The Promised Queen (Forgotten Empires #3)- Jeffe Kennedy Page 0,112

event, but he was right—when I turned, they’d all gathered expectantly. Besides, I’d dressed for the part, hadn’t I? Naturally an address fell to me, queen of Calanthe. I’d come to think of myself as Lia among most of this group, people who’d become friends, who teased me about fighting with and loving Con.

I looked them over: Con, tall and itching with anticipation, the predawn breeze catching and whipping his long hair, Vesno, noble profile raised to sniff that breeze, sitting at his heel. Kara, dark-skinned and somber, leanly relaxed. Brenda beside him, square and silver-haired, solid determination in the set of her jaw. Agatha, wrapped in a shawl, thin face pale and eyes distant. Ibolya stood just behind her, black hair gathered into a braid, eyes on me with trust and loyalty. Sondra, off to the side, always a bit on her own, golden hair shorn brutally short, wearing a slave’s dull garb and twirling the walking stick she’d found in Yekpehr. Percy stood with Ambrose, both of them in glittering garb. Ambrose wore his court wizard of Calanthe robes and leaned on his tall staff, the emerald topping it a dull green under the pinkening sky. Merle, large and glossy as obsidian, sat on his shoulder, returning my gaze with a canny glimmer in his eye, a much larger being visible in the layers of alternate realities beyond him. As for Percy, he’d dressed as his version of a sea captain, in nautical colors, plenty of braid, long pleated skirts and a jaunty cap on his head.

I’d miss them all, I realized suddenly, and their departure would leave me more alone than I’d ever been in my life, because I’d never known before what it was to work with a team like this. I also, with sudden and acute regret, wished I could go with them.

I even considered, in the impulse of that terrible loneliness of being left behind, that I would go with them. What would Anure do if I knocked on his door with Con and faced him down?

Turn me over to his wizards, that’s what. And I’d be powerless, an orchid severed from the stem, wilted and dying by stages. A liability to them all.

Con tipped his head, studying me, and I realized I’d been silent too long.

“Farewell and calm seas,” I said, beginning where I’d meant to end. I gathered the frayed edges of my thoughts. “You all take with you our dearly held hopes. The world will celebrate your deeds, your bravery, and your selfless determination to right the many wrongs done. When you return, you may ask of Me anything you wish. If it’s within My power, I will give it to you.”

They stirred, a few whispering among themselves. Even Sondra, though she narrowed her eyes in habitual suspicion, looked interested.

“Farewell and calm seas,” I repeated, and the bookending sounded purposeful, like a poem.

They all saluted, bowed, curtsied, or nodded, according to their natures. Then the larger group boarded the slower fishing boat. In short order, they threw off the lines and pushed away. I helped them along with some gentle currents, while Percy and Con made the Last Resort ready.

Then Con, leaving Vesno aboard the yacht, came back down to the dock while my ladies wandered discreetly away some distance.

“Do I get a kiss goodbye this time?” he asked, with a wry half smile for the last time he’d asked, just before the Battle at Cradysica, when I’d refused him.

“I suspect it would be bad luck not to,” I conceded.

“Exactly,” he replied, gaze wandering over my face as if memorizing it.

Since he didn’t move, I stepped closer to him, sliding my hands behind his neck and tipping up my face. Though he put his hands around my waist, nearly able to span the width of it with his big hands, he still didn’t kiss me.

“No matter what happens, Lia,” he said, softly enough that I couldn’t have heard him if we weren’t so close, “remember that you are the reason I want to live. For someone like me, that’s a miracle. And it’s truth.”

I parted my lips for a reply, but he stole the words and my breath, mouth moving over mine with devastating thoroughness, as if he tried to drink me in. The sun tipped over the horizon, spilling golden light through the tangle of his hair, and I trembled with need and emotion.

He wrenched away, giving me one last blazing look with his eyes so like the sun, steadied