The Alcazar (The Cerulean Duology #2) - Amy Ewing Page 0,134

and she held a small scepter in one hand, topped with a smooth white dosinia.

The Renalt cocked her head. “So you are Alethea’s daughter,” she said. She looked at Leo. “And you are very clearly her son.”

“I am,” Agnes said as Leo gave a swift nod.

“Matthias,” the Renalt said, acknowledging him with a flicker of her eyes.

“Your Grace,” Matthias said.

The Renalt gazed down at them all imperiously. She turned to Sera and Leela with the same expression Agnes had seen on Ambrosine’s face, a famished greed.

“It appears that my daughter and her guard did not exaggerate,” she said. “You are all Saifa incarnate.” Sera opened her mouth to protest, but the Renalt was snapping her fingers. “Arrest them,” she said, and her Misarros leaped at her command. “The silver ones too. We will sort them out in Banrissa.” She gave Agnes a hard, discerning look. “It seems as though the Byrne stranglehold over this country is finally at an end.”

“No!” Agnes cried as the Cerulean stumbled away, confused, and the Misarros moved toward her, and then her own Misarros were picking up their weapons to defend her. “Ambrosine is dead and I’m not the woman she was at all. I don’t want to fight you and I don’t want to rule over anything. Please just . . . let us go. There’s nothing on this island for any of us—no power, no riches. And we are no threat to you.”

The Renalt’s eyes were pitying. “I know you are not, my dear,” she said. “But your grandmother attacked my daughter. Someone must pay for that.”

“Take me, then,” Matthias said.

The Renalt sighed. “Matthias, you know the Lekke would be at my throat if I did.”

“Then me,” Hektor said, standing.

The queen rolled her eyes. “That would be no punishment at all.”

Hektor’s cheeks flushed an ugly red and Agnes felt an unexpected surge of love for her cold uncle.

Then Sera stepped forward, serene and unafraid.

“You will not be taking anyone anywhere,” she said. The Renalt looked startled at being addressed so bluntly.

“My daughter told me about you,” she said. “She says you are a witch.”

“I am a Cerulean and my blood is magic,” Sera replied. “And you will not take my people or my friends. There is another, better path open to you, if only you could remember it.”

Her irises began to burn as Agnes felt once again the sensation of her body locked in a vise, a ripple of wind fluttering over her skin. She had a fleeting moment to wonder about what memory Sera would reveal before her joints all snapped together as she saw.

Alethea was kneeling in a triangular room, with high ceilings and three thrones in each corner, long steps leading up to them so that they were perched halfway up the walls.

One was carved into the trunk of a large olive tree, its scrubby branches spreading out above the head of the queen who sat in it, its leaves dense with green and purple fruit. The queen was young and dressed in scarlet, with pale skin and a crown of laurels in her honey-colored hair. The second throne was made of seashells: conches and scallops, mussels and lion’s paws, blending together in a quilt of muted color. A younger version of the Renalt stared down at Alethea with an interested expression. The third throne was crafted out of bones, sharks and whales and dolphins, skulls and fins and vertebrae pieced together in a macabre fashion. The queen who sat in it had a shaved head on which perched a crown of fangs. Her face was skeptical.

Alethea’s red curls fell freely down her back and she wore a dress of silver and green scales. She was young, perhaps no more than eighteen.

“Rise,” the bone queen commanded. “Not that I don’t love the sight of a Byrne on her knees.”

Alethea got to her feet, her turquoise eyes flashing. “I thank you, Your Grace.”

“So you have come to Ithilia,” the Renalt said. “Is this another one of Ambrosine’s chess moves? Is she trying to infiltrate our ranks now?”

“No one is trying to infiltrate anything,” Alethea said. “My mother does not even know I am here and she would be furious if she did.” She turned to the scarlet queen almost shyly. “My brother Matthias thinks the world of you, Your Grace, and greatly admires your wisdom. He is only fourteen, but he has a brilliant mind and a sharp wit. I have told him that perhaps one day he might come to