Page 76

Ava stared at her, frowning. The general was trying to convey something to Ava, but she didn’t know—

It hit her.

She drew in a breath, and Luc glanced at her.

She managed to give a tiny shake of her head.

Thatwas why the Speaker had tried to have her abducted from her grandmother’s estate, and then had chased her for days afterward.

She had actually offered up this very explanation to Velda, her grandmother’s housekeeper, when Velda had wondered why representatives of the Grimwaldian court were trying to kidnap her.

She had said perhaps it was for the same reason the Queen’s Herald had taken her, but she hadn’t wondered what would be behind it or even thought seriously about it.

She’d been too relieved to have escaped, and too excited about leaving to find Luc.

The Speaker wanted to use her to bend the court to his will. To force her to help him conspire with the very people who had killed her parents and imprisoned her for years.

She didn’t have words.

The general was watching her face, and what she saw there had her giving a nod of approval.

The general knew she was a spell caster.

She would have to, to understand how the Speaker intended to change the minds of the Grimwaldian Court.

She had said before that she had met Ava’s grandmother, now Ava realized she had been trying to say she knew what her grandmother could do. And that Ava could likely do the same.

Thread by thread, she was loosening the knot of secrets around her, and she was worried that in the end, she would be left completely exposed.

“What do you think he intends to do to get the court to support him?” Dak asked.

“Does it matter?” Luc gestured to the scroll he’d read. “What it says in this message is that he has embedded two spies in the Venyatux column, and he can let the queen know the Venyatux plans well in advance of their approach to Fernwell, as a gesture of goodwill.”

The general snatched up the scroll and read it with eyes that were more alive than Ava had ever seen them. “I will discover who.”

“The queen will not be that impressed. Although I’m sure she won’t turn information down, we know there are still spies among the Rising Wave. Given so many of us came from the Chosen camps, and others from what’s left of the Cervantes, it would be easy for them to slip some traitors in. Luc was captured because they turned one of our own Chosen brothers.” Massi shrugged.

“Ava, you have an artistic hand. Can you alter the amount the Speaker is asking for? Either inflate it to an outrageous amount or make it much less?”

“The queen will be insulted by the one, and the Speaker will be insulted by the other.” General Ru gave an evil chuckle.

Ava studied it. “He’s asking for ten thousand gri?” She looked up, eyes wide.

Dak gave a snort at the amount.

“I could make it a hundred thousand.” There was just enough space for an extra zero.

The general laughed out loud. “Yes. That is good.”

Luc found a quill for her, and Ava used a sheet of paper to get used to it and check the ink was similar to the ink used on the scroll. When she was happy it was close, she carefully added the zero, and just in case, she thought of the Speaker; greedy, grasping and corrupt.

It wasn’t an embroidered working, but it was worth a chance.

She left the scroll to dry and turned her attention to the second one.

“There is room for another sentence here.” She pointed out the large gap between two paragraphs. “It’s the place he’s talking about his spies. Perhaps I could say the information from the spies would only be forthcoming if the Speaker sees some coin first?”

“Make the queen truly dislike him.” Luc nodded. He held the scroll open for her and Ava carefully wrote out the sentence. It was harder, this time. She kept checking the way the Speaker formed his letters, taking excruciating care to match them.