A Queen of Gilded Horns (A River of Royal Blood #2) - Amanda Joy Page 0,49
horse into a canter and the pair of twins shadowing her followed.
Treason.
It was a fascinating accusation. One that had only been leveled in his direction once before. He’d certainly been guilty then of aiding Raina and beginning the destruction of the Myre he used to know.
He’d paid for it, though, and was still paying. Unbidden, his thoughts circled back over a hundred years, to the first Mother of the Tribe who set these oaths upon him. Right your wrongs, Hunter. See a khimaer Queen crowned and we will free you. Until then, you’ll pay back your debt by working toward our ends.
Baccha had done just that in Ternain, but of course they wouldn’t see it that way. He should have known this was a possibility. Before Moriya called him back to the Tribe, little over a year ago, he’d strayed for decades. For all those years he’d spent abroad—first in Dracol, then the Isles, and even farther, to an island off the coast of a vast empire on the other side of the Silvern Sea—most of his allies in the Tribe had passed away.
The Elderi who had been raised to the eldership during his time away thought little of him. Only Moriya believed in trusting him with this critical mission. And as Mother of the Tribe, her word had been enough of an endorsement to send him south with ten bags of gold and one task: Seek out the humans’ destruction.
He’d known the Elderi wouldn’t take well to all he’d done. Moriya had instructed him to stay away from the human Queen and her daughters, and he’d broken that rule quite spectacularly. Still he hadn’t expected them to call him a traitor. He returned exactly to prevent the Tribe from deciding Eva was their enemy. All this for a woman of just twenty to bring him to his knees with a few drops of blood and a handful of words.
He could feel his ancient rage welling like blood from a deep puncture wound. He despised being compelled. Moriya only invoked his oath on ceremonial occasions. They’d traded correspondence over a fifty-year friendship. She accepted his need to wander free—to live—and longed for the same thing. But her obligation to her people, and then the birth of her daughter, kept her trapped in the shadow of a mountain. Plotting, planning, and thieving all her life.
He knew he was merely a tool to the Tribe, their dog commanded to follow whatever rules they demanded, but a friend holding his leash had eased the chafing around his soul. Moriya had always understood that he wanted to avoid returning to Myre, where all his greatest sins and failures drove destructive fissures through the fabric of the past.
If he could repair those cracks, right the wrongs, he could be rid of his oaths, and leave Myre and the Tribe behind for good.
In peace.
At an order from Ysai, riding at the rear, the horses sped up again and Baccha began to run in earnest as the land sloped downward, the craggy, shrub-peppered switchbacks leading down to the valley. The usual path down the mountain was well-worn from centuries of Tribe members dwelling here.
Baccha called, “We follow an unusual path, Mother.”
He heard Ysai shifting her weight in the saddle, likely deciding whether to answer. On the wind, he caught a brief exhalation of breath and spoke quickly to cut her off—“Mother, I beg of you, come forward so I can hear you.”
Then came another sigh and a murmured command to her horse and the clomp-clomp-clomp of her horse galloping forward.
The Hunter’s eyes widened as Ysai pulled up beside him. Her horse reared, a great Kremiri stallion from the sandy coast, its hooves striking the air mere inches from Baccha’s skull.
“We take a longer path to camp, Hunter, so that you and I can discuss your excursion in the South before I present you to the Elderi.”
Baccha grinned, understanding clicking into place. Ysai had reason to use him and clearly wanted to control how his return was received by the Tribe.
So what was her goal?
A young, fresh leader suddenly come into power in the role her mother filled for more than half a century? It had to be strength she sought and sure-footing with the Elderi, the council that ruled the Tribe alongside the Mother.
She wanted power—and would need it if she hoped to command the dozen century-old khimaer that made up the Elderi Council.