Page 117 of Golden Queen (Idrigard #1)

Tatana

“Run, Set! Hide!”

I came awake all at once, shooting up in the bed, sweat plastering my nightgown to my chest.

I swallowed hard. It was only a dream. I was not on the Godsway, soldiers were not bearing down on us with swords raised, and Gwen did not lay dead at my feet staring up at the sky with all that blood soaking into her pretty red hair.

I climbed from the bed, reaching for my dressing gown and shrugging it on.

The sun had already risen. It streamed in through the open curtains of the bedchamber Aelia and I had shared for the last decade of our lives—the one they had locked me into when they dragged me back to Albiyn.

I angrily pulled the curtains closed and started to go back to bed. There was nothing about this day that held my interest. I considered trying to sleep all the way through it.

A commotion outside drew me back to the window. Someone down in the courtyard was shouting.

I slid the curtains open and looked out. I could see nothing except the city spread out before me, looking deceptively peaceful in the morning sun.

I hurried from the bedchamber to the doors of the terrace. They were barred, of course, with a large metal grate attached from the outside.

The Penjani were a little more clever than Markus had been when they realized I would likely be able to scale the roof to escape.

I stepped to the doors just in time to see dark wings descending on Albiyn. The sky was filled with the faraway shapes of dragons.

My heart leapt in my chest. Aelia had returned! The city would be returned to Windemerian hands, I would be rescued, and the whole, horrible ordeal would end.

But as the dragons neared, something was…off about them. They were strange looking, oddly shaped. Their wings were not quite right. Their tails were shorter and tipped by an arrow shape.

The shouts in the courtyard turned to screams, and I knew this was not the rescue I thought it was.

I heard the door open behind me. I tore my eyes away from the door to see Essin, her pale, moon-white face set in a frown that turned her red-painted lips upside down.

“Get dressed,” she demanded, sneering. Her expression was pure hatred as she added, “Your bridegroom is here.”

My heart dropped as I realized who was actually flying into Albiyn. Those were not dragons, but wyverns. Prince Refaedon had arrived.

Now that Aelia was lost to them, the King of Penjan had decided that the Heir of Elysium, who was so cherished by Windemere that she had been given the title of Lady of Aracet, was a comparable consolation prize for his son.

I had done nothing to disabuse them of the notion, knowing that the only thing that protected me from a fate like Gwen’s, was the fact that I was someone important.

“With this new marriage alliance, we will have Elysium blood in the House of Beradur!” the foul King Magnus had announced only a few days earlier, at the spectacle of violence and excess they called a feast.

The entire assembly erupted in cheers at his words. They raised their tankards and pounded their fists on the table, as though King Magnus had not raged non-stop for the last week about losing his prize when Aelia escaped the capital with her dragon rider.

The only thing that helped me in those tense days, when everyone in the castle had been bloodthirsty and vengeful, was the fact that the king had been so angry at Markus he sent him home to Ardmore—ostensibly to manage some project there.

But everyone knew it was really Markus’ punishment for losing Magnus’ princess bride.

“Hurry!” Essin snapped when I made no move to go and dress. “Don’t make me force you.”

The threat sent chills down my spine. Essin was a shadow walker. She could send her shadow into me and make me do whatever she wanted.

She had already proven as much more times than I could count. In the first days of my captivity, when I had more reason to fight, she had forced me to do everything.

I moved to the bedchamber without a word. I did not want her shadow in me. It was a slick, oily thing. Every time she got inside me, it left me feeling filthy and used.

I dressed in the gown they had commissioned just for this meeting. Some sullen-eyed Penjani seamstress had come to fit it to me only the morning before.

It was a ridiculous black thing, with leather bands at the waist and hips, and shoulders of polished metal plates that looked like armored pauldrons. It was low-cut in a deep vee and pushed my breasts up in a truly obscene way.

Just the fitting had filled me with embarrassment.

As I followed Essin to the Great Hall, I knew my face must have been crimson with the shame of stepping out into the halls in such a gown.

