The Queen's Assassin (The Queen's Secret #1)(79)

Running away? Cal is confused but doesn’t say anything. Wasn’t Shadow sent to him on orders from the queen?

“Come, eat, child,” says Moriah, ushering her and Cal to the formal dining table, where they all gather. All except for Shadow’s mother, who remains silent in the rocking chair. Moriah passes out bowls of thick beef stew. “There’s a fresh loaf of bread on the table, and fresh butter too.”

Cal doesn’t wait for bread or even for the stew to cool off; he takes a bite immediately. It’s too hot but he doesn’t care. “Delicious,” he says, mouth full.

Moriah chuckles. “Glad you like it!”

“It’s been so long since I had food like this,” he tells her. He hasn’t eaten anything but prison gruel or aristocrat nonsense in many weeks. When’s the last time he had a hearty home-cooked meal? He can’t recall.

Moriah claps her hands. “Excellent! Now that that’s settled, let’s get to it. Where to start?”

“So I take it the ambassador recognized me,” says Shadow.

Shadow’s mother coughs. Aunt Mesha glances in her direction. Aunt Moriah nods. “Yes, he was at the party to confirm your presence. We had alerted the Guild the very day you disappeared. And it goes without saying that we threw a locus spell straightaway.

“It didn’t take too long for them to discover that you’d made your way into Deersia—at least we assumed it was you, considering that Caledon was also missing, sprung from prison ahead of schedule, by a novice stable hand no less, and then appeared in Montrice with a sister matching your description. I mean, honestly, Shadow, hardly subtle. Ambassador Nhicol sent a messenger immediately to let us know what he’d found. We called you here because no other correspondence is safe, and it is imperative that you know what we’re facing immediately.”

It takes a few seconds for Cal to absorb everything that’s been said. He blinks a few times and puts a hand up to halt the conversation. “My apologies, but I was under the impression that Shadow was sent to Deersia by Queen Lilianna, in order to serve as my apprentice.” Now that he’s spoken it aloud, he doesn’t know why he ever believed her. That was, of course, ridiculous. He was so eager to leave that cell, and so distracted with his orders from the queen, that he didn’t think.

There is silence around the table.

Shadow can’t quite meet his eye.

It is Moriah who answers. “You were supposed to be freed by Ambassador Nhicol, who arrived at the prison undercover, as a Montrician spy. But a few days after he arrived, you were gone.”

“Ambassador Nhicol was the Montrician spy! I thought I recognized him; I certainly recognized his voice!” says Shadow.

Cal is stunned.

“Wrongdoing aside, I, for one, am rather impressed by how far you got,” Mesha says, motioning her head toward her niece. “She has no formal training whatsoever.”

“Yes, well, we will sort this all out later,” Moriah says. “We need to stay focused on what’s ahead, not behind.”

Mesha walks up, holding a small box in her hand. “This is why you’re both here.” She opens the small case. Its pillowed interior is lined with dark red satin. On that sits a small shard of iridescent black glass.

Shadow’s eyes widen. “Where did you get that?” She looks from one of the women to the other.

“The Aphrasians have been mining it at Baer Abbey.”

“What is it?” asks Cal. “We found some in the woods at Duke Girt’s estate.”

“And we had a bit of trouble with it on the road, when we ran into a group of monks.”

“You’ve seen this before?” Aunt Moriah asks.

“Yes,” Shadow says. “We had a scuffle with some—well, we thought they were Deersia guards—but it turned out they were Aphrasians. They captured us when we were fleeing Deersia.”

Shadow’s mother stirs from her perch in the sitting room.

“And while we were trying to escape, I used some of the energy conjuring you taught me . . .” She is speaking so fast she nearly trips over her words.

The aunts look at each other and smile proudly.

“But it ricocheted back at me. Knocked me out. When I came to, I noticed the guard had some kind of shield sewn into his vest. But it wasn’t normal, not made of metal. It looked almost liquid, except it was definitely solid. It looked exactly like that.” She points to the box.

Now the aunts exchange a wide-eyed look of alarm.

“We were hunting with the duke when we found another piece,” Cal adds. He examines the shard in its case.

“It is obsidian,” says Aunt Moriah. “An ancient and very powerful substance. It can do many things—strengthen the magic of the one who wields it, and keep one safe from outside magical forces.”

“And the Aphrasians have it,” says Shadow, her face paling.

“So that’s what they were doing back at the abbey,” says Cal.

“Exactly, and this also explains why they’ve suddenly gained so much power after lying dormant for so long. We think the ore was discovered there, possibly when they were building a new vault or something of that nature. The Guild believes the hills at Baer are full of it. Only exactly how deep or where or even how to extract it, we don’t know. Yet.”