A Queen of Gilded Horns (A River of Royal Blood #2) - Amanda Joy Page 0,35

nameday, she’d broken the binding on her magick, revealing her true self. That night he’d been too dazed from blood loss and Isadore’s magick to realize what the transformation meant. But Baccha had understood.

When Aketo had visited the Hunter’s room the following morning, Baccha had been cryptic about the Tribe and finding Eva a teacher. In the weeks after, Aketo mulled over the conversation once a day. Why, he’d wondered, should Baccha worry about Eva harnessing more magick when she’d already beaten Isadore with just human magick?

It didn’t make any sense until he started to think on the old stories his grandmother used to tell. About the Tribe and its Elderi Council, waiting in the mountains until a rightful khimaer woman was ready to take back the throne.

Before the Great War, before Aketo’s ancestors was forced into Enclosures, before the Tribe fled north into the mountains, that same Elderi Council had two roles. The first was to help the khimaer Queens govern Myre, and the second was to choose the next Queen. They selected candidates from each generation of nobly born khimaer young women, because they had the same gift in common: the ability to shapeshift.

Back then they called it Queen’s magick, or Mother’s magick, because it was the power wielded by Khimaerani herself: the first khimaer and Mother of their kind, whom their various forms reflected.

How shocking that Eva could possess the hated magick of her ancestor and the gift they held most sacred. Some part of him had not thought it possible, even after he’d figured. She was still half human, and Queen’s magick was the one ability that no human could command.

His granna, Amina, had only the smallest gift, the ability to change her coloring and slightly alter her features. What Eva had done would have been well beyond her skill.

But shapeshifting was a strange magick because, unlike any other magicks Aketo knew, its power waned in those not chosen to take the throne. And in whoever was crowned, their shapeshifting strengthened until the next generation was born. Then even the Queen lost her command of her gift, marking the time for a new Queen to be chosen.

“I don’t think she knew she could,” Aketo replied. He wouldn’t tell them about her nameday; if Eva wanted to share that night with them, it was her story to tell.

Lirra sighed through her nose. “Well, at least that is one good thing to come of this. Terrible as this is, at least she will have awakened her power.”

“Don’t you let Eva hear you say that. She will not thank you for any of this.”

“I should hope not,” Lirra shot back. “I only pray she will forgive me.”

For Eva’s sake, he wished she would; she had few kin left. “Are we safe here? Have others come searching for you here?”

“Not yet, but I am sure they will,” Lirra said. “Especially now that you’ve come.”

“She had no choice but to come here. The King told her nothing, nothing of you or her heritage. She needs answers from you.”

“And we will give them,” Osir said, his locs swinging as he nodded.

“But I won’t lie,” Lirra said, and the weight of her gaze and sheer force of her worry made Aketo’s head begin aching again. “I am certain we’re all in danger of being found here, and I’m not sure what we will do if that happens.”

Aketo had nothing to say to that, because she was right.

Osir nodded, expression grave. “I can show you to your rooms. We’ll make space for the rest of your companions as well.”

“No need. I’ll stay with the Princess until she wakes,” Aketo said, fighting back a yawn as he stood.

Lirra’s eyes narrowed, but when she spoke, her tone was light. “What exactly is the nature of your relationship with the Princess?”

“We are allies,” he breathed. Allies was too small a word for what they were, but it was true on its face. So why it made his stomach twist, he couldn’t say.

Suddenly Aketo was entirely too exhausted to continue this conversation. Instead he turned on his heel and began to retrace his steps.

As he walked, Aketo thought back to the first and only time he tried to bring up Eva’s khimaer magick.

Two weeks after they left Ternain, when they’d hired a ship, Silversong, he’d come knocking on the cabin Eva was sharing with Falun, when the fey replaced him on the ship’s deck to keep watch. They’d feared betrayal from the flinty-eyed sailors on those first few