Grave Visions (Alex Craft, #4)(25)

The council members stood quickly and silently, following their queen. All except Ryese. He slid out from his large chair near—but not at—the head of the enormous table, with leisurely ease. He drained his flute before setting it down and heading for the door after the queen. The movements were casual, in no apparent hurry.

“What is going on?” I asked, but he only smiled a cruel-looking smile and gave a half shrug. Either he didn’t know, or he didn’t care.

Falin motioned for me to follow him, and I did, stepping through the new doorway. The others were waiting on the other side, the queen tapping her foot in impatience. Once I’d cleared the doorway, she turned, striding down the corridor.

The queen didn’t exactly stomp down the ice-laden halls, but she also didn’t move with the seemingly effortless grace I’d seen her exhibit on previous occasions. Her movements were sharp, almost harsh in her haste. Once a small hawthorn fae stepped out of a doorway ahead of us, but he took one look at our odd procession and the branches on his head stood on end before he turned and ducked back the way he’d come. The queen didn’t even seem to notice, but led us onward. We entered a corridor with two ice-armored guards standing at attention in front of a large double door. I wasn’t surprised when that door was where we stopped.

“No one attempted to enter?” The queen asked, as the guards stepped aside. She received a twin chorus of reassurances before she nodded. “Good. Remain at your posts.”

She passed through the door. I knew I was expected to follow, and somehow I’d ended up in front of the council members. I could feel their stares on my back, pricking along my spine. Still, I studied it dubiously, unsure what I’d find behind it. I really hated the way doors worked here. Falin pressed his palm against my back, not shoving me, but definitely urging me forward. Well, it wasn’t like I had a choice.

I stepped through the door.

On the other side I found myself in a huge chamber. It might have been the same ballroom I’d visited the last time I’d been to the winter court, but this time there were no dancers, no music, no buffet tables. Pillars of solid ice broke the space every few yards, arches and flying buttresses extending from the walls. The thinnest layer of snow led a narrow path up the center of the room, like a rolled-out carpet leading to the glistening dais at the heart of the room. On top of the dais, a throne of ice.

And sitting on the throne, as if holding court, sprawled a bloody skeleton.





Chapter 8





It took a moment for my brain to catch up to what my eyes were seeing. Meat still clung to the skeleton in places, dried blood flaking off white bone. A few clumps of hair hung from the skull, and on the top of the head, a delicate tiara carved of ice.

I spun away from the sight, back toward the door just as Ryese stepped into the room, followed by Maeve. He raised an eyebrow at whatever expression of horror my face betrayed; Maeve only studied me, her expression evaluating. I squeezed my eyes closed, not waiting to see their reactions to the gruesome scene. I gulped down air—a calming reflex. A stupid one around a rotting corpse. Or at least, typically, but my lungful of air didn’t bring with it the sickly sweet scent of decay. Blayne and then Lyell entered the room, and I dragged down three more deep breaths, before I realized that the air should have been gagging me. Yes, the room was large, and the corpse was more bones than body, but with the amount of gore hanging to it, the smell should have been pervasive. But there was no scent of rot. In fact, the air was as sweet as any in Faerie.

A jolt of shock ran through me. I couldn’t feel the corpse either. There was no grave essence reaching for me. No sense of the body at all.

I glanced over my shoulder, uncertain. The skeleton still sat there, grinning down from the throne. It certainly looked real. But I couldn’t feel it.

“What happened?” I asked, fixing my gaze on the back wall again.

“That is most certainly the question.” The queen sounded like she said the words through clenched teeth, but she’d moved farther into the room and I wasn’t about to turn around again.

“My queen, have you received any other threats?” Falin asked, but he didn’t approach the corpse or follow the queen. Instead he remained by my side.

“Do I need more than one? That is my circlet on its head.” Her heels clicked on the ice-crusted floor. “Lexi, whose body is that and who did this, this grotesque display?”

She made it sound as if the body would tell me just by being in the room. I forced myself to turn, to look at her, all the while trying to keep my gaze away from the corpse. Her council members had moved farther into the room. Lyell had approached the skeleton, but his body language was casual, as if he was studying a museum piece rather than a desecrated body. Blayne and Maeve both had their gazes locked on me, no doubt waiting for me to do something odd and witchy. Ryese leaned on one of the large pillars, watching the queen, not the corpse. Not that the corpse was doing anything, and it wouldn’t either. Not here in Faerie at least. There was no land of the dead here. I’d known that fact, had even enjoyed the release of pressure on my shields. But it meant my grave magic offered me nothing.

“I’ll need the body moved outside of Faerie.”

“No.” The queen clenched her hands in her skirt again. “No one outside this room must know about this. You will find the answers and then the body will be destroyed.”