With a loaded look at me, Lu nods tersely before she turns on her heel and strides away. Her steps are silent, dark silhouette disappearing into the fog like a forgotten ghost fading into the ether.
Now alone with Kaila and her guards, the queen begins to walk, and I dutifully match her steps, my palms sweating nervously beneath my gloves.
“Strange,” Queen Kaila hums.
Goddess, I don’t want to rise to her loaded bait, but I can’t not. Verbal trapping is a royal’s favorite pastime. Instead of learning to wage war on a battlefield, they’ve learned to do it in court.
“What’s strange, Your Majesty?” I ask, trying to keep my tone light, despite the way my throat tightens.
“That you should be accompanied by a soldier from Fourth Kingdom, instead of your king’s guards.”
My ears ring with the dangerous pitch of her words, temples pulsing with the underlying threat I can sense in their inflection.
Yep, I should’ve paid more attention to her.
Along my spine, my ribbons stiffen, the satiny lengths bracing against my skin like an animal backed into a corner, hackles raised and poised for the strike.
“My other guards are waiting for me,” I lie. “Actually, I should probably get back to them before they come searching…”
Kaila gives me a look that lets me know she sees right through my pathetic attempt at leaving. “Come now, Auren. I can keep a secret. I keep lots of them, in fact.”
Well, that makes me feel not at all better.
I worry my lip as we continue to walk past the castle, the heavy blue skirts of her dress swishing against the ground, collecting little bits of snowfall like white pebbles sewn to the hem.
Her guards hang a few feet behind us, but their presence is an oppressive wall at my back, like at any moment, they could come down on me and pin me in place.
How the hell did Lu not hear them and distract them from our presence?
I try to keep my anxiousness squelched, while the air does its best to blanket us in its dour mood, but Kaila seems oblivious to both. Or perhaps she likes the weighted presence that clings to us.
“Secrets are important, wouldn’t you agree?”
It takes every ounce of willpower for me not to allow my expression to crack. I don’t want her to see the flash of fearful trepidation drumming beneath my skull.
“I suppose so, Queen Kaila.”
“You suppose?” she repeats, her throaty laugh adding husk to the syrupy atmosphere. “Whispers are my greatest resource. You do remember my power?”
I swallow hard, trying to keep the nervous tremble from my hands. “Your magic controls voices.”
“That’s right,” she says, nodding with a smile. “I can send whispers across the room. I can make people hear voices that aren’t there. I can steal someone’s ability to talk for as long as I like, leaving them mute. But one of my favorite things to do is pull words toward me—murmurs of forbidden knowledge not for outside ears. Those are my greatest wealth.”
My stomach tilts, a tremble radiating up my spine.
She heard. She heard Lu and me talking. I desperately try to recall exactly what I’d said, but there’s no need.
Kaila stops and turns toward me with the stone of the castle at her back, her tawny skin glowing from the socked-in torchlight. I watch as she purses her full lips and then blows out a stream of smoky vapor.
The prickling presence of magic blows out with it, and then I hear something that lifts every hair on the back of my neck.
“Thanks for sneaking me in and out. It was nice to spend time with Rip.”
“I’m sure. Better company than the golden prick, huh?”
“Much better.”
My voice along with Lu’s echoes slightly as it replays. The disembodied words play along the fog in an invisible wisp of an unnatural breeze that imbeds itself upon my rising fear.
The whispers replay over and over, making my teeth lock, a cringe trying to overtake my expression. All the while, Queen Kaila watches me, a pleased look painted on her face. I have to suppress the urge to shove my hands over my ears, but luckily, she raises a hand in the air, and the voices disintegrate, fading into silence.
“You snuck out of the castle to spend time with Fourth’s army commander.”
I feel all the blood drain from my face. “I—”
She cuts me off. “Don’t try to deny it.”
Regret shoots up in stems from my gut, threatening to branch out and hang me.
Presumably happy with my silence, Kaila turns and starts to walk again. “This way.”