Page 115 of A Queen This Fierce and Deadly

“So that’s how he has done it,” he said. “Good catch, Sin.”

I didn’t preen, but it was close.

Now we needed to debate who would go in. The water was so incredibly still, I had no doubt Regner had planted something in the depths, just waiting for whoever was foolish enough to risk the water.

Unfortunately, we were the fools in question.

“Who is the best at sensing and breaking wardsaround physical objects?”

Brinlor raised his hand. We hadn’t spoken much, but from what little interaction we’d had, he seemed to be a steady, dependable man.

He stood and watched the water intently for several long moments. Then he closed his eyes. “There’s definitely something heavily warded in there,” he said finally.

“Can you remove the ward from here?”

Brinlor shook his head. “It’s too strong. I need to go in. And I’ll need someone to watch my back,” he said, already removing his shoes. “If I’m focusing on breaking the ward, I won’t have much concentration left for whatever beasties Regner has left for us.”

The thought of those beasties turned my blood to ice. But I opened my mouth.

Demos’s head snapped around. “No.”

“I’ll go in,” Gwynara volunteered.

“I’m going in too,” Demos said. I tamped down my instant denial, even though I’d expected this from him. Demos didn’t let anyone do anything he wasn’t prepared to do himself.

Except me. I ground my teeth. But this was not the time.

Three others spoke up. Horrison, Firion, and Nyrik.

“We’ll need you here,” Demos said to me. “With Amalra and Elysanth shooting at anything that moves.”

“Everything except us,” Brinlor said cheerfully.

I couldn’t argue with that. My arrows could at least distract anything that attacked the others.

I felt as if my fear might tear me apart. Demos was already stripping off his shoes, most of his weapons, hiscloak. He glanced at me, and I grabbed his hand, unsure exactly what I was doing.

His expression softened. “I’ll be fine.”

I nodded, but it felt as if I’d swallowed a small orange and it was now stuck in my throat. With a squeeze, he removed his hand from mine and dove into the water.

PRISCA

The ship creaked around me, and I forced myself to take a long, slow breath. Even after so much time spent on the water, it was unlikely I would ever become truly comfortable with this kind of transportation—although I only needed the occasional seasickness tonic these days.

But there had been only one way for us to travel through Eprothan territory—on one of the few Eprothan ships Daharak had liberated during the battle to take down the barrier. It was the gold gleaming along the prow of Regner’s ship that had sickened me when we’d boarded. The thought of the wealth he wielded while those in his villages starved… it made my stomach churn.

Now, we’d gathered in the largest stateroom, sitting, once again, around a circular table.

When Lorian had insisted we needed to bring Kaliera, I’d hesitated. I’d liked knowing she was tucked away in Rekja’s castle, the door to her rooms locked and securely guarded. Still, if she’d wanted to escape us, she wouldn’thave come to us in the first place. Since she wanted to see Jamic—and he’d asked her to cooperate—she was forced to work with us.

I’d questioned whether Zathrian would believe Regner would simply arrive with no warning. The answer to that question from anyone who either knew Regner or had studied him intently had been a resounding yes. Arriving unexpectedly to observe one of his allies—and to determine whether that ally was complying with his orders—was exactly the kind of move Regner would make.

As Lorian had pointed out, we didn’t need to fool Zathrian himself. We simply needed to be able to travel unimpeded through Eprothan waters to get close enough to the tip of this continent where we could dock and travel to the Cursed City. It wasn’t entirely surprising that my cousin had chosen to make such a place his base. Not after everything I’d learned about him.

Easily defensible, the Cursed City was located on the northwest coast in Eprotha—directly across the Sleeping Sea from our kingdom.

We’d made it past the Frosthaven Isles—several of our people strolling the deck while dressed in Eprothan colors in case any of Regner’s lingering ships thought to approach. But that hadn’t happened. Something told me most of Regner’s captains and generals were focused only on their orders. It was a small comfort.

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