whoever had hung it didn’t want to place her smiling face right next to the sour one of the brother she had killed. A much larger landscape separated the two siblings, so I stopped in front of it.
At first glance, the painting seemed like an ordinary piece, one that showed a large gathering of people on a grassy lawn filled with tables, as though they were at a luncheon. But the longer I stared at the landscape, the more I realized that it wasn’t a happy, benign scene chronicling some distant piece of Mortan history. Instead of smiling and sitting upright, people’s eyes and mouths were frozen open in pain and terror, and they were slumped over the tables, with crimson blood oozing out of their chests.
The painting depicted the Seven Spire massacre.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, that had been just as important a day in Morta’s history as it had been in Andvari’s and Bellona’s, and many paintings featured battles and the like, no matter how bloody and gruesome the scenes were. More than one picture and tapestry at Glitnir depicted gargoyles savagely tearing into Andvarian enemies.
Despite my sick shock, I drifted closer to the painting, studying every little thing about it. Truth be told, it was an eerily good likeness. The position of the tables, the bodies littering the lawn, the bright blue sky above it all. The artist had captured the massacre in vivid, if horrific, detail.
Only one thing was missing—Everleigh Blair.
The Bellonan gladiator queen wasn’t depicted anywhere in the painting, even though she had survived the massacre. Aunt Evie had foiled Maximus’s plot to start a war between Bellona and Andvari, so of course she wouldn’t be included in an image designed to celebrate the Morricones’ seeming victory.
A figure in the bottom corner of the painting caught my eye. Blond hair, purple eyes, purple gown. It was Maeven, smiling wide, with purple lightning crackling around her lifted hand, as though she was waving to anyone who peered at the image. She was the only person who wasn’t dead and covered in blood.
I shuddered and started to turn away when my gaze landed on another figure, this one in the center of the painting. That looked like . . . No, that was my uncle Frederich lying dead on the ground with the other Andvarians. I could tell by the dagger sticking out of his chest and the tiny gargoyle crest done in black thread on his gray tunic.
Once again, I started to turn away, but my gaze snagged on yet another figure—myself.
In the painting, a girl was peeking out from underneath a table. Unlike the other figures, Gems wasn’t dead and bloody, but her mouth was open in a silent scream, and her hands were clapped over her ears. The image was eerily similar to what had happened in real life, and a stark, visual reminder of my cowardice.
Cold, familiar, stomach-churning waves of guilt and shame crashed through me, and the screams of everyone who had died echoed in my ears. Tears stung my eyes, and my breath caught in my throat. I stepped back, trying to get away from the awful image, and bumped into someone behind me.
I moved to the side and turned around. “Excuse me—”
My apology died on my lips. I hadn’t bumped into a servant or a guard or even a noble.
I had run into Queen Maeven.
* * *
I stood there, dumbstruck. It was as though Maeven had stepped out of the painting, out of my nightmarish memories, and right into the hall. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know what to think, and I especially didn’t know what to feel, other than white-hot rage at the bitch for murdering my uncle and countrymen and for causing me and so many others so much pain.
For a mad, mad moment, I thought about unleashing my magic, about using my power to toss her across the corridor and snap her back against the far wall, just like I’d done to the guards in Maximus’s workshop. My gargoyle pendant grew ice-cold, pressing into my heart like a frozen arrow, but the chill didn’t drown out the power or especially the rage rising inside me—
A flash of movement caught my eye. Three guards had entered the hall. They were staying at the far end, giving us some privacy, but they all had their hands on their swords, ready to rush forward and cut me down if I made any threatening moves.
Once again,