Metal scraped louder now, and his hand shot forward on instinct, pulling a panel of the screen aside. Caroline held what looked to be metal fish scales against her chest over a hip length, sleeveless slip. Her feet were bare, and her bottom half was clad in matching cream leggings. She almost seemed less intimidating—girlish.
His mouth fell open, even as his head cocked to the side curiously. Her eyes flipped up toward him, a single eyebrow cocking. “May I help you?”
A servant pressed herself up from the little stool she was kneeling on, and wrenched the screen out of Johnneth’s hand, closing it. “I forget, he’s new,” Caroline explained off-handedly to the women dressing her.
“Well, he should have better manners, Your Majesty,” a servant replied.
“Indeed,” Caroline said, though her playful voice didn’t match her curt words. “Angus had this armor crafted for me. He says they tested it. Only a high velocity projectile could penetrate it, something more than an arrow.”
“What about your head?” Johnneth grumbled, not pleased being admonished by a servant.
“You’ll see.”
He didn’t need to see her grin to know a mischievous one lit her face. It was in her voice, which drew him in like the sweetest honey. She stepped out into the room and took a few steps across the stone floor, then held her arms out, allowing him to inspect the metal vest she was wearing. “Go on,” she urged, and turned slowly so he could see.
Her amour was clever, he had to admit. And it was another mystery about the Queen of Everstal and how she operated unlocked. They crafted the suit from finely hammered metal scales linked in a pattern that fit her precise measurements, to be worn over her undergarments, but under her riding gear, which she hadn’t put on yet. Johnneth couldn’t stop his fingers from running across the smooth joints where the material seamlessly curved down her back.
“Satisfied?” She gave him a prim smile, then sauntered behind the screen to finish dressing.
“That still doesn’t cover your head, and I would say the brain is the most vital organ of all.”
Caroline laughed. “Some would say the heart.”
The edges of his lips twitched up, even as he tried to cinch them down. When she came out, she performed the slow spin before him again. The armor added a little bulk to her, but the queen was so slim she appeared only a little more curvaceous beneath the silver bodysuit. It protected her vital organs, and for her head, there was a metal collar of linked plates that fanned around her neck and up the back of her skull. They didn’t fit too closely and looked like gills opening for a fresh intake of water.
The women rolled her black hair in two twists on either side of her head, beginning at her temple and connecting in the back to resemble a sort of half-crown. Johnneth was holding his breath. He let his lungs burn before he finally exhaled. It was the second time she’d caused him to lose his composure. She was a twenty-four-year-old woman. He was over ten years her senior andshould notbe affected by her. His enemy, standing before him, and waiting for him to speak. Fully understanding the effect she had on others.
“You look…” Her eyebrows raised subtly, but he let his eyes drift past her shoulder and take on an impassive expression. “Safe.”
“You look like perfection,” the mouthy servant corrected as she attached a gauzy full skirt around her hips, leaving the front section open so the legs of the jumpsuit were visible.
Caroline didn’t hide her smirk of displeasure and she paced out of the building and into the yard. A groomsman handed off the reins of the sleek black stallion to her. She’d stepped into the stirrup, swished up into her saddle, and was fanning out her skirt across the horse’s rear before Johnneth could offer her a hand.
He took his own mount and sidled up next to her. Caroline waved a hand to the ten awaiting soldiers on horseback littering the yard, and the neatly ordered pairs of men and women sprang into motion, loosely encircling him and the queen.Her command was easy and absolute and he’d yet to see her exercise the Gift. Every moment that passed where she didn’t use it made the anticipation so much worse and now his imaginings had taken on a life of their own.
But it was hard to reconcile that with the woman who rode next to him pointing out different estates which dotted the rolling countryside in the distance. It’s hard to envision her transforming from this calm, intelligent, yet commanding presence into the monster he’d heard so much about. She was nothing like he expected.
The route down the mountain was long and twisting. When they rounded yet another bend, she said, “Tonight, we’ll be staying with an old acquaintance of mine. Then it will be another day’s ride to our destination.” She pointed to an estate off in the distance. “That’s his land there.”
It wasn’t long as the raven flies, but traversing through the winding roads more than doubled the ride time.Everstal had a different, softer kind of beauty than Veetula. The weather was temperate, and vegetation covered every bit of undulating land that wasn’t built upon. Breathtaking views of distant mountains and the marine sea would surprise him every so often.
The land didn’t mirror its steward, however. Caroline’s beauty was harsh, cold even, like Veetula where the mountains had the jaggedness of newly formed earth. Dense coniferous forests teamed with wild game, and in the northern lands, fields of blue ice stretched out beyond the line of sight. It begged the question of her lineage. Who had been Caroline’s mother, the woman, who King Thom Dallimore had become enamored with on a campaign on the eastern edge of the borderlands? The campaign which had claimed the final swath of land from the Manula, finally pushing them over the Maidenwall mountain range which separated Veetula and Everstal from the far away kingdoms. Now it was only them in the west with their endless border skirmishes.
Johnneth could sense Caroline’s eyes on him. “You’re deep in thought,” she said.
“Only enjoying the view, Your Majesty.” He hoped she’d leave it at that and not ask him any further questions. Because questions might lead—
“The view must be that much better from up there on his high horse,” a soldier in front of them called over his shoulder, eliciting a chuckle from the others, including the queen.
“Yeah, Super Specialist Althorpe. What else can you see from way up there above the rest of us?” one of the others goaded.
“That’s enough,” he scolded, picking up the pace. Their teasing had been tolerable when they’d all been of equal rank, but now the ribbing was inappropriate. He’d always taken everything he’d done a little more seriously than most. Some people understood. His family understood. But common soldiers—his intense nature was a running joke with them. He was more like Angus, or even Caroline, in that. It was in his blood.
“I threatened to make him crawl on all fours, if that makes you all feel any better,” Caroline chimed in, speaking loudly enough so everyone in their party could hear. “But I figured that would make our trip take significantly longer, and I know how whiney you all get if you don’t get a hot dinner.”
Caroline nudged her mount and rode up to the man who’d made the joke and the two fell into a familiar banter.
“Captain Vance, how’s your wife and the new baby?” Caroline asked.
