Protect the Prince (Crown of Shards #2)(11)

My nostrils flared, and I drew in a breath, letting the air roll in over my tongue and tasting all the scents in it. And I finally realized that the jalape?o rage wasn’t emanating from one of the nobles—it was coming from the servant standing next to me.

I studied her. Blond hair, pretty face, polite smile, blue tunic. She was dressed and acting like the other servants, but two things set her apart. One was the jalape?o rage blasting off her in hot, caustic waves. The second was her eyes, which were a deep, dark purple, like the amethysts in the goblet. I knew another person with eyes like that, and she had tried to kill me more than once.

Maeven, the bastard sister to the Mortan king.

Maeven had worked as the kitchen steward at Seven Spire for months, all so she could eventually poison and assassinate Queen Cordelia and the rest of the Blair royal family. And now here was another woman with amethyst eyes offering me a drink, just like Maeven had once upon a time.

This couldn’t be a coincidence.

I wondered if this girl had worked for Maeven in the kitchen all along and had stayed behind after Maeven and Nox had fled from Seven Spire. I also wondered if she was one of the Mortan royal bastards, consigned to a life of carrying out assassinations and other foul deeds for her legitimate relatives. Either way, she wasn’t getting away with it.

No one was murdering me today, especially not in my own fucking throne room.

Diante must have gotten tired of holding up her glass because she cleared her throat, obviously wanting me to get on with things. I wondered if she knew about the plot to kill me, but there was no time to find out. Not if I wanted to turn the tables on my would-be assassin.

So I plucked the goblet off the tray. But instead of raising it high, I signaled for another servant and grabbed a regular glass of sangria off his tray. The blond woman frowned and retreated a few steps, but I wasn’t going to let her slip away so easily.

I turned toward her. “Tell me, girl, what’s your name?”

She wet her lips. “Libby, Your Majesty.”

“Well, Libby, it seems silly for me to drink from such a fine goblet when everyone else is using regular glasses. Although I do hate to let good sangria go to waste. Why don’t you take the goblet? After all, you were the one who so thoughtfully fetched it.”

Before she could protest, I shoved the goblet into her hand.

By this point, Paloma, Cho, Serilda, Xenia, and Auster had realized that something was wrong, and they were discreetly worming their way through the crowd toward me. On the second-floor balcony, Sullivan was doing the same.

Libby, if that was even her real name, might have been surprised by my handing her the goblet, but she sidled forward and offered it to me again.

“Oh, no! I couldn’t possibly drink out of the queen’s goblet!” she said in that high, breathy, innocent voice.

I curled my fingers even tighter around the plain glass still in my hand. “Funny. I’ve been at court for years, and I don’t remember there ever being a special goblet for the queen. It must be a new tradition. Perhaps Vasilia started it.”

Libby blinked, not sure what to say.

I shrugged. “Anyway, I’m giving it to you as a reward for your excellent service. So go on. Drink up.”

I lifted my glass, as did everyone else, although Diante, Fullman, and the other nobles were frowning, wondering why I was paying so much attention to a servant.

Libby clutched the goblet, but she didn’t drink the contents. And I knew that she wouldn’t, especially since I could now smell the soft, floral poison in the goblet, only partially masked by the fruity sangria.

I lifted my own glass even higher. Everyone around me did the same, except for Libby.

“What’s wrong, Libby? Is the sangria not to your liking?” I arched my eyebrow. “Or perhaps you simply don’t want to drink the poison you slipped into the goblet?”

Shocked gasps rippled through the crowd. Somewhere behind me, Auster let out a vicious curse, but I didn’t need him to protect me.

Surprise flashed in Libby’s eyes, but she didn’t bother denying it. Her lips twisted into an evil sneer, and she tossed her serving tray onto the floor. The tray clattered across the stone, making several nobles gasp again and back away, which created an open ring of space around the two of us.

Libby hadn’t killed me with her poison, but she wasn’t giving up. She lifted her hand, and purple lightning exploded on her fingertips.

“Die, you Bellonan bitch!” she snarled.

Then she reared back her hand and threw her magic at me.





Chapter Three


Well, Libby tried to throw her magic at me, but I was quicker, and I hurled my glass at her.

My aim was true, and I beaned her in the nose. The glass didn’t break, but the sangria splattered against her face like blackberry rain.

Libby yelped in surprise and staggered back. She lost her grip on her magic, and her lightning dissolved in a shower of purple sparks. She also lost her grip on the silver goblet, which clattered to the floor. The sangria spilled out and started smoking on the blue carpet.

People screamed and scrambled back. Paloma, Cho, Serilda, and Xenia had been hurrying toward me, but the stampeding nobles pushed them back.

“Guards!” Captain Auster yelled above the commotion. “Protect the queen! Protect the queen!”

The last time I’d heard him scream those words had been during the royal massacre, and hearing them again took me back to that awful day. The throne room, the nobles, even Libby standing in front of me. In an instant, they all vanished, replaced by overturned tables, splintered chairs, and bodies littering the grass like bloody, broken dolls.