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I guided her into the carriage and sat across from her. “Sorry to break up that little interlude.” I’m sure I didn’t hide all of the ridicule from my voice, but I tried.
Autumn smoothed her skirt and didn’t constitute a retort. I hadn’t expected her to. She certainly did not have to answer to me for anything.
She glanced back as if she could see the guard with a restrained expression. Then, her stunning golden eyes lifted to mine, and I held my breath. I had forgotten how magnificent she was in the months we had been apart. Her exotic looks were so different from the women at court and even the golden-skinned women I was used to from home. Autumn looked like no one else I had ever known.
Seeing her in that setting tonight had stopped my heart and clenched every muscle in my body. I could not even form coherent thoughts for several minutes when she entered the ballroom. That dress was a vision, extraordinary in its uniqueness and fashion. It molded the slimness of her torso, the flare of her hips to leave her lower body to the imagination under a long, flowing, fading skirt. The bodice was thin and corset-like with its ribbons, and the dipped bosom amplified her already well-formed assets. Her hair was shining and simply arrayed, but the ribbon on the crown of her hair surprised me. It was the one I had given her on our trip to the city of Demora. I was shocked she’d kept it after all these months and worn it to such an important event. I wanted to touch it. Touch her. I couldn’t see her face beneath her beautiful butterfly mask, but her eyes held wariness, and her mouth set in a grim line.
It's not like I had expected her to be happy to see me, had I?
She thrust the mask off and my breath caught in my throat. Yes, I had forgotten my reaction to her beauty. My imagination, the images I had conjured of her, didn't do her justice.
“What is the plan, Sahlyn? Am I to flee the country with nothing but the clothes on my back, change my entire existence, or die?”
I hadn’t thought of fleeing the country. It wasn’t a horrible idea, but I feared Amira would find us eventually and kill us anyway. It was no life to lead.
“Not quite.”
She lifted a skeptical brow and waited. I could see my existence annoyed her—at the very least, it caused everything that had happened months ago to filter back in.
I didn’t have the same reaction. Seeing Autumn was everything I had wished for in the months we were apart. She’d never left my thoughts, a ghost of something unattainable because of who and what I was. So to have her here now in front of me gave me a weightless buoyancy.
But then the queen filtered back into my thoughts, and fear wrapped around my heart.
“I think we have to kill the queen.”
I’m Listening
Why did this guy have to ruin everything for me? I had finally found a man I was interested in, and now I had to go off gallivanting with the huntsmanagain.
But my eyes thoroughly swept over him, and I couldn’t ignore how haunted he looked—even more than he had before.
What in the Underworld happened to you in our time apart, Sahlyn?
My heart rattled with the need to know. First, he was clean-shaven, showing gauntness in his cheeks. Then I took in his masculine frame. He was thinner but more muscled. As if he’d taken up a strenuous activity and stopped eating.
There were questions between us that I wanted answers to, but I hated that the void of silence felt nice. Sahlyn’s smell of dark wood enveloped me, and I relished in it for a long moment. His large, imposing figure consumed the space in the carriage; if I moved my knees, they would brush against his.
His face was to the side, staring out the window into the night. There were shadows under his eyes, bruises from lack of sleep. I swallowed.
“What’s going on, Sahlyn?”
It was a long moment before his eyes flickered back to me. “My mentor… She killed him. He had some kind of contract for protection, and she found a way to break it and run a blade through his heart.” He took a shuddering breath. “I think they had cared for each other once, and she still killed him. She’s twisted, Autumn. She was twisted and broken and evil. I have always known, but it's gotten worse. She’s gotten stronger.” He glanced away again, and I knew my eyes were wide.
Sahlyn hadn’t told me a whole lot about the queen. Looking back now, we hadn’t talked all that much about anything. We’d just resided in each other's company. We’d been nothing but traveling companions, yet I had still missed him.
“Bereille had been the most honorable man I have ever known, aside from my father, and she killed him like it was nothing. I… Before—” He shook his head, ridding himself of a vision. “I caught the queen doing something…unthinkable, and Bereille admitted he’d known it was coming. He hinted that there might be a way to stop her.”
I lifted a brow. “Stop her?”
“She has grown so powerful that no one can take her down. There might be someone that can, though.”
“Take her down… Sahlyn, what are you saying? Does the queen have magic?”
It’s a question that had always burned in my mind and spoken by others like it was a probability. Considering that magic bound deals now, no one could deny that magic had manifested back in Catalan, at least to some level.
“She… I don’t know whether she possesses real magic or steals magic from others. But, she certainly has magical items.”
“Okay.” I pushed the heels of my hands against my eyes. “Okay. So, she’s an evil queen with a form of magic who has a sadistic streak with no issue killing people she cares about. Never mind someone she doesn’t. There’s no limit to what she’ll do. She now knows I’m alive when she thought I was dead. I’m guessing you gave her someone’s heart in replace of mine?”
