A Queen of Gilded Horns (A River of Royal Blood #2) - Amanda Joy Page 0,19

he spoke of her, I knew there was more to their relationship than friendship, but then he died and I . . . How else would you two have grown close?”

“Ah,” Aketo breathed. “Well, no, that isn’t what I was talking about. But yes, they did love each other.”

I tensed, bracing for resentment toward my father for keeping yet another secret. But it didn’t come. Instead I was glad to know he’d been loved in those years of exile. I had worried he spent all his time buried in work during his self-imposed exile in Asrodei.

“What is it, then?” I said, taking a moment to stare up at him. In the moonlit night, his horns towered high above us. His brows were drawn together, but his mouth was soft, the barest hint of fang pressing into his bottom lip.

Aketo’s gaze slid from mine, glancing up at the sky, before he met my eyes again. “First let me tell you about my home. It’s a three-day climb up the mountain, and even then you might march right past Sher n’Cai during Far Winter, when its limestone and marble towers blend in with the snow. At the top of the highest tower, you can see Dracolan mountain villages roosting on the cliffs of the A’Nir like rooks in an aerie. In High Summer, wildflowers fill every valley until the land is like a patchwork quilt.”

“It sounds beautiful.” I cringed even as the words left my mouth. No matter how lovely the view from atop the mountain, the Enclosure was still a cage.

When I lived at Asrodei, my father refused to take me on any of his trips to the Enclosure. After the first few years of being denied, I stopped asking. Now I wondered if Papa had kept me away to preserve his secret. Maintaining the lie that he was human might’ve been difficult, but he should have taken me.

Aketo shook his head, nostrils flaring. “It is. And yet Sher n’ Cai is a ruin. A castle left to rot for a thousand years before . . . the Usurpress”—my ancestor Raina the First—“sent us there. It’s a lonesome place, as if the fey who’d abandoned it all those centuries ago left the very bricks of the castle in mourning. It is all these things, but mostly a cage, one that grows more dangerous with each day.”

“I don’t understand.” What had changed?

“Five years ago, the previous Governess, General Ameela Nafi, retired and the Queen appointed General Throllo Sareen. Together they decided that General Nafi had taken too soft an approach. Ameela Nafi was my mother’s longtime friend, and when they worked together, our population swelled. Lord Sareen on the other hand did not believe the khimaer should have any leadership. He believes once given a taste of power, we will only long for more.” Aketo’s smile was knife sharp, his laugh dark as bitter kaffe. “The Queen gave Sareen complete control of the Enclosure, and after that came all the rules. The first was that we were not allowed to leave the castle grounds under any circumstances, even though hunting allows us to survive the meager rations the military provides. The last one announced just before I left was a new curfew—an hour past sundown.”

“How are the rule breakers punished?” I asked, already bracing myself for the answer.

“The first offense is house arrest. The second is public lashing. And the third is hanging.”

My thoughts slowed to a trickle as I tried to take in his words. Surely not. I want to protest, but I know Aketo wouldn’t lie. “My father knew this?”

“The King tried to stop Throllo, but he answered only to the Queen.”

My hands curled into fists. I’d met General Sareen once before when his battalion was called to Asrodei for my father’s once-yearly gathering of all the Generals of the Queen’s Army. Usually Throllo skipped the meeting, but Mother had called for everyone’s presence because she would be attending. I remember Throllo Sareen only because he was one of the few Generals who deferred to Mother, and not his King and Lord Commander. He’d reminded me of an oversize raptor. Tall, with dark teak skin, and the flinty, darting eyes of a predator.

The only time the cruel line of his mouth had curved was when he bowed to Mother. And the oily smile he’d given her had not been any improvement.

“I didn’t know,” I mumbled uselessly. Even though a scream gathered in my chest. Why, why hadn’t my father told