The Promised Queen (Forgotten Empires #3)- Jeffe Kennedy Page 0,141
with. Perhaps by reversing that first, terrible mistake, I can take one step in a long journey to make amends.” He turned and walked away from Anure.
Con stood over the crumbled and sniveling heap that had been the false emperor, fingers flexing on the rock hammer. He glanced at me, eyes gold flames in his dark face, black hair hanging wild, and he shook his head a little, as if clearing it. “Rhéiane?”
“Safe,” Sondra told him, then clapped him on the shoulder. “And reasonably sane. Anxious to see you, so I’m glad you’re not dead, Conrí.”
“Thanks.” He snorted. They both turned their gazes on Anure, bonelessly sniveling at their feet. Indeed, the man had been reduced to less than nothing. “Here we stand,” Con said, “after all this time.”
Sondra nodded. “Not quite how I pictured this moment.”
“No torch,” Con commented, and she grinned at him. They both glanced at me as if asking permission.
“Go ahead,” I told them. “Kill him if you need to.”
They exchanged a long look, and Sondra held up her hands with a sigh. “I think this is enough.”
Con let out a breath, too, and set down the rock hammer. “Yeah. You’re right, Lia. This is enough. And this decision belongs to the ruler here.” He glanced to Agatha. “That is You in the portrait hall at Calanthe, isn’t it? Your Highness,” he added.
Agatha smiled wryly. “Long ago—and now again, it seems. Thank You, Your Highness,” she said to me.
“See if You still thank Me after a few days of all the work You have to do, Your Highness,” I replied drily, and she laughed. I ended up smiling back—and I realized that I’d never had this. Agatha would be a peer, a colleague of sorts. I was no longer alone.
“I’ll leave Anure to You, Your Highness,” Con said with a slight bow, and Agatha nodded.
“This is going to get confusing fast,” Sondra complained, “with so many queens about.”
Con turned to me. “Thank you for coming to my rescue.”
“Well,” I offered with a regal nod, “I owed you one.”
“The ‘promised queen,’ huh?” He raised a brow, uncertainty in it, so I cupped his face in my hand and gave him a long kiss.
“Who knows? I’m still me.”
Emotions crossed his face like rapidly moving clouds, but he firmed his jaw, then kissed me back. “Yes,” he replied, as if I’d asked him something else entirely. “You always are. Let’s get out of here.”
“First we must free Ambrose,” I told him.
He looked confused, and I indicated Ambrose still up on the steps, Merle in raven form perched on the arm of the throne. Con’s expression darkened. “Ambrose?” he said, finally putting it together in the aftermath of all the furor. His fingers flexed. “He’s one of Anure’s wizards?”
“And Merle,” I confirmed.
“I’m going to strangle them both, those fucking traitors.”
“No,” I said, stopping him with a hand on his arm. “It’s a long story, but it’s not what you think. Trust me.”
Con gave me a long look, hearing that I’d asked him as the woman, not the queen. Slowly, he nodded. “As you wish, Lia.”
Love burst through me. “Bring your rock hammer.” Taking his hand, I led him to the steps of the throne. “Suffice to say,” I added as we climbed, picking our way through the scattered treasure from so many forgotten kingdoms, “that Ambrose and Merle have been prisoners of Anure and his wizards as much as anyone. And we would not have succeeded without them.”
“That’s not precisely true,” Ambrose called cheerfully. “There’s not a direct, linear relationship between my intervention and the ensuing events. You could argue that—”
“Ambrose,” I interrupted, “better to stop while you’re ahead.”
“Excellent point, Your Highness.” He cocked his head at Merle. “I told you.”
Merle cawed in reply.
Laying my hands on Ambrose, using the same technique that I’d used to tether the red wizard long enough to sever his physical attachment to this world, I made the manacle tethering Ambrose’s leg show itself. Con frowned at it, perplexed. “How did Ambrose—”
“Please don’t get him started,” I cautioned, and Ambrose beamed angelically. “Just break it?”
Con swung his hammer on the chain, and it dissolved as if it had never been. Ambrose sighed like a person relieved of a tremendous weight. “It really is a long story,” he assured Con.
“I don’t care,” Con snarled. “You come near me or mine again and I’ll kill you.”
“As for that,” Ambrose replied cheerfully, “I think I’ll call in that favor you promised when I saved Her Highness’s life.”