Page 53 of Golden Queen (Idrigard #1)

Nineteen

It only took five days to empty Albiyn of every soul who was willing to leave.

Donovan Till and I sat together at a solemn breakfast made by the bare-bones kitchen staff left when all the others fled across the godsgrass.

He kept looking up at me as though he wanted to speak, but then he would close his mouth and look back down at his plate.

I placed my fork on the table and looked at him. "What is it, Donovan?"

It had surprised me when the Minister chose to stay behind with the last few of us who would leave at sunrise the next morning.

Markus and Donovan would leave with the last of the palace staff, heading south to join most of the Fyrd with Arkadian in Athelen.

I would go with Io and a few of his dragon riders north to Orin—to my wedding and my husband.

The rest of Io's riders would look after the final columns of refugees fleeing across the Godsgrass.

Donovan replaced his own fork and took a deep breath. "I have some concerns, Your Majesty."

"What concerns?"

"You know we sent the bulk of our treasury and food stores with the original few groups leaving the city?" he asked.

I nodded. Not leaving our food and gold for Penjan was of vital importance.

"I received word that most of the carts left the Godsway and are now in Gold Harbor."

"When did you receive this word? And have you sent soldiers to retrieve them?" I asked, anger lacing my tone.

"A...a few days ago, Your Majesty," he said, grimacing.

"A few days ago? And you're only now telling me?" I was furious.

"I went to the regent—"

"He is not the regent. You should have come to me!"

"Yes, yes, my apologies," he said, sounding less than contrite. "It is simply a habit to look to him...for guidance, but—"

"Have you at least sent guards to retrieve them?" I asked.

"Well...yes and no. It seems that the Royal Guards are the ones who diverted the wagons in the first place."

I felt blood begin to thrum in my ears. "I will have their fucking heads," I spat. "Are they planning to sell them?"

"Well, I can't say for certain, but there is another matter."

"Out with it!"

"I couldn't help but notice that your uncle does not seem to be packing anything for the trip.

He's taken little action to prepare for the journey, and.

..well, I do not think he plans to go." Donovan lowered his voice conspiratorially.

"I think he is the one who diverted the grain and gold, and he plans to bring them back to the castle because he is staying here. "

I shook my head. "That...that makes little sense. He would not put himself in danger willingly."

But as soon as the words left my mouth, I knew. He would not put himself in danger. If he was staying in Albiyn, that meant he knew he was in no danger from Penjan.

I pushed away from the table and marched to the Chancellor's Wing.

There had been little need to kick Markus out of the chambers when we were all leaving so soon after appointing Bryce, but it still rankled me to see him seated behind that big ancient desk of polished driftwood that had been in the center of the chancellor's office for hundreds of years.

Markus looked up at me as I walked in, Fenric on my heels. I had named him as captain of the Queen's Guard, and he had been my shadow these past days while the castle emptied.

"Why are you not preparing to leave, Markus?" I demanded.

"I'm afraid I do not know what you are referring to, Princess." He leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers with the beginnings of a condescending smile on his face.

Anger exploded in me. I was already at the end of a short fuse. I'd been drinking entirely too much, and the constant headache was fraying my nerves.

"I am your gods damned queen," I shouted. "You will not call me Princess in that mocking fucking tone!"

"Such foul language for a queen," came an oily, slick voice behind me. My stomach twisted in knots as I recognized it.

I didn't take my eyes off of Markus as my hand began to creep to the dagger in the pocket of my gown.

"What have you done, Markus?" I demanded.

"Only what I needed to do for Windemere, Princess," he answered. The earnestness on his face stunned me.

I turned then to see Fenric standing with his back against the wall, his face ashen as he stared at an old man framed in the open doorway. He leaned on the amber-tipped head of a cane.

The long-faced man with the short-cropped beard and deeply lined face was limping into the room. His head, no longer concealed beneath the hood of a cloak, was covered by a thin layer of slick white hair.

"Hello again, Aelia, child," the man said.

As he rounded the table, I saw how frail he was. I relaxed slightly, but I still stayed alert, assessing the danger.

When I did not respond, he continued.

"You have given us a great deal of trouble these past few days."

My eyes shot to Markus. "You sent them for me?" The realization that he must have known I was in the city was a shock.

