Page 31 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
Dead.
An arrow stuck out from the arm that still clutched her feathered fan. A sickly green foam oozed from her mouth, still open with her final scream.
That had not been a fatal blow.
She would have lived if not for the poison infecting her body.
TantheIssa, who’d once survived a shipwreck and spent five days out at sea alone on nothing but a plank, using her hat to gather rainwater and the beads from her clutch to fish, had beenmurderedat Evie’s wedding.
Only minutes before, I’d been thinking I didn’t have the time to listen to her recipes. I couldn't remember for how long I was supposed to poach the fish to keep it flaky like hers.
And now I’ll never know.
Never get to taste it again.
Never get it right.
Shame flooded me as it never had before.
TantheIssa’s eyes stared at me accusingly, just like the priest’s had. Like she’d expected more from the First Daughter she’d praised to anyone who would listen.
You were supposed to protect us.
I muffled a cry and swallowed it to the pits of despair I kept locked and hidden deep inside me.
The guilt overrode my already hazy sense of self-preservation.
With the arrows hissing above me, aimed to kill, I crawled from underneath the bench. My hand reached out and gently closedTantheIssa’s eyelids.
Another swallowed sob burned me as I stretched further, kissing her temple.
“I’m sorry,” I barely managed to mutter.
She was still warm.
Too warm.
The poison must have seared her from the inside out.
I couldn’t let this happen again.
With one last guilt-ridden look atTantheIssa, I crouched as low as my legs and hunched back allowed, cocked an arrow, andmoved.
My shredded skirt ripped further, just like something inside me tore forever.
The arrows chased me, spearing the sky.
I’d memorized this maze and its winding paths before I learned how to read.
But the bodies.
So many bodies in my path.
Still warm.
Still reeking of fear.
Green, blue, and even the black and golden armor of the Blood Brotherhood.
