Page 106 of Pawn of the Cruel Princess

A lump settles in my chest, weighing me down. I hear the scrape of blade on bone, the wet slice of swords through flesh, the screams of dying servants and hired guards. I see Vienne driving her sword into Master Thranwright’s belly. Pressing her hand on Nonni’s head, making the red-haired thrall take all of Bazra’s length into her throat.

I picture her flying at me, hair and eyes wild, nails sharp. I can see all of those beatings at once—her face, at a dozen different ages, from our childhood until now.

My sister is sick. Tormented, and a tormentor.

Her eyes are already turning glassy.

In the moment that I hesitated, her soul flew to Arawn’s gates.

I’m not sure he will accept her.

34

I finish tightening the last of the knots. “There you are, Highness. Two birds trussed up for roasting.”

My hands are shaking almost as badly as Ward’s. He helped me tie the healer and the bodyguard to a pair of tables in the kitchen, so Ruelle can carve the truth out of them.

The bodyguard can’t move. Ruelle’s first blow must have severed his spinal cord and paralyzed him. We bound him anyway, and he lies on the table, panting like a beached fish.

Ruelle still has her knife to the healer’s throat, preventing Stefa from using her magic.

Ruelle’s eyes are shadowed underneath. Her blonde hair sticks limply to her neck and forehead, and her dress hangs askew, smudged in places. Her lips are cracked and bleeding, probably from whatever shit Ward gave her when she visited him.

I love her like this, wrecked and wretched, utterly merciless. And I fear her, too. Affection and apprehension, coiled together like mated serpents.

“Here’s how this is going to work,” Ruelle says softly. “Ducayne is going to hold this knife to your throat, Stefa, while I use this one—” she tugs a second blade from her corset— “to cut into your friend here. You give me answers, I stop cutting. If I think you’re lying to me, the cutting begins again. Understand?”

“Yes,” breathes the healer. “But let me use enough magic to show you who he is. Please.”

I frown, confused. But Ruelle’s gaze sharpens. “You Changed him, didn’t you? You altered someone to look like Vienne’s guard. You did the same thing with Thranwright’s face—you put his likeness on someone else.”

“She’s a Changer? By the gods,” I exclaim. A memory surfaces—eating breakfast on the veranda, discussing the rare ability certain healers possess, an ability outlawed in Thannira, but not necessarily forbidden to the rich—used to enhance someone’s dick.

I think I know who is under the guard’s face.

“Do it,” says Ruelle. “But don’t heal his spine. Only change his features.”

“It will take a few minutes,” Stefa says. “Shifting a face into a new form takes a lot of magic, but setting them back to their original shape is easier. Still, please be patient while I work.”

“Patient,” I mutter. “Wonderful.”

“Ducayne,” Ruelle says sharply. “Is your hand steady enough to hold the knife here, at her throat?”

I stare doubtfully at my trembling fingers. “Let us hope so. If we lose one, we still have the other to question, right?”

Ruelle’s mouth twitches, just barely. She lets me take over holding the blade to Stefa’s neck, while she approaches the silent bodyguard.

Glowing golden lines of magic unspool from Stefa’s fingertips. Though her hands are bound, her magic knows her intent, and it crosses the space between the two tables, coalescing and settling over the bodyguard’s face. The lines take on a pinkish glow, which brightens until I can barely look.

Long moments pass.

Ward climbs to his feet and snags a bottle of wine from the counter. He gulps it down eagerly while we wait, and wait.

“I did one of these changes very quickly today,” says the healer. “That incident lowered my reserves of magical energy, so I must go slowly and save enough to heal his spine later. Just a moment more.”

I count to three hundred. As I’m passing three-twenty-five, the pinkish glow evanesces from the guard’s features, leaving behind the broad, jovial face of Lord Cowen.

He’s smiling, but it’s tremulous, and there’s pallor beneath his natural rosy complexion. “See there,” he says. “You found me out. A good joke, yes?”