"No, no, he had no part in that," the old man said—the necromancer, I corrected as I saw the last two fingers were missing from both of his hands.

"That was a bit of reconnaissance work, really.

We had hoped to head off a lot of this nonsense from the start by taking a bit of time to make you.

..better prepared for the king's arrival. "

"What is that supposed to mean? You nearly killed me," I ground out. My jaw ached from how tightly I was clenching my teeth, trying to manage the anger building inside me.

"No, my dear. You did that all on your own. Bastian would never have harmed you. He was one of my best men—very loyal. And you left his guts in the street, didn't you?"

"When you hold a knife to someone's throat, you forfeit the right to keep your guts inside your belly," I sneered.

The old man laughed harshly, and it was a crackling, horrible sound, like something meaty and wet moved inside his chest.

"Such a fighter, she is," he told Markus, almost proudly.

"Who are you?" I demanded. "And what do you want here?"

"I am High Actem, Aegis," he said, as though I should know what that meant. "And as I said before, I am here to prepare you for your upcoming marriage to Prince Refaedon, heir to the Shadowlands and Guardian of the Black Fire of Kaxa."

I only had a fleeting moment to think of the prophecy; black flame tears the sky in two, and then the rest of his words filtered through to me.

I laughed darkly. "I am already betrothed, you vile little toad.

My armies are already on the march—my dragons, already in the sky.

There will be no preparing me for anything.

You will leave Windemere and give your message to King Magnus and his Prince Arseling, that Windemere does not welcome them. "

"I am afraid it is much too late for that," Markus said with nearly sympathetic eyes. "A betrothal can be broken, especially one only signed by a proxy. Penjan has landed in Gold Harbor. Already, they march across the plains to the city. There is no turning back now, Princess."

"If you call me Princess one more time, uncle, I will come across that desk and put my dagger in you."

Markus gave a long-suffering sigh and shook his head sadly. "You must not speak in that manner when the king arrives," he told me.

I laughed incredulously. "I will not be here when the king arrives."

I turned to motion to Fenric that we were leaving. Part of me hoped Markus might put up some kind of fight to give the guard a reason to put a blade in his guts, but...Fenric was no longer standing at the door.

He was on his side with his knees drawn up to his chest, his face set in a silent grimace of pain.

I dropped to my knees beside him and tried to pull his arms away from his chest—to find whatever wound had sent him to the floor.

I darted my eyes behind me, making sure the necromancer and my uncle were still on the other side of the desk.

"Fenric, what's wrong?" I asked, pulling at arms that were locked against his body.

I whirled to the necromancer. "What have you done to him?"

"He will be fine, child," the old man said in his strangely wet, thin voice. "As long as you do not put up as much of a fight as you did when we tried to bind you before."

"Bind me?" I demanded. At first, the word had no meaning other than the literal. But then fear and dread had me surging to my feet as the context behind the word came to me.

"You will be bound to the Prince, Aelia," Markus interjected. "It will be much easier that way. You have always been too...restless for your own good."

They were talking about reaving my soul in service to another—binding my will, my thoughts, and my body to him so that everything I was would be gone, replaced by some biddable, tractable creature to cater to his every whim.

The Arkyllan queen had been bound to her husband. The sad tale had crossed the seas about what a simpering black hole she was, even as the world knew that she, once a powerful sorceress in her own right, had tried to flee the continent rather than marry the man.

"You will not bind me to anyone," I said, anger burning a hole deep into the core of me. I felt heat, blessed, pitiless heat, building beneath my palms, and I knew it for what it was.

Markus put his hands up placatingly. "Calm down, Princess."

I hurled my dagger at him. The blade sailed across the room as though guided by an unseen hand and struck him in the shoulder. It sank deep.

He lurched to his feet with a muttered curse as I ran for the door, skating around the edge and running down the hall.

I hurled myself around the corner and directly into the waiting arms of two massive Royal Guards.

Large hands caught me. I shoved against them, hitting and kicking.

I managed to line the crown of my head up with the guard's face. I kicked up off his own booted foot to crack him in the nose. I heard a sickening crunch and a harsh groan.

The guard lurched back as a second set of arms snaked around me, pulling me back to a large chest.