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Precious? I’d raze it to the ground if I could. But that was his second error.

“A white hart.”

His thick, dark brows knitted together. I could almost have enjoyed the shade of uncertainty on his otherwise smug face—were it not for the disaster I had just watched unfold around me.

“The Quest of the White Hart?” I said.

This had to be a joke. Though the terrestrial brute had shown no signs of even knowing what one was. Humorless? Too soft a description.

Soulless.

I ought to have been glad to meet someone who was just as dead inside as I was. Instead, I found it infuriating.

The imbecile did not even know the Quest of the White Hart? And he was to be High King of Annwyn?

Slam! Slam! Slam!

The door burst open, blades flying. The Brutal Prince had his axe out of his belt in half a heartbeat. Gawayn’s sword was raised and ready, Lyrena in fighting stance at his right. The cool metal of my own dagger kissed my palm.

Gawayn’s eyes slid from the Brutal Prince, axe raised, to me posed with my own weapon a few steps behind.

“Your Majesty,” he said carefully. “Are you well?”

“Am I well?” My voice cracked. I was hysterical. “His feral beast killed the white hart! The first one that has been seen in a thousand years! The herald of peace and prosperity!”

“If I recall, it is meant to be killed and served at the Joining feast,” a feline female voice said.

She must have slunk in behind Gawayn and Lyrena. Now she lingered beside the door, no apology in her dark face.

“Today was the Offering, not the Joining, in case you failed to notice,” I ground out.

I didn’t need any of this. The council would be in fits. Gawayn and the Goldstones would be on edge. Every move I made was already watched; after a disaster like this, the eyes of the elemental court would be fixed upon me, waiting for me to stumble.

I didn’t care what any of them thought.

But I did care if it got in the way of my one true goal.

“I noticed, young queen.” The female stepped forward, gracefully sidling past Lyrena and Gawayn.

She was unarmed, but I recognized a fellow warrior when I saw one. The lion shifter would be as lethal with a blade as she was with her claws and fangs. Elegantly dressed for a terrestrial, she looked a queen in her own right.

But I’d spent enough of my life on my knees. I would not be cowed by her.

I lifted my chin, holding my body in its offensive stance.

Her golden eyes raked over me. Anger—such anger.

I’d seen it only once before.

In my own eyes, staring back at me in the mirror in the days after Arthur’s murder.

Whether she saw that anger reflected back now, or my understanding—which might be worse, a low growl slipped from her lips. “The Quest of the White Hart is to be undertaken for the Joining. The priestess just declared your joining will not take place until Mabon. What message does the white hart that comes at the Offering and then disappears send to your kingdom?”

My heart hammered in my chest as I sifted through her words.

“I have spared you the rumors, Your Majesty,” the female said, unflinching. Then she sank forward into a bow so low her long black braids grazed the goldstone floor. “Now you can blame it on the stinking terrestrials.”

Lyrena gasped.