A Queen of Gilded Horns (A River of Royal Blood #2) - Amanda Joy Page 0,41

though the woman was over fifteen years older than Isa, few signs of her age showed on her face. The image of the Captain as a mouse brought a brief smile to Isa’s lips.

On another day Isadore would have smiled at the woman, revealed all her teeth, and whispered the idea into her mind that perhaps they were sharp enough to shred flesh. She might let the click-clack of her teeth, suddenly wolfish, rattle in Anali’s ears. After a few of years of observing the woman by Eva’s side, Isa knew she wasn’t easily rattled. But Isa’s magick could disarm even the most hardened soldiers. That is, if she wasn’t wearing these infernal shackles.

Scaring the woman wouldn’t be worth the splitting headache and nausea for hours afterward. Instead Isa wiped the blood on the hem of one of Eva’s cast-off dresses that fell just past her knees and said nothing.

These people tolerated her presence only because Eva had decided her prisoner must be treated fairly. All of this was an effort to get Isa to soften toward her sister and agree to this crackbrained truce. Still Isa didn’t want to push her luck. Who knew how long her sister would be . . . incapacitated. Whatever that meant. She still knew nothing, only that her sister had been grievously injured. Her friends weren’t panicked, which was a good sign, yet they seemed on edge, which was not.

On the way here, she’d tried to pry information out of Aketo, but he hadn’t taken any bait, lost in his thoughts.

She’d considered spelling the soldier guarding her this morning, but using persuasive magick took too much out of her. The magick-dampening shackles made catching hold of any real power near impossible. She learned that lesson the hard way.

What Eva believed was an attempt at escape had in actuality been Isa’s test of how much magick she could wield while wearing the shackles. The moment she used persuasive magick on Eva, pain had lanced through her head, like claws of flame, shredding and burning her thoughts to ash. She was only half conscious of riding away. When Falun’s arrow pierced her shoulder, she’d been thankful for something to distract her from the agony in her head.

In the weeks since, Isa hadn’t figured out a way around the pain, though she had accepted it. The only magick she could manage was a bit of glamour. She used just enough to stabilize her appearance and maintain the face and carefully refined features they’d all seen at Court. It hardly required power at all. Fey cast glamour as easily as breathing, even half fey like Isa.

Even that small use of glamour left her with a near-constant headache. But she endured it. If Eva learned the truth, that Isa had been hiding all these years too, Eva would see Isa for the hypocrite she was. And hate her all over again.

Unfortunately the few bites of food she’d eaten after Aketo demanded it weren’t enough to quell the pain, but she couldn’t force down more. Her appetite would not return.

Since Isa had woken six weeks ago, astride a horse she did not recognize and bound to her sister, her tongue bloated as a dead fish, everything tasted of ash and her own mistakes.

Mistakes she couldn’t blame on Eva. It wasn’t her sister’s fault she’d accepted her mother’s mad idea to kidnap Prince Aketo. It had seemed wise at the time to get things over with as soon as possible. The most terrible bit in particular—murdering her sister—had to be done quickly. When Eva returned to Court after years at Asrodei, her mother had been sure to warn Isa each day: Your sister is dangerous. She will kill you the first moment she has a chance.

Isa, having spent the years her sister was away stewing in hate for how easily Eva abandoned her, had believed every word. And some part of her still believed it, despite all evidence otherwise.

The moment Isa had come of age, she wanted nothing more than the contest of Rival Heirs to be over and done. Not for Eva’s life to be ended, but for the worst thing Isa would ever do to be past her.

Anali’s crisp voice brought Isa back to the tiled corridor outside the healing chamber. “. . . go inside, you may not touch her,” the Captain was saying. Isa had missed the first part of her speech. “You may notice some . . . changes in the Princess, but don’t be