Page 52

“What is this?” a voice booms, ricocheting around the courtyard.

Upon the steps to the open palace doors stands a woman, a woman Ryon knows to be a queen.

Her red hair reaches the small of her back, gray-streaked and adorned in golden thread. She wears no crown, but the golden ring on her finger bears the mark of Terrsaw’s emblem. The lines around the woman’s eyes crease deeply as she looks upon the scene, her gnarled hands clenching. The gold of her gown brightens as she shifts into the light.

“Who is this?” Queen Alvira calls, louder now. Her eyes fall on Ryon, her gaze turning to fire.

“My name is Dawsyn Sabar.”

The Queen of Terrsaw’s eyes dart to the source of the sound, and they find Dawsyn, her black hair not able to hide the specks of blood that rest on her cheek.

“I have come from the Ledge.”

Queen Alvira’s face pales. One of her hands twitches infinitesimally, and Ryon watches it. The archers still maintain their guard above, their arrows hovering, and he knows how quickly the hand of a master can command weapons to fire.

“Let her pass,” Queen Alvira calls, her shoulders taut. She sounds breathless, as though the booming voice she possessed moments earlier has been snuffed. “Her friend, too.”

At once, the guards fall back, all but their superior, who frowns deeply. “I will accompany you, Your Grace.”

“Very well, captain,” the Queen returns, and she strides back through the palace doors, leaving Ryon and Dawsyn to follow in her wake.

The guard captain takes up their flank with two others, all of whom keep their palms near their short swords, now sheathed.

Dawsyn’s face slackens as they pass through the entrance hall and enter the throne room. It does not carry the size and grandeur of that in Glacia, but Ryon must concede to its beauty. Stained windows adorn the domed ceiling, letting the sun filter in through shafts of a rainbow hue. The floor is a mosaic of the mountain ranges and the clouds that halve them, disguising their peaks.

The Queen turns. “Ruby, fetch Cressida.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” The commander nods and hurries down an adjacent hall.

“Well now,” the old woman sighs, a faint tremble hanging from her lips. Her eyes seem stuck on Dawsyn. “You look just like your grandmother.”

Dawsyn blinks, her chest falling, as though struck. “You knew my grandmother?”

“I knew a woman I assume to be your grandmother. Valma Sabar?”

Stunned, Dawsyn nods.

Just then the sounds of hurried footsteps glance from the mosaic tiles to the domed ceiling, and the captain named Ruby returns, leading in a woman in a gown as fine as Queen Alvira’s. The woman’s blue eyes sweep the grouping ahead of Ruby and find her Queen.

“Who are they?” she asks.

“This is my wife, Cressida,” the Queen tells Dawsyn. “And this… is Dawsyn Sabar, of the Ledge.”

Immediately, the color leaches from Cressida’s high cheeks and rises along her neck. “Surely not?”

“Look at her,” says the Queen. “Is she not the very image of dear Valma?”

The two Queens gape at Dawsyn. Cressida’s hand flutters to the jewels at her throat, and she swallows thickly.

Ryon has stood before nobles far more menacing than these two, in far less welcoming circumstances, but he has never felt the flood of panic writhe in his stomach the way he feels it now. He does not like the way they stare at her, like she is a thing of the mountain, untamed, unpredictable. There is a knowing unfurling within him, a resolution. He wants to fly Dawsyn away from here. He was a fool to bring her so close in the first place.

He clears his throat. “She only wanted to see Terrsaw, to see its monarchs.”

Their heads turn to him as one.

“And who is this?” Cressida asks of Queen Alvira, not deigning to address him directly.

“He is a companion, I believe,” says the Queen, tilting her head.