The Storm Crow (The Storm Crow, #1)(46)

Razel gave me a considering look. “How I punish my servants isn’t your business. Tell your Korovi friend the same. I heard the two of them had dinner this evening, and I don’t appreciate her distracting the girl from her work.”

“You hit her, didn’t you?”

A smile ripped across Razel’s face like a jagged cut. “I won’t repeat myself. Now, I assume that’s not what you came for?”

I scowled. “You ordered my guards sent home. I want to know why, and then I want them returned.”

“Whatever for? Do you feel unsafe?”

Something about her faltering smile, about the wild look to her gaze, made me pause. I’d felt unsafe from the moment I left Rhodaire, for the months before it since Ronoch—now? Now, I felt threatened.

“You have my guards to protect you, my servants to look after you, and your friend remains. I don’t see any need for your people to stay.” Razel swept toward the fire, and the light danced across the moonblades strapped to her back. She stopped before the flames, looking back at me.

The orange light played tricks across her pale skin, creating shadows that turned her face hollow and gaunt, like a skull lit by a candle. I gritted my teeth and stepped closer to her and the fire.

“I’m not afraid of you,” I said. “And I won’t let you control me either.”

Razel’s eyes flashed, and she grinned like a hungry jungle cat. “Let’s be honest with each other, Thia dear. This is your home now, and it’s my territory. If I wanted to hurt you, a few of your soldiers wouldn’t be able to protect you.”

A chill straightened my spine, and I took a step back.

She advanced. “I’ve been gracious with you, and I see no reason why that can’t continue. I’ve given you free rein of the castle, promised warm clothes for you, and allowed you to keep you dearest friend at your side. But make no mistake.” She seized my scarred wrist, dragging me toward her with surprising strength. “I’m not my son, who I hear has been more than tolerant of you, the spineless fool. Continue testing me, and I’ll happily treat you like the crow-loving dog you are.”

She stepped back, hauling me a step closer toward the hearth and wrenching my hand toward the flames. The warmth of the fire taunted my skin. I gasped, pulling back, but her hold only tightened. Something feral and distant gleamed in her eyes, as if she stared into a different world.

“I offered your sister peace, but I’d love nothing more than to send the army sitting on your border to crush what remains of your family and friends for Rhett and my people, for the lives of my family.” She pulled my arm closer to the fire until the flames snapped at my fingers.

My heart threatened to burst as I clawed frantically at her hand with my free one and threw my body weight into leaning away.

“Maybe I still will.” She let go.

I tumbled to the floor and crashed into the desk, clutching my arm to my chest. Razel stood over me, the fire leaping and roaring at her back, the shadows of her moonblades reaching up like two great claws above her shoulders.

“But as I said, I see no reason why we can’t be civil with each other.” She smiled another serrated smile, then stepped over me and disappeared into a connecting room.

Out of breath and desperate to escape the flames, I scrambled to my feet and bolted for the door, dashing down the hall before Kiva could even get a word out.

*

It took time for the fear to fade. When it finally did, it left a hollow pit in my stomach. Shame burned my cheeks, and I buried my head farther beneath my pillow as if it might spare me from my emotions. At first, Kiva had banged on my door, begging me to let her in. It’d made everything inside me twist and writhe. When she stopped, the stillness was worse.

That night with the carriage, now this. Razel hadn’t even burned me. She hadn’t needed to.

I hadn’t hesitated to clamber into bed and hide. The warmth and darkness of the sheets pulled me under, locking me in place. A new fear took root. What if I could never truly escape this?

The hollow pit in my stomach simmered. Razel must have noticed the way I’d reacted to the fire in the throne room, must have seen my burned hand and connected the two. She knew I was afraid of fire, and she’d used it against me at the first sign of defiance. And I’d let her.

The simmering turned hot and vicious. All I wanted was to hide beneath my covers and let the world fade away. Someone else would come. Someone capable. Someone unbroken. I could just lie here and wait until…until what? Until Razel conquered Korovi and Trendell and burned Rhodaire to the ground? Until she fulfilled her religion’s promise for ownership of the world?

I’d told Razel she couldn’t control me, and I’d meant it. I wouldn’t let her condemn me to a life weighed down to my bed. Not again.

Throwing back the covers, I changed from my still-damp dress into a clean one. As I tossed the old dress to the floor, a crumpled paper tumbled from one of the pockets. I scooped it up, unfurling it to reveal one of the Ambriellan boy’s flyers. Had he slipped it into my pocket?

Something had been scrawled across the top of the paper. I stared openmouthed at the word, then bolted from the room.

“Kiva!”

She catapulted off the couch, but before she could ask, I thrust the flyer in her face. Her eyes locked on the word at the top. Catternon. “That’s the password,” she said. “The one for communicating about the Ambriellan rebels in the Verian Hills. Where did you get this?”