The War of Two Queens (Blood and Ash 4)

What she felt couldn’t matter.

Reaver crept in close, his voice only for me to hear. “Can I burn them?”

The corner of my lips turned up, and I started to tell him yes.

“She will kill him,” the Handmaiden spoke.

Everything stopped. Reaver’s breath. The pulsing eather. Everything. My entire being focused on her as I felt Casteel’s ring between my breasts like a brand.

“If you somehow, in the unlikely event, make it past us, she will know, and she will kill him,” the Handmaiden said softly. “She’ll tell you she didn’t want to, and a part of her will be speaking the truth because she knows what that will do. What pain it will cause you.”

“I’m no fool,” I snarled.

Her head cocked. “Did I say you were?”

“You must think so if you believe I can be convinced that she actually cares about the pain she inflicts.”

“What you believe is irrelevant. All that matters is that she believes it. Actually, it’s not all that matters. Her killing him also does,” she added with a half-shrug. “Doesn’t it? She’ll make a dramatic show of it, too. Send him back in more pieces this time. One at a time—”

“Shut up.” I stepped forward, the essence whipping around me, lashing an inch from her face.

The Handmaiden didn’t even flinch. “We’ve been waiting for you to make a move. To come for your King. We knew there were two paths you’d likely attempt. The Queen believed you would come straight for Carsodonia, right to the gates of the Rise, proving to the people that you are the Harbinger of Death and Destruction.”

My stomach soured with returning dread. If the people were being told I was a Harbinger, the war and its aftermath would be so much more complicated.

“I didn’t believe that,” she continued. “I said you’d come in through the back door. The mines.” The Handmaiden smiled, and Kieran cursed behind me, but there was something about her smile. Something familiar. “That’s what I would do.”

It was not entirely shocking that they suspected I would attempt something like this. We knew that. What was surprising was that this Handmaiden had assumed correctly.

At the moment, none of that was important. “She knows what I will do if she kills him. She wouldn’t dare.”

“But she would.” The Handmaiden stepped forward. “I am her favorite…after you.”

Again. There was something about the way she said that. It cracked the hold my fury had on me. I wasn’t sure what it was, though.

“Poppy,” Kieran spoke quietly behind me. “If she speaks the truth…”

I wouldn’t risk Casteel.

Not again.

The breath I took tasted less of smoke, fire, and death. I pulled the eather in. The tendrils retracted, slipping over the grass and road as the hum in my blood calmed. The anger remained, only leashed. As the silvery glow faded from my vision, the deep throb in my shoulder flared to life, reminding me that one of them had managed to hit me.

I would have to deal with that later.

“What happens now?” I asked.

The Handmaiden’s chin dipped. “We will escort you to Carsodonia, where you will meet with the Queen.”

I laughed. “Not going to happen.”

“I don’t think you understand—”

“No, you don’t understand.” I crossed the short distance between us, stopping directly in front of her. Up close, I realized we were the same height. Her build was a little narrower than mine, but not by much. “Just because I won’t kill you doesn’t mean I will go along with any of your plans.”

“That would be a mistake.” Her eyes narrowed behind the paint. “Why do you have mud on your face?”

“Why do you have paint on yours?” I fired back.

“Touché,” she murmured. “But that’s not an answer.”

The breeze stirred then, kicking up a scent—one of decay and…stale lilacs. My gaze flickered to the immobile Revenants. “They stink.”

“That’s rude.”

I looked back at her. “But you don’t.”

“I don’t,” she said, and that was strange.

But it also didn’t matter. “I think you just need to take your merry band of stinkers and get out of our way.”

The Handmaiden laughed—it was deep and short but sounded genuine. “And let you and your merry band of extremely good-looking men pass?” She dipped her head to mine, speaking so quietly I barely heard her. “Not going to happen, Penellaphe.”

Staring at her, I opened my senses to her and felt sugary amusement. That was all. And it didn’t tell me much.

“You’re out of choices, Queen of Flesh and Fire,” she said. “If you’re as smart as I hope, I would think you’d realize that you won’t get into the capital unnoticed. Not through the mines or the gates.”

I zeroed in on her word choice. She didn’t say that I wouldn’t escape. Only that I wouldn’t get into the capital unnoticed. That was strange.

But also, she was right.

There would be no sneak attacks. I wouldn’t risk Casteel by allowing Reaver to finally get what he wanted. This wasn’t the best way into the capital. We would be under guard, but it was a way in.