Kingdom of Sea and Stone (Crown of Coral and Pearl #2) - Mara Rutherford Page 0,95

asked.

Ceren’s pale hair was always his giveaway. The bloodstones in his crown glowed faintly, pulsing, I realized with a start, in time with my heartbeat. “Yes.”

Zadie’s voice was tight with fear, and I saw her fingers start to lift to the star-shaped scar we’d painted on her cheek. “I’m starting to think this was a bad idea, Nor.”

She was mounted on Titania, who fortunately was as calm and steady for Zadie as she was for me. I rode a borrowed mare who, while perfectly well trained, could never compare to my Galethian steed.

“Just breathe,” I said to Zadie. “Don’t speak unless it’s absolutely necessary, but remember, Ceren has never met you before. He has no reason to think you would come in my place.”

She nodded briskly. “It’s going to be fine.”

“It is,” I assured her, though my scalp prickled with cold fear as Zadie continued forward while the rest of us remained behind.

They stopped just a few feet from each other. I couldn’t hear their conversation from where we waited, but they dismounted simultaneously. Ceren barely glanced at one of his men, who raised his arm at what I could only assume was a mental command. At the signal, one by one, the Varenians began to emerge from the tented camp.

I breathed a little easier, knowing he had held up his end of the bargain. Maybe it was wrong to deceive Ceren when he had been honorable, but I couldn’t care. Not when I knew what he was capable of.

Mount Ayris loomed behind the camp, its peak shrouded in mist. It took longer than I expected for all of the Varenians to gather on the field. There were somewhere between four and five hundred men, women, and children, and I couldn’t make out individual faces, though I scanned the crowd for my mother and father anyway.

I flashed back to when I’d returned to Varenia and how vulnerable the village had looked. Seeing all my people together as one, I had hoped they would look as strong as I knew them to be individually. But New Castle had taken something from them, just as it had me. Even from here, they looked like they’d been set adrift. How would we ever recover from this?

Ceren took a couple of items from his guard, what I could only assume were a silver bowl and a knife, and my gaze snapped back to Zadie. My heart was pounding so loud I was sure Grig could hear it. I pulled out my own small blade and pressed it to my exposed wrist, ready to draw blood as soon as I saw Zadie turn to look at us, the signal that Ceren was about to cut her.

When she turned, I immediately ran the knife across my skin. There was a long enough delay that I was convinced it wouldn’t work, but then light flashed across my eyes and it was as if I were in Zadie’s head, with Ceren standing just before me. It took an agonizing minute for Ceren to gather the bowlful of blood, but when he had finished, Grig reached over and gripped my shoulder tightly to bring me out of the vision. I could see Zadie press a cloth to the wound in her arm, and then the signal was given for the Varenians to cross the field toward us.

Zadie walked to Titania as our group began to move forward. But before she could mount, Ceren approached her. While she fumbled with the stirrup, he reached for her wounded arm and the cloth covering her skin.

My stomach sank. We had known this was a possibility, but we had hoped Zadie would mount and leave fast enough. My gaze flickered between the Varenians moving far too slowly across the field and Zadie struggling in Ceren’s grasp. Grig shifted in his seat. From the corner of my eye, I saw a soldier lift the red flag that was the signal for Talin and his troops to attack.

Ceren released Zadie, and I thought we might have pulled it off.

But then his eyes flicked to us, and I knew something was wrong. I dug my heels into my mare’s sides and galloped forward while Titania raced toward us, Zadie clinging to her mane. Ceren wasn’t chasing her, thank Thalos.

Instead, he turned to face the Varenians. I scanned the horizon for some sign of Talin’s troops, but I saw nothing in the camp. And then I watched in horror as red jewels began to pulsate on every