Page 18 of Crown of Darkness
“Maybe Mother desires peace.” Andraste leans forward. “What happened at the Queensmoot was unsettling for all of us—”
“She murdered a queen,” Thiago replies. “The only thing that unsettled her was that Prince Kyrian and I got away before she could slit our throats too.”
Andraste continues as if he didn’t speak. “And now the Alliance stands in disarray. We must stand strong against the unseelie threat from the north.”
“Again, a striking argument. Again, a lie. There is evidence your mother has been in contact with Angharad, and has used the unseelie for her own purposes.”
They stare at each other.
Thiago leans forward, resting his forearm along his thigh. Edain doesn’t quite shift, but he’s no longer at ease. Every inch of him tenses, and a dark flame flares to life in his blue eyes.
My breath catches.
“PerhapsIwill make a counter-offer,” Thiago purrs. “I will give your mother Eidyn….”
What?
“In exchange for?” Andraste asks boldly.
“Clydain. And everything within it.”
Clydain?My gaze snaps toward him. Clydain’s an old rotting border keep with a broken waterwheel. Half the lower garrison is flooded. Nobody lives there anymore. The place is supposed to be haunted, and frankly, it holds no strategic value.
But he may as well have thrown a serpent directly into my sister’s lap.
“It’s a rotting old keep in the far north of Asturia,” she says. “And it borders Mistmere. It’s miles from your kingdom.”
“True,” Thiago replies. “But then, I’m not interested in the keep.”
And everything within it, he’d said.
My mind races. This has something to do with Lysander. He’d said the reason Lysander was sent to the northern forests of Asturia was to hunt for a weapon my mother was rumored to be keeping.
“Clydain and the surrounding forest is haunted, Your Highness.” Andraste loads her voice with scorn. “You may forgive me ifIthink this a trick, for Eidyn is a treasure trove, and Clydain is… a moth-eaten old cloak.”
When on the back foot, attack….
“Unless, of course, you want to gain a foothold in Mistmere,” she suggests.
“It’s my final offer,” Thiago tells her. “Tell your mother I will trade Eidyn for Clydain and everything currently within it as of this moment. And I will take her gift back home with me, provided there are no further tricks.”
“No tricks,” Andraste murmurs. “Mother says if you can tame him, then he is yours.”
I don’t trust this.
They’re too polite. And Andraste keeps staring at me.
“If you can tame him.”
It has to be that.
Mother thinks Lysander is uncontrollable. It’s a gift with a bite, for if we can’t control him then…. What? Thiago won’t kill him—he can’t be killed—and Thiago doesn’t turn his back on his loyal subjects.
Baylor pauses an inch from his brother. There’s no anguish upon his face, but I feel it within him. “Xander.”
He reaches out and touches the beast. Lysander towers above him, thick matted fur clinging to his body.
“How did you recapture him?” I ask.
