Page 50 of Beyond the Shadowed Earth

Dead. Gone.

Because she’d bargained Niren’s life away to Tuer.

And he’d betrayed her.

She couldn’t stop seeing Tuer’s Shadow in the ballroom, blood dripping from his blade. She couldn’t stop hearing Ileem’s words, racing endlessly through her mind:Who do you think guides my hand? Who do you think? Who do you think?

Tuer had promised to give her everything she had ever wanted.

And then, just like in the story her father who wasn’t her father had told her as a child, Tuer had destroyed her.

Sometime during the night, hooves crunched over gravel outside her cell, leather creaking as a rider swung down. Eda jolted from her reverie, every nerve on fire with the need torun.

“The other Barons escaped the slaughter, my lord,” came a male voice. “They’re mobilizing their armies and preparing to march on the city in a fortnight.”

“How old is your news?” Domin’s voice, a hard edge to it.

“Four days. I rode day and night to get here.”

“Then we have a week, no more. Thank gods the army is ready. We depart at sunrise.”

“Did the girl come here?”

Eda bit back a snarl at hearing herself referred to that way.

Domin laughed. “She’s here.”

“What do you mean to do with her?” The messenger’s words were hesitant.

“Drag her along, of course. We’ll make a spectacle of her execution, once we retake the city. Right after I’m crowned.”

Eda smacked the wall of the holding cell, biting the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted blood. How dare he. How dare he plot to takehercrown, which she’d fought and lied and killed for? Which she’d sacrificed hersoulfor?

Niren, dead on pale sheets.

Tuer’s Shadow in the ballroom, his sword dripping blood.

Ileem’s knife at her throat.

She should have recognized the anger in Domin, the yearning for power. No one had seen it in her. Why hadn’t she seen it in him?

“And if we fail to retake the city?”

“We won’t fail,” said Domin. “But if we do, I’ll slit her throat myself and leave her carcass to rot in the desert.” He laughed again, and footsteps drifted away from the stable, leaving Eda once more alone in the dark.

She fell asleep without meaning to, and dreamed of a garden, flowers nodding in slanting sunbeams, bees dancing under a bright sky. In the center of the garden was a stone temple, half tumbled down and overgrown with moss and ivy. She stepped under a low doorway and found herself in a small square room, lit with a white light that seemed to come from both nowhere and everywhere. The room was empty save for a young man who sat at a table, writing in a book.

For a while Eda watched the movement of his pen, traveling rhythmically across the page. It never seemed to run out of ink.

And then he looked up at her. His arms and face were scored with scars. His eyes were dark; they burned with wisdom and age.

She felt compelled to kneel but she resisted the urge. She was Empress, still—she knelt to no one.

“Who are you?” Eda demanded. “Why am I here?”

“I want to help you, if you’ll let me.” His voice was rich and thick as honey.

“Do you have an army?” She scoffed. “I need an army.”