Page 65 of Golden Queen
I followed their gazes to see dark wings set against the sky as four dragons wheeled overhead. The men of Windemere were cheering the Darkwatch dragon mages as they flew sentry over the city.
I knew that was what Io was doing. He had probably crossed the entire kingdom, looking for more of those dead things—more paths cut through the godsgrass.
I couldn't stop the smile that spread across my face even as I caught sight of a few of the Windemerian commanders, distinctive in their golden helms, whose gazes were narrowed on the soldiers with displeasure.
I left the courtyard, and what felt like a more than historic moment in the world of men, to find Taiger and my dragon waiting for me just inside the doorway to the castle.
Taiger's smile echoed mine as we made our way back to my chambers, and it did not fade until I filled him in on the battle and the dead things that had cut their way across the plains.
Io was at dinner that night, looking devastating in his customary black coat and breeches. As always, I found it impossible to keep my eyes off him, but since he seemed just as inclined to keep his on me, I didn’t put much effort into it.
The party was a raucous affair as the Radune emissaries pressed the dragon mages for details of the battle. News of the skirmish had already spread throughout the castle and probably the city, as well.
The nobles and courtiers joined the emissaries in bemoaning the fact that they had not been there to see the action for themselves.
Aben and Britaxia supplied enough details, though, to whet their appetites for the adventure they had all missed.
I couldn’t help but wonder at their capacity to turn the terror of finding undead soldiers on the plains into a cause for celebration. Perhaps it said something about the resilience of the human spirit…or some such nonsense. To me, it just seemed like willful ignorance and stupidity.
Io broke tradition just before the dessert course was served, as he rose from his chair and took the one on my right—the one where Markus would have sat if he had been in the city.
"I found him," he said quietly. I was confused. My mind was still focused on the battle, and it took me several moments to realize he meant that he found Castille.
I smiled, unsure how much I should say with so many ears close by. "Will you take care of it tonight, then?" I asked, hoping against hope that he would ask me to come along.
He shook his head. I noticed he was tapping his index finger on the table in a way that I'd come to realize meant he felt some tension.
"The bastard doesn't even live in Albiyn," he said, raising a brow. "Which is, no doubt, what makes it hard for your guards to apprehend him here. He lives in some apparent hole in the ground called Cosdam."
"It's north of here—on the Long Fork River," I supplied.
He nodded once, and I heard the knuckles of his hand crack as he stopped tapping and made a fist on the table. "It turns out Castille is nothing more than a go-between for my own countrymen and the King of fucking Penjan, himself."
That was surprising. I imagined Castille supplying the Withian children to necromancers working in the shadows of Albiyn. Perhaps selling their spells to wealthy noblewomen who wanted to look younger, or old men who wanted to make their cocks stand up. I would never have guessed it went as far into Penjan as the Shadow King himself.
"Do you know which of your own countrymen?" I asked.
That sly, merciless grin overtook his face, and I knew that he did. "They will pay—dearly," he said.
I felt a chill snake down the entire length of my spine as I imagined what he had done to get the information from Elias Addison. Some cruel, primal part of me wanted to ask—wanted him to detail it—if only to satisfy my own blood lust. Whatever Io had done, the man had deserved worse. And I hoped he was still somewhere screaming, even then.
Io left me at the table shortly after, still paying no heed to the affronted stares of the Windemerian courtiers in response to him having the nerve to take my uncle's chair.
"Goodnight, Princess," he said, dipping his head just enough so that his eyes were framed under the harsh line of his dark brow.
The whites seemed brighter somehow, the shape of the eye more significant, and that midnight pupil seemed more alive than it had been moments before, as though something slick slithered through the swirling deep blue.
I felt his eyes on me long after I knew he was gone. The little hairs on the nape of my neck seemed to dance as that chill raced up and across my scalp. A dull ache of want,of need, sat low in my belly.
I laid in bed that night, tossing in my blankets. They became mockingly twisted around my legs every time I moved as though they were chainsattaching me to the bed so that I would not follow that very familiar path I knew led to his door.
Eleven
Igave up just after midnight, casting off those chains and throwing a dark cloak around my shoulders. I would knock lightly, and if he was asleep, I would leave.
I only wanted to see him, to spend a few moments alone, to talk more about the events of the day.
Liar, my mind screamed as I padded barefoot across the stones, my thin nightgown swishing around my ankles beneath the cloak whose hood was pulled up over my head.
