sweet wine. There are only a few hundred now, but every day their numbers grow. A few hundred can turn into a few thousand in a matter of days. I need your help, Lady Crier.”
“My—my help?”
“To stop the disease, before it spreads.”
Still, Crier stared, unsure what that meant.
And so, the queen clarified: “To take him down.”
Junn said it almost casually, like she was saying nothing more than To bid him good morning.
Finally, Crier understood why people called her the Mad Queen. How she could be the Child Queen and Junn the Bone Eater, everything at once.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, mortified by her own cowardice and yet unable to hide it. “I—I am betrothed to him, he’s on the council, he’s powerful—he’s under my father’s protection—”
He knows about my fifth pillar—
He could destroy me—
He wanted, in fact, to destroy all humans, or at the very least, to make the world increasingly uninhabitable to them. . . .
He was far more a monster than she’d realized.
“Do not be ashamed of your fear, Lady Crier,” said Junn. “If you were not afraid, I would leave this room and never once look back. But you are afraid. That is why I trust you, and why I’m asking for your help.” Her expression softened. “And I really am only asking. I will not force your hand, my lady. Nor will I beg.”
“I need time,” Crier said. “I need to think.”
Junn nodded, leaning back a little. Without the smell and warmth of her, it was a little easier to breathe. “Of course,” she said. “I wish I had more time to give you, but my company leaves at dawn. If you decide you want to help me, take this and slide it under the door to my bedchamber.” She held out a green feather. “In Varn, the color green symbolizes alliance. We use it to communicate.”
“. . . We? Who’s we?”
“Those who wish to take sides against the wolf,” Junn said, and smiled, all teeth.
A few hours later found Crier standing in the corridor outside the queen’s quarters, a green feather clenched tightly in her hand. She had the fleeting thought that she wished she knew where Reyka was, wished she could talk to her, ask for her advice. But Reyka was still missing, and every day that ticked by meant the worst was possible. Reyka might be dead. She might have been killed.
There was no evidence one way or the other, only the lingering taste of dread every time Crier thought of it.
She was afraid, but she was also tired of feeling like a pawn.
And Junn was right. She was tired of Kinok: his blackmail, his hatred of humans, his black-banded followers. The pleasure he took in wielding power, in making Crier feel helpless, reminding her at every turn that he knew about her Flaw.
She did not like feeling helpless.
She had no idea what would happen if she agreed to work with Queen Junn, but the days were slipping by so quickly. Soon, the trees would all be naked. Soon it would be winter, and she would be wedded. She would be pushed gracelessly into a new life with Kinok. Where would they go after they were married? Kinok had no estate of his own. That was probably half the reason he’d tried to woo Queen Junn. Where would he take her—the Far North, to the site of his planned new city?
Crier didn’t know what she wanted. Her old dream had festered and died. All she knew was this: she did not want to be Kinok’s wife.
With that thought in mind, she stepped forward—and heard a strange noise from inside the queen’s bedchamber.
Low and throaty, it sounded almost like an expression of pain.
Crier froze. Was the queen in danger? She was protected by her guards, but what if they’d been overcome? What if she was being attacked?
Then the noise came again, louder and more drawn out this time, breathy, and Crier realized what it was.
Her whole body went cold and then terribly, ferociously hot.
Whoever was making that noise was not in pain.
In shock, Crier couldn’t move. She listened to the sound of gasps, and immediately her mind went to flesh against flesh, went to breath and lips and . . .
She scrambled backward to hide around the corner, far enough from the queen’s door that she could no longer overhear what was happening inside. Her heart churned quickly; her skin was flushed with a new kind of heat. She didn’t even know why she