Me.
My blood seems to sing, rightness flooding into my veins.
“What do you need me to do?”
The twins grin, and both of them stand to walk over to me in synchronized steps. They each hold out a hand for me to take. “All you need to do is say you agree.”
I’ve never been more ready to do anything in my life.
I take their hands, letting them lift me to my feet. “I agree.”
Behind them, Pruinn murmurs, “And so the bargain is struck.”
I feel as if I’m gliding on clouds when I walk out of the atrium. The others stay behind as I leave, and I head down the hallway with the lovely fragrance of the blossoms still in my nose. I’m absentminded as I walk, yet just as I pass by a window, I jerk to a stop and turn around.
The mist.
It’s leaked in here too, churning with both the light from the window and the shadows of the corridor. It’s so thick I can’t see through it, and that prickling feeling on the back of my neck returns.
It’s silly that I start to back up, but I find my feet doing it anyway, even though I try to tell myself it’s only mist.
I twist my ankle when I take another blind step backwards, and just as I suck in a breath at the pain, the mist tosses and seethes in front of me, making my eyes go wide as the light around it bends.
Then, I’m frozen in place as a hooded man steps out of the shadowed, swirling air.
“You.”
A deluge of fear dumps all over me, like a downpour of rain, though it doesn’t quite flood away my repose.
I know who he is, even though I only saw him once for those brief seconds. I’ve memorized that shadowed face hidden beneath his cloak.
“You killed Jeo. You tried to kill me.”
The man lifts his gloved hand, pulling back his hood and revealing his face to me, and I suck in a breath. Just as he manipulated the light and shadow around him, his brown skin is marbled, pale patches around his nose, mouth, and chin, and another at his neck. His eyes are deep ebony, no differentiation between his iris and pupil.
“You followed me all this way to kill me?”
At the back of my head, I recognize I should feel a sharper stab of fear, yet I don’t. I can’t.
The man tips his head down, while the mist billows at his sides.
“Yes,” he says, and the sudden sound of his voice sends a shockwave down my spine. It sounds rough. Labored. As if he hasn’t spoken in a very long time. His expression too is flat, no pulling of his cheeks, no creases in his lips. Perhaps he always looks stony and blank. “That is what I was bid to do.”
My back stiffens. “And you think you’re going to do that now?”
I’m a second away from calling out to the others when he shakes his head. “That doesn’t matter now. I have been watching, Queen Malina, and I don’t like what I’ve been seeing.”
I feel my brows pull into a frown of offense. “I beg your pardon?”
“Do you not feel it? The magic in the air?”
“If you’re not going to kill me, then you can turn right back around and leave this place,” I snap. “I should have you drawn and quartered for what you did to my saddle and guards.”
“You could try,” he says. “But you wouldn’t succeed.”
Anger curls down my back. “You’re ruining my day, and I was having a rather good one.”
“That’s just it,” he says, taking a step forward, and it’s far too close to be appropriate. So close, in fact, that I can feel the heat from his body as the misty shadows around him follow his movements, nearly stroking over my skin and making me shiver, making my pulse jump. “You’ve been having a good day every day since you’ve gotten here. You haven’t questioned anything at all.”
“What would I question?” I reply with scorn. “I’m a queen, this is a castle. They’re treating me as they should, especially after the ordeals I suffered.”
The man makes a noise that I think is supposed to be a laugh, though it sounds like gravel being scraped against glass. “I thought you were supposed to be at least a little bit intelligent with all of that cold bitch cunning.”
“How dare—”
“Look around you,” he says, cutting me off. “See. Observe. You can’t trust the people here.”
I scoff. “Coming from the assassin who’s here to kill me.”
His dark eyes go flat. “Maybe I should finish you right here and now, since you’re so unwilling to listen.”