Page 41 of Return of the Vengeful Quee

She softened her voice, infusing it with pity. “Your loyalty is admirable, but it is not honorable to kill innocents, even to save your own.”

The female bared her fangs and hissed, her claws breaking the skin on Charis’s wrist. With a jerk, she yanked Charis toward the stairs, sending her tumbling to the deck, where she was dragged by one arm. The Rakuuna took the stairs in three bounds, slamming Charis against the steps as she went, and then threw her against the wall outside her cabin. Charis’s head rapped sharply against the wood. Bending low, the Rakuuna whispered, “It stays quiet until it gets to Calera and our queen kills it.”

Charis tried to respond, but her head was fuzzy, and everything hurt as though she’d been trampled by a horse. The door to the cabin opened as the Rakuuna stalked away, and someone gasped.

Charis tried to rise, only to crumple to the floor.

“Charis!” Tal ran forward and dropped to his knees beside her. “Where are you hurt?”

Her vision wavered as she turned her face toward his.

“I’m fine,” she rasped.

“Liar,” he said softly.

She gave him a look of murderous fury. Or at least she tried to. Her body didn’t want to obey messages from her brain.

“I’m going to lift you and get you into bed,” he said firmly, as though expecting an argument. Which was fair, given that in the past two days, she’d either snapped at him or ignored him entirely.

This time, she simply closed her eyes and said nothing.

The Rakuuna had said her queen was going to kill Charis when she arrived in Calera. Was that the truth? Or just an assumption?

Tal slid his arms beneath her back and scooped her up. Cradling her against his chest, he made his way into the cabin. Holland was gone. Probably checking on the other Calerans. As Tal carefully settled her on the bed, he parted her mass of curly hair and examined what he found.

“You’ve got a pretty good knot here,” he said as he ran his fingers along the rest of her scalp, likely hunting for more injuries.

Charis batted his hand away none too gently.

The Rakuuna had been telling the truth as she knew it. Maybe it came from the understanding that to fully control a kingdom, its former ruling family had to be eradicated, the way it seemed the Rakuuna had done in Rullenvor. Or maybe the female who’d dragged Charis down the stairs knew that her queen had to make an example of Charis to break the rebellion brewing in Calera.

Charis had believed the bounty had been placed on her head as a way to use her to gain King Alaric’s jewels, but any heir to the Caleran throne would satisfy the treaty. He could marry one of his children to Holland, Nalani, or, seers forbid, Ferris, and it wouldn’t change a thing about what he stood to gain. If the Rakuuna queen killed Charis, however, she could destroy the spirit of rebellion in Calera by snuffing out their symbol of hope.

“What happened?” Tal asked as he dipped a cloth in the basin of icy water and then carefully positioned it against the bump on her head.

“Nothing.” She ought to feel scared. Defeated. Angry. Something. Instead, she felt numb.

“I’ve been with them for weeks, and they’ve never attacked me like this. Was there something . . .” He gave her a long look. “You didn’t goad her into doing this to you, did you?”

She looked away.

“Charis, that’s incredibly dangerous.” He looked worried, and she had the sudden urge to laugh. It bubbled up, raw and bitter, and once she started, she found she couldn’t stop.

“What’s so funny?”

“Warning me . . . that something is . . . dangerous.” The laughter burned now, scraping against the chasm within her as though it was a thing born from darkness. “I’m going to die, Tal.” Her voice rose as the laughter faded away. “They’re going to kill me, so what does it matter if it happens on this ship or after I disembark? The least I can do is get useful information for my people in the time I have left.”

The room was really spinning now, and Charis felt sick to her stomach. Her eyelids fluttered closed on a final glimpse of Tal’s face, stricken and pale, and then something heavier than sleep took her.

Charis woke with a dull headache and the unwelcome sight of Tal slumped in a chair, his head resting on the side of the bed as he slept. The cabin was pitch dark except for a lantern burning on low beside the vanity basin. Holland snored comfortably from his bunk above Charis.

Tal must have spent the entire day and most of the night at her side.

It was ridiculous to feel warm at the thought of him still pretending to care.

Irritated with herself, she sat up, wincing at the pain in her head, and took satisfaction in the way Tal jerked awake, wild-eyed and confused.

“Go away,” she said, her voice still husky with sleep.

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