“My business is with you, Safire. Not your queen.”
Safire looked to find Leandra standing at the widest window, looking out into the storm.
“If it’s me you want,” said Safire, “then release Dax. You’re already treading on dangerous ground by imprisoning him without just cause. If you don’t let him go, you’ll have an army at your gate and a horde of dragons burning your city to the ground.”
Leandra sighed, staring out toward the water. “What are armies and dragons compared to the power of thesea?” Not for the first time, Safire noticed how she seemed neither young nor old, but both at once.Ageless.
Asha’s story clanged in Safire’s mind.
“I think I’ll keep your precious kingandhis wife,” said Leandra. “At least long enough to coax your cousin down from the sky.”
Safire narrowed her eyes. “Asha is the Namsara. Kozu will eat you alive before he lets you anywhere near her.”
“We’ll see,” said Leandra, clasping her hands behind her back. “She has something that doesn’t belong to her. Something I’ve been hunting for a very long time. In the wrong hands, it could unleash a monster. One I thought I put to rest a long time ago.”
The Skyweaver’s knife?Safire wondered, thinking of the blade sheathed at Asha’s hip.
“Now.” Leandra turned toward Safire. “Youhave been a thorn in my side since you first walked through my gate uninvited. You will need to be disposed of.” In the window at her back, thunder cracked, followed by a flicker of lightning. “Before you leave us, though, you should know: I did what youfailed to do. I captured your precious Death Dancer.”
An uneasy feeling twisted in Safire’s stomach.
“Liar,” she said, her hands bunching at her sides.
The empress continued, as if she hadn’t heard her. “Tomorrow I’ll give her the same punishment I give every enemy of the Skyweaver. Do you know what that is?”
Safire heard the breath of the soldier behind her. Felt the shadow of them fall across her back. Her spine straightened and she reached for her throwing knife—but they’d taken it from her.
“No,” said Leandra. “Of course you don’t. Let me tell you.”
A cloth sack came down over her head. Safire gasped for breath as something tightened around her neck and a familiar bitter smell filled her nostrils.
Scarp berries.
Safire held her breath, trying to resist their poison.
“First,” the empress said as Safire struggled to fight the soldiers off, “I’ll take Eris to the immortal scarps.”
Safire couldn’t hold her breath forever. Soon enough, she felt her arms growing heavy and slack. Felt her legs giving out beneath her.
“There, I will cut off her hands.”
At those words, Safire struggled harder, even as that dull fog crept over her mind, lulling her, insisting that she close her eyes and sleep.
“And then,” the empress said as the world began to fade, “I’ll watch the daughter of my enemy die a slow and agonizing death.”
Forty-Two
Eris watched as one of the soldiers took out a ring of keys, slid one into the lock, and turned it. The door swung open. The room beyond was much smaller and darker than the throne room, but just as high. It was also empty—or so Eris first thought.
When they nudged her inside, she found herself at the edge of a marble platform, its surface damp and slick. Below her, water surged and Eris could just make out shadows moving beneath the dark surface. Things with spines and jagged teeth.
She looked up.
High above, a dozen cages swung from the ceiling like hideous ornaments, their chains secured to huge iron hooks in the walls. Eris watched as one of the soldiers unhooked one. A heartbeat later, a swift rattling sound filled the room as it plummeted downward, halting just before it hit the water. Bouncing on its chain, the cage swung in frantic circles.
Using what looked like a long shepherd’s hook to grab it,a second soldier pulled it to the platform they stood on and swung the door open.
That was when Eris realized she was meant to get in it.
