Just like before, Lu manages to use her magic to distract the soldiers, perfecting our timing so that we slip inside the walls during another guard shift.
“Think you can get back up to your rooms through the balcony?” she whispers, her quick steps leading me past the side of the castle. The gray stones are covered in frost, its higher stories impossible to see as the heavy fog thickens with the drop in temperature.
“Yeah, no problem,” I say quietly, the air clotted with swollen silence. “Thanks for sneaking me in and out. It was nice to spend time with…Rip.”
She smirks. “I’m sure. Better company than the golden prick, huh?”
“Much better,” I agree, my lips curling up.
Yet that smile drips right off my face when we round the corner to the back of the castle and find four people standing there in the murky air. We skid to a stop, and I can tell by the way Lu’s body goes stiff that she hadn’t even realized we had company.
For a second, my heart drops at the shadowed figures, and I fully expect Midas to step out from the fog.
Instead, it’s someone else who steps forward—the last person I expected to see wandering the grounds at night.
Queen Kaila.
Chapter 38
AUREN
There’s a suffocation of noise and a pause in the air when Queen Kaila stops before us. Lu bends her waist into a stiff bow, and I drop into a hurried curtsy, my pulse racing. “Queen Kaila, forgive us. We didn’t know you were outside. I hope we didn’t interrupt anything.”
“Oh, you didn’t,” she replies, her umber gaze skipping across us like stones.
Anxiety churns in my gut as we stand there awkwardly. Every breath I take clings to my lungs, the frigid humidity coating my mouth and pressing dingy exhales across my skin like I’m clogged in a cloud.
The thick fog suddenly feels like an enemy, rather than a boon that kept Lu and me better hidden on the trek back to my room. It’s the air closing in on us, an opaque mist shoved down from the sky as if the gods want to trap us.
The gray-blue of Queen Kaila’s gown shimmers beneath her thick cloak, the hood drawn up over her straight black hair. There are three guards escorting her, the one to her right holding a torch in his hand. Their armor is worn down silver with the sigil of Third Kingdom molded to their chests, a proud insignia denoting their coasts with the rising fin of a predatory shark stalking beneath a line of ocean water.
Kaila pushes back her hood, and though no crown sits on her head today, she looks no less queenly than before. “What luck, that the two of us should run into each other like this.”
I only smile politely in response, but despite my calm exterior, my heartbeat is sprinting. The only luck this is, is the bad kind. Uneasiness has quickly drenched my spirits, my mind racing with what the implications might be of her seeing me. I don’t know Kaila’s character, barely know the main facts about her.
I tried to put all things Third Kingdom out of my mind a long time ago, but I wish I hadn’t. I wish I’d studied up on this woman, because right now, every instinct is telling me that Kaila is dangerous. I overlooked her at the dinner, her entertaining brother taking up more of my attention, plus Midas’s demanding presence and a certain brooding king.
Kaila is here on Midas’s invitation, but I have no idea why he specifically invited her. But maybe the more important question is, why did she agree to come?
“Interesting that you should be out at this hour,” Kaila muses. “I would think that King Midas prefers you safe inside the castle.”
Quickly scrambling, I say, “I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to take a walk outside. Ranhold’s night air is dense tonight.”
“Indeed. I too wanted to take a walk. I find it mentally stimulating. You can hear so many interesting things at night.”
My shoulders go stiff, and I feel Lu’s attention sharpen on the queen. Kaila must feel it too, because her gaze flicks over for a second before she once again settles her attention on me. “Walk with me?”
I blink in surprise, my hands fisting into my skirts. The last thing I want to do is walk with her, but there’s absolutely no way I can deny her, because we both know it wasn’t really a request to begin with.
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
When we both step aside for Kaila to lead the way, she cuts Lu a saccharine look. “You’re dismissed.”
Lu opens her mouth like she’s going to argue, but I subtly shake my head. I don’t want her to get herself in trouble or hurt. Queen Kaila is making my nerves strum with a steady chord of alarm, and I don’t want Lu anywhere near her. She may be a warrior and the perfect spy, but I’ve dealt with my fair share of royals over the years.