Page 82 of Shadows and Flames
She tilted her head, shifting the braids falling down her back. “Yes.”
Could I believe that? What choice did I have? “If I find this bracelet, if I return it to you, will you release my friend to me?”
Her eyes widened, and more of her white teeth showed. The stained-glass wings behind her fluttered.“You wish to make a deal with me, Em?”
Even the shortened form of my name on her lips slid down my spine like sludge. “Yeah. A deal.”
“Upon the return of my bracelet, you will have the return of your friend. My pet, here.”
The urge to slice open her throat for calling Francie such a word prickled beneath my fingertips. Where my Death should have been keen to enact the fantasy. “Yes.”
And the Queen giggled, lightly and musically, a sound that belonged in a choir. The joy removed the grotesque from her beautiful features. Her wings twitched happily, and my stomach turned to stone.
“Yes, tiny Raouga Em. It is a deal.”
She was going to have to stop calling me tiny—not all of us were spindly crones. “Then what does this bracelet look like. Where was it last seen?”
She hummed again, moving the golden leash in her fist, and I clenched my teeth with all of my strength. We made a deal. “It is about this in width,” Sarya placed her thumb and first finger a small distance apart, “gold, with many purple stones of varying size and shade. Sapphires from our mountain.”
The stone of my stomach began to sink into the mud she’d been spewing at me. Yes, this could be any fine piece of royal jewelry, but… I had known a piece of that description.Stolena piece just like it before returning to Nethras and giving Francie the coin I’d won. Had I—had I been followed?
“It was last accounted for on an island in your realm. It was stolen from here, then traded again and again. One of my loyal citizens had gone to retrieve it, but they never came back.”
I used everything I had left to keep my face impassive, but the queen of bones saw something within me. My blade still rested upon her sternum, and she brushed the tip of her fingernail along the length of it. “You know of it,” she surmised. And then, in a whisper like poison, she accused, “Tiny Raouga thief.”
Goddess-damn it all to hell. That trip to Dyna Island. When I’d fought in the rings, stolen the bracelet from the human merchant, and crossed paths with the male now at my back. Hemurdered my employer who was most likely the Folk she sent to retrieve the bracelet.
The thought of unwittingly working for this cruel female rankled.
Though, not as much with the realization that this was all my fault. Whoever followed me must have mistaken the exchange of money, my giving the coin purse to Francie as me handing her the bracelet. My attempt at helping her ultimately led her to be taken and tortured. For years.
Thatalmost left me turning my blade on myself.
“I will need time. To go back to our world and retrieve it.” To my old apartment, to my bedroom and the drawer where I’d stowed the piece of jewelry I never wore. The home was mine, bought and paid for, but there was no telling if it stood undisturbed. The whole bloody building could have been reduced to rubble by now—I’d not set foot anywhere near Nethras in these years away.
I just made a deal, but what if I was unable to find the bracelet?
“No,” Elián’s voice blazed through the muck. He stepped up, now shoulder to my shoulder. “There is no need. We will bring it to you now.”
I kept my mouth shut, but through whatever bond we shared, I screamed a thousand questions, a thousand curses at him for assuring something like that. What did he even know about the bracelet? When he’d stolen my coin and killed my Folk employer, he’d not been concerned with the item itself. I wasn’t even sure he’d ever seen it.
But when Elián glanced at me, eyes dim, he gave the minutest shake of his head. Telling me to not undermine him with incredulity.
The Queen turned her attention to Elián like the twitch of a bird of prey. “And who are you? May I have your name, Raouga?”
I lost the battle with the remainder of my better senses. “No.”
El did not look at me. “My name does not matter. We can get you what you seek.”
She remained still, as if made out of the stone or bone or branch. Then, another puff of air, the sensation of her wings carrying her, and the Queen was perched on her throne as if she’d never left it. “You will come back tomorrow eve for supper. Bring me the bracelet, and I will fulfill my end of our deal.” Elián did not bow or nod or thank her, and neither did I.
What I wanted to do was demand she not draw this out, but Blackwood shoved forward, glaring at me while twisting around the pack slung over his shoulder. “As I wassaying. I have come to talk trade, Your Majesty.”
She answered him without looking away from us. “What do you have in that bag?”
He deposited it to the floor, kneeling again. “Proof of Von Herron’s demise, ‘Majesty.” Blackwood had better sense than me, keeping his eyes downcast and awaiting her judgement, and I barely held onto the part of our contract that required me to protect him.
The queen twisted the golden links in her fist, keeping Francie close to the side of her throne as she watched Blackwood like a starving cat would a mouse. The trembling of her muscles was evident, making her form unclear, shaky.
