Page 2 of Return of the Vengeful Quee

It still wouldn’t be half of what he deserved.

The fact that worry over Tal’s fate sometimes crept into her own thoughts as well was unfortunate, but it wasn’t anything that a reminder of his betrayal couldn’t fix.

Grim shot a look at Dec, his freckled brow collapsing into a frown. “Your Highness, if I might ask what you’re planning once we reach port—”

In three steps, Charis closed the distance between them, her dagger in her hand. Before he could do more than blink in surprise, she had the point of the blade against his throat.

“Three weeks of silence from you isn’t long enough. You will not speak to me unless I ask you to. You will not leave the brig unless I send for you. You will remember that this is a Caleran ship, and you are the enemy.” She turned to lock eyes with Dec. The boy was taller than Tal, with black hair, brown skin, and brown eyes. As always, he was quiet and still, his body giving her no indication of what he was thinking.

She bared her teeth in a cruel smile, feeling every inch her mother. “As for you, traitor, the only reason I’m not sending you to the brig to care for the horses with your dishonorable friend is because Orayn needs competent sailors to help run this ship.”

Dec inclined his head respectfully.

“I am keeping the two of you alive and fed solely for the purpose of providing me with useful information on the inner workings of the court at Montevallo.” She drew her second dagger and aimed it at Dec. “If either of you refuses to cooperate, I will run you through with my sword, mount your head to the bow, and throw your body into the sea. Are we quite clear?”

“We’re clear.” Dec’s voice was so quiet, she could barely hear him over the sound of the water slapping against the sides of the boat.

She sheathed her daggers as Grim moved toward the steps that led into the belly of the ship. Dec shifted as if to move away as well, then paused.

“You may cut out my tongue for saying this if you need to, Your Highness, but I’m truly sorry for what happened to your people and to you. It’s horrifying, and if you want my help fighting back, I freely offer it.”

Before she could respond, he bowed and then headed toward Orayn. She stepped to the edge of the ship, gripping the wooden railing so hard her palms ached.

There was no room inside her for being sorry. There was only rage and ruin and the desperate hope that, somehow, she could save her kingdom.

Mother had trained Charis to be smarter. Strike harder. To never falter, never waver, never break. Every interaction was a chess move, and only the most ruthless person on the board survived to win the game.

Maybe she could barely breathe past the grief. It was no excuse to stop thinking five steps ahead. No excuse to falter, even when the task in front of her would cut her to pieces.

“Charis?”

A soft voice spoke from behind her. Turning, she found her cousin Nalani Farragin—the closest thing she had to a best friend now that Tal no longer deserved the title.

“Are you ready?” Nalani’s sleek black hair was braided and coiled around the top of her head, and the wind nipped a flush into her golden cheeks.

“Ready or not, it’s time.” Holland joined his twin sister, his black duster and battered sword sheath looking right at home aboard the ship. Hildy, the fluffy, multicolored kitten Tal had rescued and given to Father, perched on Holland’s shoulder, blinking in the early morning sunlight. Holland swept Charis with a critical eye. “You look awful. Did you even try to sleep?”

“Holland!” Nalani smacked his stomach lightly with the back of her hand.

He raised his brows. “It’s the truth.”

“That doesn’t mean you say it out loud.”

“I’m fine.” The lie rolled off her tongue with practiced ease. She’d spent the last three weeks repeating it until she no longer considered answering differently. “Let’s get this done before we make port.”

Holland stood to Charis’s right as she turned to face the small crowd assembled on the deck. Nalani stood beside him. They both looked gravely serious, an expression shared by everyone on the ship. Every member of the royal staff that Charis had managed to take with her when the palace fell. Every sailor who’d scrambled to escape the chaos at the port. Every merchant, farmer, and peasant Holland, Nalani, and Delaire, a young noblewoman who’d escaped the ballroom with them, had whisked off the streets on their way to the dock—and quite a few who hadn’t fit in the carriage but had followed on foot in a race for their lives. Sixty-two people who gathered in silence on the deck, staring up at Charis as she stood on the forecastle above them.

Reuben, one of two remaining palace guards, was a few steps behind Charis’s left shoulder, looking faintly ill, as sailing did not agree with his stomach. He kept his hand on his sword, his somewhat-bedraggled uniform buttoned up to his chin while his eyes scanned the crowd, hunting for threats, just as he would’ve done if she’d been standing on the dais in the palace throne room.

The thought of the throne room with its one golden chair where Charis had spent countless hours standing silently to Mother’s right squeezed her chest until the next breath felt impossible to take.

Then Orayn stepped to her left side wearing the captain’s jacket he’d had on the night of the invasion, pale blue braided tassels looping over the shoulders as silver buttons gleamed against his chest. He held a crown in his large hands—a delicate concoction of twisted silver wire that one of the merchant women had fashioned from spare supplies found in the cargo hold.

The thin metal shaped at the whim of the woman’s hands reminded Charis of the dagger hairpiece Tal had made for her by twisting a simple updo cage into a weapon. Was that how he’d seen her? As a weapon he needed to keep close so he could predict where she would strike?

The memory of Tal drew blood.

She was a weapon. She had to be. Her kingdom’s survival depended on it.

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