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“Be the lamb walking into slaughter.” Niklas had fastened the cloak’s clasp around my throat. “A mouse in his court. Until you become the lion.”
Mists,soupy and thick, wrapped around the coach. The look of a wild sea storm rolling across the isles as night fell.
Ari had been parted from me for the whole of the day. The way troll burrows could cut beneath peaks and hills, if all had gone to plan, then Ari would’ve been in the Court of Stars for several clock tolls by now.
Gods, let him be safe.
“We’re here, Princess,” Stefan said and secured a blood fae leather mask over his nose and mouth.
Calista closed her eyes. “We make it through this, Raven Queen. Say it.”
“We make it through,” I returned, though I didn’t know how we would. A feeling deep inside told me this day would not be what we imagined. I kept that to myself.
The coach rolled to a stop outside the filigreed gates of the Court of Stars. Cuyler hopped off the bench and opened the door. His gray-toned skin was concealed like Stefan’s beneath a blood fae mask, as was Gorm’s. To anyone not watching closely, the blood lord and his heir were nothing but common warriors escorting nobles.
I smoothed out the skirt of my black satin gown, next, the woolen cloak lined in fur. I hardly looked intimidating, but that was the whole point.
Davorin remembered me as a stupid princess who knew little about the ways of the world and kingdom politics. True, he knew I could handle a blade after all these turns, but I wanted him to see me as the woman who was in over her head with her own glamour. I wanted him to underestimate all of us.
“You fear for the king, My Lady?” Gorm asked.
“I do.” Why deny it?
“Then ask how he is.” Gorm pointed to the ground. “It’ll be to our benefit to know if he’s been discovered or not, in truth. Best not to walk in and get all our heads cut off.”
“Ask? The land?”
“That is what I meant when I did this.” He, again, pointed to the ground. “It surrounds him as it surrounds you. You both are the only ones who understand its voice. Ask.”
Hells. I didn’t wait before kneeling and letting my fingertips sink into the cool soil. The words weren’t out loud, spoken in my head, but the heat of my glamour always brought the slow, soft hum from my throat.
Look. A whisper filled my mind, low, gravelly, and gentle. I blinked and watched a gust of wind roll a line of dried leaves across the soil. Mists thinned, and a bit of ground sank into an opening.
A tunnel was there, and through the new hole came the flicker of underground lanterns drifting back toward Whisper Lake.
The hole concealed itself quickly, but those were the lanterns of blood fae. Our people. They were on the retreat as planned which meant . . . I tried to dull my smile, but couldn’t. It meant they’d found the botanical house and were meeting their next move by taking any injured toward the Court of Blood.
Ari had made it in safely.
Gunnar closed his eyes and let out a loud breath through his nose.
Look. Again, the whisper returned.
Trees rustled nearby, their branches tangled. Between them, difficult to see to one not looking, was a shimmer. Like sunlight on an undisturbed lake. I pressed a hand to my chest. Ari’s illusions were all around us.
I’d learned to spot the glimmer of his fury. We’d stepped into a massive illusion aided by the isles. It was remarkable how the trees, the soil, even the air, seemed to add to his natural fury and create a unique connection to the blood feather.
Behind his illusions our people would be waiting for a fight I had no doubt would rewrite all our fates.
“You won’t be recognized,” I told Gorm and Cuyler. Even Stefan would be hard to see as Calista’s brother when we went forward. “The king is shielding us.”
I thanked the isles in my mind for helping Ari hold his fury longer than he’d once been able to do; Ari would’ve struggled to keep such a powerful illusion being so far away before now. It was a gift I prayed Davorin didn’t anticipate.
With Sofia there, she would’ve never fallen for Stefan as a guard. Nor Gorm and Cuyler. I had to hope the illusion was enough that she’d be fooled by the rest.
“Stay close, Queen Saga,” Gorm said, and took the lead with his son.
Behind me, Stefan carefully placed shackles around Calista’s wrists.
