Page 68 of Return of the Vengeful Quee

“Again, how does that benefit him—hey!” Tal stumbled back as Ferris planted his hands on Tal’s shoulders and shoved.

“You treacherous, lying dog.” Ferris spat the words. “The only reason I can think of that your father wants the four of us gathered together is to go through with the wedding and then kill us all, leaving your brother as the sole ruler of Calera. And he has his monstrous allies here to help him make sure it happens. No doubt you were in on it the entire time. You’re nothing but a filthy traitor, and I should kill you where you stand.”

Holland dropped the bedpost, curled his hand into a fist, and plowed it straight into Ferris’s face.

Ferris hit the floor and lay gasping, blood leaking from his nose. “How dare you—”

“Tal is much more than a filthy traitor, and nobody gets to kill him except for me.” Holland glared down at Ferris.

“You hit me to stake a claim on the honor of killing him?” Ferris sounded incredulous.

“No, I hit you because nobody talks about my friends like that.”

Tal looked at Holland as though he’d just been given something priceless.

Ferris wiped blood from his nose and sat up. “You just said you wanted to kill him.”

“No, I said I get to kill him. Keep up.”

From outside the suite’s door, the unmistakable rattle of the Rakuuna talking to each other drifted in. Holland leaned down and snatched both the bedpost and Ferris off the floor.

“I can stand on my own.” Ferris glared at Holland.

“Enough,” Charis said as Reuben moved to position himself between her body and the door. “Ferris is right. The only explanation that makes sense is that Alaric plans some kind of treachery. We’ll deal with your feelings about that later, Tal. Right now, we need to move fast to get a message to Lord Thorsby and Lady Ollen so we can warn Nalani to hide before the Rakuuna queen realizes she’s still in Solvang.”

Ferris took a big step back, putting a healthy distance between himself and Holland. “What message? I can give it to our contact.”

Under no circumstances was Charis trusting something this delicate, this important, to a person she’d never met. “It’s a message that must be delivered in person.”

Ferris sighed. “Well then, you’re out of luck, because no one seems to know where Lady Ollen and Lord Thorsby are staying.”

Trust Ferris and his parents to not even consider checking in with the servants as a source of information.

“I know where they’re staying,” Charis said. “I just need you to show us how your contact gets out of the palace.”

Twenty-Five

NIGHT SEEMED TO take forever to arrive.

All day long, Rakuuna guards patrolled the halls of the southern wing twice an hour, often stepping inside rooms to stare at the occupants for long, uncomfortable moments before moving on. It was unnerving feeling their large, black eyes on her, and she couldn’t afford for the guards to get used to seeing her in her suite’s sitting room when she planned to sneak out that evening, so she, Holland, and Tal had made a habit of going into their respective rooms and closing their doors, leaving Reuben alone on the sofa.

Besides Charis and her people, there were at least thirty people staying in the wing. The Everlys, eleven people Charis recognized as palace staff from her mother’s tenure, and quite a few others who were working as servants under Queen Bai’elsha, but whose faces Charis didn’t recognize.

Lady Everly appeared a bit frail—Charis supposed it was because she no longer had regular access to her medicine. Lord Everly, however, looked as dour and somber as ever, his words slow and careful as he assured her that he and Ferris had done their best to negotiate a favorable deal between Alaric and the Rakuuna, but that he, like his son, was deeply concerned over the requirement that all four Caleran heirs be present for the wedding and subsequent jewel payment.

Lord Everly had also echoed Charis’s concern that Nalani be apprised of her tenuous situation immediately so she could hide. Based on what Charis now knew about the Rakuuna, it would be enough for Nalani to move inland and stay with her father’s family. As long as she was more than a day’s journey from the coast, the Rakuuna would have difficulty hunting her.

However, there was nothing to stop the Rakuuna from destroying the people in the capital city of Ooverstaad, including Gareth and Vyllanthra, in their efforts to find Nalani. Which meant Charis needed her allies to assemble an armada and use the moriarthy dust to wipe out the Rakuuna in Calera as soon as possible.

Lord Everly also wanted a full accounting of Charis’s time away from Calera, but she’d kept the details to a minimum. The last thing she needed was for one of the other Calerans to learn about the moriarthy dust or the gathering armada and curry favor with the Rakuuna by reporting it to Queen Bai’elsha. Instead, Charis had assured the Everlys that Solvang had given asylum to their refugees, that Nalani was working on shoring up alliances with the other sea kingdoms, and that spreading news of Alaric’s potential treachery would at least give Charis some leverage she could use to negotiate with him when he arrived.

None of Calera’s allies would look kindly on a ruler who had gained not just a throne, but an entire kingdom through bloodshed and bad-faith agreements.

The Everlys had also agreed that making contact with Lord Thorsby and Lady Ollen was urgent, and so they’d hung one of Lady Everly’s pink handkerchiefs on the railing of her sitting room balcony as a signal to their contact that he needed to return that evening. Unfortunately, they’d insisted that Ferris should go along with them since he was more accustomed to navigating around Rakuuna patrols.

Charis considered pointing out that dodging scheduled, predictable guards within the palace was much different than navigating the dark streets of Arborlay after Queen Bai’elsha’s curfew, but what was the point? She had no energy for arguing. Everything in her was solely focused on escaping the palace, finding the rebellion’s headquarters, warning Nalani while also getting her Caleran allies ready to help her, and then returning to the palace before her absence was noticed the following morning.

She’d briefly considered not returning at all, but the Rakuuna had no respect for human lives. Queen Bai’elsha would torture and kill the other Calerans left behind as she hunted for clues to Charis’s whereabouts, and their blood wasn’t something Charis could stomach having on her hands.

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