“Let her pass,” said Rebekah. “She’s heard our offer. We’ll give her a chance to consider it.”
I will never consider it,she thought.
As soon as they stepped aside, Roa pressed her palms to the door. She was pushing it open when something caught her eye.
Standing in the corner of the room was a bow and quiver full of arrows. They’d been hidden from her view as she sat facing Rebekah, but now she saw them plainly: the bow was fashioned out of blackwood, the arrows fletched with glossy crow feathers.
A little over two months ago, in the ruined House of Shade, she and Lirabel had crouched over a map while Torwin taught Dax how to shoot. The freckle-faced skral used a blackwood bow and arrows tipped with crow feathers to teach him. Roa remembered, because Lirabel couldn’t stop staring at them. She told Roa it was the most beautiful bow she’d ever seen.
This bow, these arrows...
No,thought Roa.
But who else could they belong to?
Nineteen
Fear coiled in Roa’s belly as she stepped back into the dining hall.
Night had fallen and the dining hall buzzed with laughter and conversation. Along the walls, brass sconces now held burning flames, and the masks of the dinner guests sparkled and shone, making Roa dizzy.
She scanned the crowd. She saw Dax first, exactly where she left him. A group of young women surrounded him. They gazed up at their king through long eyelashes, flashing him smiles, laughing loudly at his jokes.
Dax smiled and laughed back. But as he went to gulp down the rest of his wine, his gaze met Roa’s over the lip of his goblet. His smile faded at the sight of her.
Roa surged toward him, pushing through the masked guests—who were all half-drunk now. Dax lowered his goblet and watched her for a moment, then set it down and excused himself. His guards followed as he made his way toward her.
When they met in the middle of the room, his gaze flickered over her.
“What’s wrong?” He lifted a hand, as if to touch her. “Are you all right?”
Roa shook her head. “I’m fine. It’s not me. It’s—”
“You’re not fine.” This time, he reached for both her hands. “Roa, you’re trembling.”
He held them up to show her. They shook like leaves. Roa pulled free.
“I think something terrible has happened,” she said.
A bell chimed from across the room, breaking their gaze. The chatter dimmed to silence. Together, Dax and Roa looked where everyone else was looking: to a tall, thin man standing in the center of the room. He wore crimson and his fingers were littered with rings.
“Baron Silva,” Dax said for her benefit.
At the man’s side stood Rebekah.
“Honored guests!” Silva’s face beamed as he looked out over his dinner party. “The meal is about to be served. But before you take your seats, my daughter has an announcement to make.”
He nodded at Rebekah, who smiled prettily back at him.
Suddenly Safire, Lirabel, and Jas were there at Roa’s side. Essie hopped from Lirabel’s shoulder to Roa’s, moving in close, sensing her distress.
“Where were you?” Lirabel asked at the same time Safire said, “What happened?”
But Rebekah’s voice cut them off, echoing through the dining hall as she looped her arm through Silva’s.
“Several days ago, my father returned from a hunt with some fascinating quarry. He would like to present it now as a gift to the new wife of his good friend King Dax.”
Rebekah nodded to Garnet, who disappeared through a set of doors and returned not with a stuffed and mounted animal, but a person. A person whose hands were tied behind his back and whose head was hooded.
