Assassinated? “He’s claiming that I’m dead?” I say, voice gone shrill.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Some say rage burns hot.
Not mine.
Mine turns solid ice. It goes crystalline, reaching fingers of frost covering every inch of my insides, chilling my nerves, frigidity coating my expression.
“We were able to bring a cart and a couple horses back,” Tobyn blurts. “It’s no royal carriage, but that would only draw attention, anyway. The city is crawling with guards we don’t recognize. We don’t know who we can trust. If the king made that announcement…we have to assume that he’s set on making sure you stay dead, if you catch my meaning. We could get you away from here. Get you somewhere safe.”
“No.” My head shakes in time with the windstorm that begins to rattle outside. “I will not be run out!”
“Malina,” Jeo says gently. “It’s over.”
My eyes flash to him and his cowardly words, and my mask cracks, revealing the fury beneath. “It is not over.”
He walks to me, frustrated concern bleeding into the blue of his irises, and I hate that look of pity, hate it when his hands come up to cradle my arms. “It’s over, Malina,” he repeats quietly. “He’s taken back the city, the soldiers, your allies. He’s just declared that you were killed. You need to leave before he actually does that too.”
“For the last time, you are a saddle,” I spit. “You are beneath me, bought to be ridden. A whore will not dictate what a queen does!”
His hands fall, the weight of the drop slamming at our feet, its reverberation traveling up my legs.
Perhaps later I’ll be able to care about the hurt I see in his expression, but right now, I feel nothing as I stare back at him.
“You sure are one cold bitch, Malina.”
My teeth clench. “That’s Queen to you.”
He gives me a humorless laugh. “Is it?”
Taken aback, I glare at him. Before I can chop out a scathing response, a shadow passes in front of the window, making me turn. “What was that?”
The mood in the room immediately shifts, everyone going tight with tension.
Jeo moves to look out, swiping his sleeve against the glass to see better. Behind me, the guards are up, already moving. Nile goes to the door, Tobyn to the back window.
“Do you see anything?” I ask.
“No, nothing,” Tobyn answers. “I’ll go out and do a perimeter check.”
He opens the door, wind and snow battering the threshold before he manages to shove it closed.
I walk over to the window to look out, but Jeo stops me. “Wait.”
I start to push aside his arm, but before I can, the sound of Tobyn screaming outside makes me freeze in place. My heart stops, a paper-thin exhale rustling past thinned lips. Yet what’s even worse than the blood-curdling scream that seems to echo through the mountains is what follows it.
Deathly quiet.
“Great Divine…” Jeo breathes, all the blood drained from his face.
Horrible fear consumes me, locking my limbs, my feet like blocks of ice frozen in place. Tobyn’s cut-off scream echoes in my ears.
Jeo slams the shutters closed while Nile races over to the door and throws the bolt down. “We need to get her Majesty to the cart!”
Pruinn is beside me in an instant, his ever-present bag slung over his shoulder.
“There’s no other door out,” Jeo says, dagger in hand and anxiousness stiffening his fingers. “We have no idea how many men might be out there.”
“How far away is the cart?” Pruinn asks.
Nile shakes his head. “Not far. Twenty feet at most. We tried to leave the horses beneath the overhang of the roof where the wood is kept.”
Jeo licks his lips, turning in place as he thinks until his eyes land on the shuttered window behind us. “Okay, one of us goes out the door, the others help the queen out the window. It’s the closest to the cart, and they won’t be expecting it. We’ll cover her from all angles,” he says, nodding his head as if his body is convincing his mind.
Nile nods grimly. “I’ll go through the door, you two get Her Majesty to the cart.”
The men pass a look between them, while something heavy and horrible sinks onto my shoulders. “He sent men to kill me,” I breathe. “I can’t believe that arrogant bastard, who only became a king through a marriage to me, would dare try to have me killed!”
“Malina!” Jeo snaps. “We don’t have time for your indignation. We have one fucking shot at this, alright? Or we’re all dead like Tobyn.”