“I’m beginning to see that.” Dax’s gaze locked with hers. “And I’m suddenly glad I made Safire run.”
As if in answer, the wind howled from beyond the citadel, beating its fists against the walls. The room smelled like the sea in a storm, and Eris’s skin prickled like it often did before a lightning strike.
“Caspian.” The empress turned to her captain. “Take the king away. He will take his cousin’s place until she can be hunted down and made to pay for her crimes.”
“And the dragon queen?” Caspian asked, already binding Dax’s wrists.
Dax went rigid at the mention of his wife.
“Leave his queen to me,” she said.
They turned the dragon king toward the doors and marched him—along with his captured guards—out into the hall, where Eris stood. At the sight of her, Dax looked, then looked again. As if not believing his eyes.
“Eris...” His voice was no longer so controlled. “What are you doing here?”
She raised her own bound wrists in answer.
He opened his mouth to say something more, but theLumina forced him past her. Eris glanced back over her shoulder, only to be shoved forward and into the room beyond the doors. There they threw her at the foot of the throne. When she tried to rise, the soldier behind her pressed his stardust steel blade to the back of her neck.
“Stay down, dog.”
So Eris looked up instead. Several paces away stood the empress. Leandra wore a gray fitted jacket, fastened down the left. Its silver buttons caught the flames burning in the sconces and threw them back into the darkness. Her ash-blond hair was pulled tightly back.
Eris had spent seven years running from this woman. She’d never seen her up close before. Had never looked upon her face.
The moment their gazes met, the room began to tilt. The ground seemed to crumble away beneath her.
“You.”
The stormy eyes peering down into hers were the same eyes she’d met that night the scrin burned. They were the eyes belonging to Day’s murderer.
She’d thought it was a Lumina commander who killed him. She hadn’t known it was the empress.
Eris moved then, not caring that her hands were bound behind her back. She would destroy this woman.
The soldier behind her grabbed her hair, yanking her head back so hard, tears filled her eyes.
“Be still!”
If she ever got out of these stardust cuffs, Eris would destroy every last one of them.
How had the Skyweaver let this woman rule over the Star Isles for so long?
But as her hatred grew within her, Eris remembered the deserted room at the top of the tower. The broken loom. The overturned furniture.
Something was horribly wrong.
The empress’s boots echoed through the room as she walked toward Eris.
That’s right, come closer,she thought,so I can tear out your throat with my teeth.
As Leandra halted directly in front of Eris, her mouth curved into a thin smile. “Are you the one they call the Death Dancer?”
Eris glared up at her, wishing she had the strength to throw off her guards. “Isn’t that why you arrested me?”
“I’ve arrested you for breaking into the Skyweaver’s tower.” The empress began to circle Eris, her gaze trailing up and down, stopping at brief intervals to study Eris’s hair, her eyes, her mouth. It made Eris’s skin itch. “Did you find what you were looking for up there?”
The empress stopped circling, waiting for an answer.
