The Shadow Queen (Ravenspire, #1)(6)
She turned toward Leo, who gave her a cheeky grin. “You are looking most fetching this morning. Though I only have Gabril for comparison, so take that as you will.”
Lorelai snorted. “Fetching? What kind of stupid compliment is that?”
“I’m pretty sure snorting is beneath royalty.” Leo sounded smug.
“Fine. You also look most fetching. So fetching, in fact, that I might allow Sasha to share her meal with you after all.” Lorelai laughed as Leo glanced uneasily at the sky.
“When I said courtly conversation, I meant it.” Gabril swept a rotted branch from the road, sending it skittering into the ditch. “Enough foolishness.”
“Pretend I’m a visiting ambassador from Akram,” Leo suggested.
“Why do you get to be the visiting ambassador?”
“Because I thought of it first.”
Lorelai glared. “Next time I get to be the visiting ambassador, and you have to come up with stupid conversation to pass the time.”
“I had no idea Ravenspire princesses were so uncouth,” he said in a near-perfect imitation of an Akram accent—long vowels, choppy consonants, and a mesmerizing singsong cadence that Lorelai found impossible to mimic.
Her answering smile bared all her teeth. “I hope your journey wasn’t too arduous, my lord, and that you are in good health. When you have refreshed yourself with sleep, I would love to give you my undivided attention so that we may discuss various issues of interest to both our kingdoms.”
“Better,” Gabril said. “Now practice how to negotiate with brokers from Balavata. After that, we’ll deal with the customs of Llorenyae.”
Hours later, after practicing how to speak with the royalty, merchants, and nobility of all Ravenspire’s allies, even Leo was tired of talking. They’d trekked past pastures full of yellow, dying grass and flocks of sheep too thin to face a winter, past forests full of crumbling tree trunks and soil that was losing its color, and past cottages that appeared to be abandoned. It seemed the only part of Ravenspire that wasn’t dying as a result of Irina’s magic were the rivers. They were coming up on another cottage without smoke curling from its chimney when Gabril suggested they stop for lunch.
Leo pulled out the last of their oat bread. Lorelai took a canteen from her pack and began moving toward the cottage, searching for its well. She was walking past a line of brittle rosebushes that edged the south side of the cottage when a thin, high-pitched scream pierced the air, raising the hair on the back of Lorelai’s neck and sending a jolt of magic burning down her veins. The scream was coming from the backyard.
Lorelai dropped the canteen and ran, her palms stinging with magic. Skidding around the corner, she saw three small children, bellies distended with hunger, lying motionless on the frigid ground behind the cottage. A woman with sunken cheeks and desperate eyes was standing over a fourth child, holding a bloodstained knife in her hand.
Lorelai’s heartbeat thundered in her ears as icy fingers of panic closed around her chest.
“Stop!” Lorelai shouted, but it was too late. The woman, her arms trembling, her face white with strain, plunged the knife into the fourth child’s chest. The little girl slumped to the ground while the woman stood holding the knife with shaking fingers.
Lorelai raced over the grass and threw herself to her knees beside the child. The girl’s blue eyes seemed to beg Lorelai for something, and her mouth moved as if she was trying to speak.
“It’s all right.” Lorelai’s voice trembled as she pressed her gloved hands to the wound that was pouring blood out of the girl’s chest with alarming speed. Her words were a lie—already the girl’s heartbeat faltered, and her body shuddered with the effort it took to stay alive.
Leo raced past her to the other children who lay silent and still, blood soaking into the ground beneath them.
“They’re dead.” Leo’s voice was a whiplash of anger as he looked up at the woman.
“I had to.” The woman’s lips were cracked and pale against her haggard face, and her bones stood out in sharp relief. Tears slipped down her cheeks, and she gripped the knife tightly. “My babies . . . my poor babies.”
Beneath Lorelai’s hands, the little girl’s chest went still, and her blue eyes became dull and lifeless. Lorelai whispered, “She’s gone.”
Her throat closed over the words, and she had to swallow past the sudden ache of tears. She climbed to her feet, her gloves still covered in the child’s blood. “How could you do this?” Her voice trembled with horror as magic gathered in her palms like lightning. She wanted to rip off her bloodstained gloves and speak an incantor that would punish the woman. That would hurt her the way she’d hurt her children. It would be justice.
No one else will give you what you want, Lorelai. You have to take it for yourself. You have the power. Use it.
Shuddering at the memory of Irina’s words, Lorelai tugged her gloves toward her wrists.
The woman shook as she looked down at her children lying silently in the brittle grass. Her voice was hollow as she said, “I had nothing left to feed them. My husband died weeks ago—starved to death so that our food would last a little longer.” She sank slowly to her knees. “It was an awful way to die. Slow and lingering.”
She reached a hand out to smooth the tangled blond curls out of her baby’s face. Sobs tore at her, and she curled over the baby’s body. “I had to. I couldn’t watch you suffer. I had to.”