Page 14 of The Threadbare Queen

“You might remember me, your highness, I am Julian Furte. I was a friend of your parents.”

“And yet, I hear my family is out of favor in Grimwalt now. And that I am considered a fugitive. I would be interested in hearing what my crime is.”

Furte blanched, and then his cheeks flushed. “Where did you hear that?”

“A reliable source. And of course, the man who tried to abduct me on the orders of the Speaker of the Grimwalt court mentioned something along those lines, as well.”

Two of the diplomats in the envoy drew in audible breaths at her pronouncement, and looked back toward the door.

Raun-Tu’s people stepped closer, blocking their way.

“I . . . know nothing about that. If someone claimed the Speaker was trying to take you against your will, they were lying.” Furte’s tongue darted out to wet his lips.

“They weren’t lying.” She leaned forward. “The Speaker sent me numerous requests to attend court when I managed to free myself from Kassian imprisonment, and when I declined, he sent two people after me. They pursued me all the way to Fernwell.”

Furte turned to his little entourage. “Did any of you know of this?”

Blank faces stared back at him, but Ava thought one of the assistants looked a little nervous.

“And then, of course, there are these.” She gestured to the scrolls Luc was holding, and Raun-Tu walked up the steps and took them from Luc and handed them to Furte. “I found them in my aunt’s study after the Rising Wave took the city.”

Furte gave one to a colleague, unrolled the other, and they read in silence. It grew and grew, until Ava felt the weight of it.

She watched the group carefully.

Some of them might really not be aware of the machinations of the Speaker. Some might be under his sway. But she was growing surer by the moment that woman who was clearly an assistant, her dark hair pulled back in a low bun, her clothing more plain and severe than those of the diplomats, had known exactly what she was walking into.

She had courage, at least, Ava thought.

The woman didn’t know what kind of a leader Ava was. She also had the infamous Turncoat King, and the fierce General Ru of the Venyatux army, standing on either side of her.

The assistant might have been serving herself up for death, for all she knew.

And yet she had come anyway.

“I can hardly believe what is written here,” Furte said eventually, into the silence. He passed the scroll to another in the group.

“I concur. If we had known these scrolls existed, we would have approached you in a completely different way.” The woman who had read the second scroll’s voice trembled slightly. “I am Renata Ewing, your highness, and I was a friend of your mother’s.” She drew herself up. “I helped your grandmother persuade the court to close our border to Kassia in retaliation for your mother and father’s capture and death. I would never have stood for anything that is written on this parchment.”

“The two spies in the Venyatux column mentioned in the scrolls, were they the two who pursued you to Fernwell?” Furte seemed to be connecting things very quickly.

“We can only assume so. They disappeared when the Rising Wave was close to Fernwell, and one of them broke into my rooms in the palace after we took the city, and tried to abduct me at knife-point.”

Luc crossed his arms over his chest. “Before I killed him, he said he was acting on the Speaker’s orders.”

“He was lying.” The assistant, the one Ava was sure found none of these revelations a surprise, hissed the words.

“He was the same person who tried to abduct me from my grandmother’s estate, on the Speaker’s orders again, before I joined the Rising Wave.” Ava leaned back on the throne and wondered how her aunt had stood sitting on it for hours on end. It was hard and extremely uncomfortable. “He mentioned it when he tried to abduct me from the Venyatux column on the way to Fernwell, as well. I believed he was telling the truth. What reason would he have to lie?”

“Why would the Speaker be so fixated on getting you to court?” A third member of the envoy spoke for the first time. “Did he say?”

“No.” Ava tilted her head. That was the truth, although she knew all too well the reason for it. He wanted to use her magic skills for his own benefit. “I thought you could enlighten us.” Would they tell her the truth if they knew it?

“We had no idea. If we had any inkling . . .”

“You would have turned tail and run for home,” General Ru said in a calm voice.

“Perhaps.” The fourth diplomat of the envoy was an old man, and he spoke quietly, with dignity. His words brought down the tension better than any protestation of innocence could have. “My name is Guran Hur and I can see things are not what we were led to believe.”

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