“Your Majesty,” he purred. His rich voice provoked an image of bare flesh gliding beneath red silk sheets. I had the vague sense that the image was not of my own conjuring.
“Umbros only sent one representative?” Remis asked coolly.
The man gave a careless shrug. “My companion is around here somewhere. I believe she’s assisting Her Majesty’s special friend with a pesky little problem.” He shot me a smile that warned of our illicit secret.
“Special friend?” Remis repeated. He frowned between us with brows furrowed. “Your Majesty, do you know anything about this?”
Careful, the man’s voice whispered into my mind.
My throat went dry. “Luther mentioned she was an acquaintance. I gave them leave to talk elsewhere.”
I felt Aemonn’s gaze burn into my side. He knew Luther was doing my bidding—which also meant he knew I was lying.
“My Queen sends her regards,” the man said, strolling closer. “She simply can’t wait to see you at the Rite of Coronation. She says you two have much to discuss.”
“Such as?” Remis asked.
“That’s between our two lovely Queens.” His teeth raked over his bottom lip. “A place I would very much like to be.”
Aemonn wedged his shoulder between the two of us. “You will keep an appropriate distance from Her Majesty,” he warned.
The man’s head cocked at an angle, and his smile turned lethal. “Will I?”
“It’s fine, Aemonn,” I rushed out. I put a hand on his shoulder and nudged him back. If he realized I’d restored the Umbros Descended’s magic, even his self-motivated desire to help me might come to an end.
The man gave a low chuckle. “What an enlightening evening this ball has turned out to be. I’ve already learned so much.” He drew out the final two words like a breathy moan, the sound unabashedly sexual.
His chest lay bare beneath a dark crimson tailcoat. His fingers, nails filed to points and painted with an obsidian glaze, traced a long, sensual route down his torso to the lines of his hips where they dipped below his low-slung trousers. I fought to keep my eyes on his face, but his mental claws dug deeper, and I was helpless to stop my vision from following the trail of his touch.
“I didn’t catch your name,” I gritted out between clenched teeth.
“Symond,” he answered.
My hand rose to my own chest against my will and mimicked his movements in featherlight strokes along the curve of my breasts.
My temper began to rise. It pushed against the bounds of its harness, growling to be let loose.
Fight.
I blinked at the voice’s sudden reemergence. It had been oddly silent since that night in the dungeon, but I felt it stir once more, raising its mighty head in recognition of the new threat.
“We are so grateful for the friendship of your realm,” I hissed. “I only hope I have the opportunity to repay the favor someday.” My eyes narrowed. “Someday soon.”
Symond gave another rumble of sensual laughter. “I can think of a few ways we can celebrate our friendship right now.”
He sent another image into my mind—a scandalous vision of us on the ballroom stage, naked and centered in the spotlight’s glow. Me, bent over the throne of Lumnos. Him, pounding into me from behind with one hand wrapped around my throat as I breathily moaned his name. The crowd, pleasuring themselves as they watched us from afar.
Fight.
Unlike before, when I had fought the voice’s call tooth and nail, I now happily surrendered what little control I had left.
Help me, I asked it. Free me.
I flinched as icy fire burst through my defenses and cascaded into every bend and turn of my skin. My body flared in a sudden eruption of light, drawing a collective gasp from the crowd.
When the voice subsided and the silvery glow dimmed, Symond’s presence in my mind was gone. He watched me with a wild stare, looking unsettled in a way I suspected he didn’t often experience.
As his dark eyes jumped warily around my face, I felt the claws of his power scrape feebly at my skull. He was trying to get back in, but it was as if there was a new wall he could no longer penetrate.
“I think it’s time for you to go,” I breathed, panting a little as I scraped the memory of his vision from my thoughts.
His shoulders drew tight, and his languid sexual energy cooled away. “It appears so.”
“You forgot your Queen’s gift,” Aemonn called out as the man turned to leave.
Symond threw me a glance over his shoulder, his energy now decidedly more poisonous. “My Queen’s gift has already been delivered. And she says you’re welcome for the advice.”
“The advice?” I asked.
“Don’t you remember?”
Veins quivered at his temples as his talons again screeched against my skull. Whatever shield the voice had constructed held firm. He lowered his chin with a glare.
“When forgotten blood on heartstone falls, then shall the chains be broke,” he said in a bitter drawl. “Life for life, old debt requires, or eternal be his yoke.”
I was instantly transported—not by his thought magic, but by my own memory—to an afternoon many months ago, when a scarlet sun hung overhead and a mysterious woman with eyes of darkest black cornered me in an alley and held my mind in her control.
Listen close, Daughter of the Forgotten, she had warned me. Stop running from who you are. Stop hiding. And stop taking that cursed flameroot powder.
Gods—the Queen of Umbros. It had been her in the alley on the day my mother went missing.
If that hadn’t happened, would I have given up the flameroot and allowed my magic to manifest? Would I still be standing here as Queen? Did I have her to thank—or despise—for everything that had transpired since that terrible day?
Did she know that?
And more importantly—how? How had she known things about me, and about my mother’s secrets, that no living person should?
He knows about you, your father, she’d said. He’s waiting for you.
Symond chuckled darkly and turned away.
“Wait,” I shouted. “Tell me, how did she—”
“My Queen looks forward to your coronation,” he called out. “If you survive your Challenging.”
I tried to chase him, but Eleanor’s hands closed around my wrist and yanked me back.
“What just happened?” she hissed in my ear. “That guy was creepy. But also… kind of hot.”
I grabbed her arms. “Eleanor—did the King ever invite the Umbros Queen here? Perhaps around Forging Day?”
“Impossible. She’s never invited to any of the realms. Everyone’s terrified of her. They say she can know the entire contents of your mind with the snap of her fingers.”
A shudder rocked down my spine.
A couple with rose-colored eyes stepped forward. “Your Majesty,” one of them said as they dipped their heads in unison. “We bring greetings from the Crown of Sophos.”
“Yes, uh, thank you.” My attention kept flitting to where Symond had fled.
“We bring two gifts,” the other said, “as a token of the valued relationship between our two realms.”
“How generous,” I mumbled.