A Queen of Gilded Horns (A River of Royal Blood #2) - Amanda Joy Page 0,28

. . liberties they would have never attempted when Moriya was the Mother of the Tribe.

Ysai’s thumbnail slid across the top, cracking the seal. Her eyes widened at the character inscribed on the paper in red ink. A series of loops, winding like a river, crossed by a harsh line in the middle. Few knew the Godling language outside of this camp, and even then only the Elderi and Ysai could read it.

Per your request, I journey home. Its translation was simple. Even without a signature, she knew who’d written it. Lord Baccha’s scent was distinct—wild, ancient, and unafraid. Even though she had only met him a few times in passing, she couldn’t have mistaken it. Yet threaded through it, she could smell faint winter roses. How strange to find her mother’s scent among his.

Relief flooded Ysai. Now she could be certain all those nights pouring out her blood into a scrying glass and calling the Hunter’s name had been worth the effort. She’d found her Mother’s notes on controlling Lord Baccha’s blood oath infuriatingly vague. Just one terse line: Blood will call him and blood will compel him.

But apparently it had worked.

“Where did this come from?” Ysai snapped. “When?”

“A golden eagle winged through the camp at dawn.” Arsa’s white feathers rippled in agitation.

“Was it spelled? Selini may be able to trace its origins in the South if so. I’d like to know where our wayward Hunter sent this from. He could stroll through the gate at sundown.”

“His messages are never spelled, but by the markings on its leg, it’s from the Sister Citadel.” Seeing the confusion in Ysai’s eyes, Arsa offered a smug, closed-lip smile. “Godling magick is a strange thing, the Hunter’s strangest of all. The creatures who bear his messages never have any magickal residue. They seem to have flown here of their own accord, which is impossible of course.”

With the layers of warding and charms around the camp, no one should have been able to find, let alone enter the camp. Animals avoided their wards just as much as people did.

Ysai fought off a sigh. Another detail of the Hunter’s nature her mother hadn’t gotten the chance to share in her final, feverish night alive.

Ysai tried not to resent her mother’s absence. It wasn’t Moriya’s fault a Myrean crossbow bolt had taken her in the shoulder. Nor was she to blame for the fever that set in a week later. Or that no amount of healing had been able to fight the fever that burned through her mother like a brush fire.

But that certainly did not make leading the Tribe and the Elderi any easier. All the women in their line were descended from the last khimaer Queen, and many in the Tribe considered them nearly sacred. But the Elderi considered her a child who should be led, rather than lead. A few of the Elderi, Arsa included, were old enough to recall the years after the rebellion, when the horned were hunted down and caged like animals.

As daughter of the previous Mother, and the only one with the Queen’s magick that made Moriya so valuable to their cause, every member of the Tribe had known Ysai would one day assume leadership.

They just thought that time would come in a handful of decades, when Ysai was deemed mature. Not at twenty, before Moriya had even begun training her.

Ysai did not have the luxury of grieving her mother’s sudden death in seclusion, as tradition mandated. Instead Arsa, loyal to Moriya despite her apprehensions about Ysai’s ability to lead, had taken Ysai under her wing. To prepare her to lead and also, Ysai was certain from their first meeting, in the hope of one day controlling her.

It had not taken the woman long to give up on the second pursuit—hence the tension between them. Ysai at least gave her credit for that.

The real reason Ysai still had lapses in her knowledge of the Hunter was because Arsa and the rest of the Elderi enjoyed holding tight to information as a tool of control. Luckily one thing her mother had made sure to teach her from birth was to never be a pawn.

So Ysai allowed Arsa to see the disdain in her stare.

Let the Elderi ferret away their secrets. She would not beg for more details of the Tribe’s uneasy bargain with the Hunter. “Very well, then. If Baccha’s note is truly from the Sister Citadel, he could be here in days. Expand the rangers’ circuit south and send