Page 38 of The Threadbare Queen

“It hurts where it touches.” She glared at it, then at Ava, and Ava thought just a little bit of doubt, of caution, was reflected in her eyes.

“Give me the gloves. You hold the knife.” Sirna sounded angry, as if he blamed both her and Evelyn for the situation, when it was all of his own making.

They swapped places, Evelyn gripping the knife too tight, and yanking on the non-magical rope around Ava’s waist as if she were about to run.

That was a joke. She could barely walk.

Sirna pulled out one end of the rope carefully from the bag and reached around her with it.

Evelyn moved so there was no chance of it touching her again, and she dragged Ava back with her.

“Careful.” Sirna’s voice was a hiss of displeasure.

“It wasn’t on purpose.” Evelyn steadied, though. But Ava thought she saw anger in the way her hand gripped the knife hilt.

They certainly weren’t a happy duo. If they ever had been.

Sirna didn’t ask Ava to lift her shift up, and she felt tears gather in her eyes when she realised he was going to keep the rope on the outside of her clothing.

She might even have Evelyn’s reaction to the rope touching her to thank for that.

Sirna was nervous of it. More nervous than he’d been before.

He tied it in a knot in front of her, and then shifted the knot to her hip and lifted the bag over her head so it lay across her chest.

She could feel the rope’s frustration at the barriers between her and it, but it still sipped from her, drawing her energy through the rough weave of her shift and the bag.

Her head spun, and her knees collapsed beneath her.

Sirna’s shouted something, and then her head lolled against his arm.

She didn’t know what he did after that.

She didn’t care.

Chapter 11

Deni felt a sense of unease as he left Bartolo.

“Stop grinding your teeth.” Oscar looked over at him. “It’s making me even more tense.

“It’s just, I’ve never known anyone to get the better of her.” Deni remembered the first time he’d met Ava, riding with a whoop of joy toward the Venyatu column, face wreathed in smiles.

She’d been so happy to see them.

He’d been aiming an arrow at her at the time, and she had talked her way around his guard, relaxed him and befriended him, all before they’d reached the long train of soldiers and carts.

He’d never regretted it. Even if nothing she’d told him at the time had been the truth.

He couldn’t help the grin that stretched his lips at the thought of how she hadn’t been a poor shepherd from the mountains, she’d been the princess of Kassia.

She’d saved his life, along with the whole of the Rising Wave, from burning alive from the magical flares the Queen’s Herald had been planning to use on them.

So how had someone gotten the better of her?

“You think we’re dealing with a powerful spell caster?” Oscar was chewing a piece of dried meat, and the words came out indistinct.

“Or her abductors are using something that has a powerful spell embedded in it.” He understood now that it wasn’t necessary to be a spell caster yourself to use a spell. The protections Ava had embroidered into a scrap of fabric and given to him had saved him from an arrow to the chest once, and he hadn’t even known what it was he’d tucked into his tunic.

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