key, which meant—

“Charis, be careful!” Tal lunged from his position near the wall and sprinted toward her, but it was too late.

Ambassador Shyrn leaped to his feet, took three running steps, and launched himself into Charis’s weapon. Her blade pierced his throat and came out the other side as they crashed to the floor. The breath left her body as the hilt of her sword slammed into her abdomen.

Seconds later, Tal was there. He tore Ambassador Shyrn off her and tossed him aside. Kneeling beside the princess, he said, “Where are you hurt? Charis, please. Tell me where to look, sweetheart. There’s so much blood. So much.”

He ripped his jacket off and pressed it to her chest where blood pooled in the center of her dress.

“Get Baust!” the queen yelled. A guard wrenched open the door and raced inside while the footman ran for the palace physician.

Charis wheezed. Her lungs felt as though they were encased in stone.

“Charis, I can’t find the source.” Tal pressed his jacket harder, frantically looking for the wound. “Help me. Tell me where it is.”

“Not mine,” she rasped, drawing in half a lungful of air. “His.”

Tal pulled his coat away and examined her dress, his hands shaking. When he was finally convinced that she was right, he rested his hands on her shoulders and curled over the top of her.

“You are going to be the death of me,” he whispered as the queen yelled instructions. “This is the fourth time you’ve nearly given me heart failure.”

“Help me sit up before my mother actually does drop dead of heart failure.” It hurt to breathe, but she could manage.

“Your Majesty,” Tal called over the top of the queen’s frantic directions to her staff. “Charis is unharmed. She is well.”

The queen hurried to her daughter’s side, saw the truth for herself, and then lowered herself shakily into the nearest chair.

“Your Highness!” Baust rushed into the room and headed toward Charis.

“She’s fine. The blood is his.” The queen waved a hand at the body on the rug. “Get that useless sack of meat out of here and leave us.”

The staff promptly obeyed, and then it was just Mother, Charis, and Tal. The queen looked at them both.

“We have two issues. First, you called my daughter ‘sweetheart’ when you thought she was dying.”

Tal blanched, and Charis’s stomach pitched.

“Your Majesty—”

“I don’t care if you have feelings for her. She’s free to take a consort if she is unsatisfied with her marriage to the Montevallian, though knowing my daughter, I’m not sure that’s an option she’ll exercise. At any rate, your feelings can never be revealed in public again. Even if you think she’s dying. Am I clear?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Tal said.

“Second, and of far more importance, Ambassador Shyrn just deliberately impaled himself rather than answer our questions. That speaks to desperation and danger. We need to figure out why the Rakuuna want a stockpile of jewels from Montevallo, whether those ships belong to them, and how to defeat both the ships and Te’ash, if necessary. It’s a small mercy that they never come on land. It buys us time to figure this out. I have no intention of becoming ensnared in an agreement where we have to pay these creatures just to keep our ships afloat. Now go get cleaned up and watch your backs. We still have a traitor to catch.”

Thirty-Five

THE NEXT WEEK was spent reaching out to the kingdoms closest to Rullenvor to ask about the High Emperor, the Rakuuna, and the armada of small battle frigates with green lanterns. Every palloren bird brought back utterly useless information.

Thallis had suspicions that the High Emperor wasn’t well because he apparently hadn’t been seen in some time, but those were unconfirmed rumors. The Rakuuna hadn’t been seen in their area of the sea for nearly a century.

Verace hadn’t renewed their trade relationship with Rullenvor last spring, though they weren’t sure why. It had been Rullenvor’s decision. They’d heard rumors that the Rakuuna were back in the northern waters but couldn’t confirm a single sighting.

Embre had heard nothing about the affairs of Rullenvor, but that wasn’t surprising given how far north they were. They did, however, confirm that the Rakuuna were no longer keeping strictly to the borders of their kingdom, though they’d personally had no interactions with the species.

Abandoning their attempt to get insight into what was going on within Rullenvor, Charis and Mother came up with a new plan of attack. Charis would take the boat out every night for a week, hunting for the small warships with the ghostly green lights, searching for patterns or paths of safety on the waters so that the queen could send a battalion of naval vessels to trap them between the mouth of Portsmith’s cove and the army that was heading there now.

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