Not that it was out of place with the elves who now roamed Albiyn castle. Even the women all looked like they were readying for some battle of the flesh, decked out in tight-fitting leather and metal, bright buckles, and spiked collars, with the tops of their breasts on display.

The Great Hall was packed. People lined the alcoves at the edges of the chamber, some even standing on the long trestle tables to get a better view.

I couldn’t see anything past the crowd as Essin and I picked our way through the room.

She was short, likely no more than a couple inches over five feet, but as she moved through the crowd, she shoved and jostled bodies aside as though she towered over them.

Essin's height seemed to be uncommon among the Penjani people. The elves were generally tall people if the force occupying Albiyn was any indication. They looked down at me even though I was taller than most Windemerian women.

When we finally managed to reach the dais where the long table had been cleared away to make room for one of Magnus’ many thrones, the king’s gaze shot up to me.

He looked as oily as Essin felt. He was thin and pale, with lank black hair falling around his shoulders. He wore a battered-looking black steel crown on his brow, the points made into crude flames that ringed his head.

His appearance was starkly different from the other elves around him, who had a bit of that same grace the fae exhibited.

Magnus of Penjan was dreadfully ugly. His face was all sagging white flesh and deep wrinkles.

The old, shriveled creature looked very out of place in the sea of strong, well-made elves.

“Ah, there she is now, the heir of Elysium!” he said, gesturing to me.

Everyone turned, gazes narrowing.

The king smiled, and I could see his yellowed, elongated canines. Nearly all the elves had sharp teeth, most of them on top, but some of them had tusk-like teeth protruding from their bottom jaws like boars.

I bowed prettily to King Magnus, as I knew I was expected to do. If I hadn’t, Essin would simply have slid her shadow into me and forced it. That was her job, after all. She was my minder.

“Come, come,” the king said, waving his hand to me.

I stepped forward, and the sea of people parted further to allow me to pass.

I kept my eyes down as Magnus climbed from his throne and laid a hand on my back. He turned me to face the crowd. “My son, Prince Refaedon Beradur, Heir to the Throne of Penjan, Guardian of the Black Fire of Kaxa, this is Tatana Nesbaan, Heir of Elysium and Granddaughter to the First.”

Dread rolled through me, as it always did when he spoke of my grandmother—the secret I had kept, even from my sister, all these long years, laid bare for all to hear.

I heard a scoff and raised my eyes to see a tall figure, standing opposite the king. He had one booted foot propped on the dais, as though pointedly refusing to stand in deference to his father as all the others around him were doing.

His dark hair was pushed back from a face set with a grimace of distaste. “That is not the Queen of Windemere,” he said.

King Magnus tensed. The fingers of the hand still on my back curled inward. “As you well know, Refaedon, Aelia of Windemere has been taken to Nightfall.” Magnus spoke to the crowd as he added, “In an act of war that the fae will pay dearly for!”

The elves cheered loudly, stomping their feet on the tiles.

“I have found you a better bride,” Magnus continued when the shouts died away. “One that will bring the blood of the First to our empire.”

Prince Refaedon looked bored. He rested his hand on the long sword at his hip as he looked up and down my body. “If I did not want the Queen of Windemere, what makes you think I would settle for some primitive island princess?”

The words rolled through me, stoking some righteous anger to life even as relief coursed through me. Elysium was many times more advanced than Windemere or Penjan could ever dream of being. But this arrogant, self-important asshole was obviously too stupid to know that.

I pushed my anger aside, seeking that relief I'd felt that he was refusing me. I couldn't find it, though, as I considered what might happen to me now that he had declined the offer of my hand.

Would they turn me out to the soldiers as they had done with Carisal, whose father had refused to bow to Magnus on the first day of the occupation? I had watched as Carisal was dragged away from the steps of the castle by a group of laughing Penjani soldiers as her husband’s throat was cut.

I would never forget the sound of her screams as the man’s blood poured out onto the stairs.

Carisal’s father, a Knight of the Realm, was still somewhere in the dungeons as far as I knew.

I felt myself beginning to tremble as I imagined being passed from soldier to soldier as it was rumored Carisal had been.