A Queen of Gilded Horns (A River of Royal Blood #2) - Amanda Joy Page 0,5

a run-down Temple; and a market that was stirring to life just now. A sizable flock roamed on the outskirts, tended by two shepherd girls no older than twelve. The girls’ hair hung down to their waists in thick plaits weighed down with beads and charms. Older women of the village wore their hair wrapped in elaborate whorls of dyed cotton, one of the few signs of finery here.

On every map we’d consulted before crossing the Plain, Orai was the only village noted besides Sellei Lake and Meteen, an outpost for bloodkin nomads who regularly traveled the region. But while Sellei, now a dried-out basin, and the outpost were marked correctly, Orai was not fifty miles west, as every map indicated. It took an extra week of searching, but two days ago, we finally found it. Miles south and hidden behind a rise of stone outcrops still resonant with the scent of earth magick.

I’d briefly fantasized about the wondrous place someone had gone to such lengths to keep hidden. I conjured great marble walls rising around a vast khimaer enclave. But this speck of a village deep in the Plain?

It made sense.

Sense that crawled over my skin, along with the realization that had I looked to find it, had I focused and listened and questioned my father more, I would have known he was keeping a secret. The King of Myre and Lord Commander of the Queen’s Army had come from this forgotten place, and his family never followed him to the capital to bask in the wealth his marriage brought? Of course they were hiding something.

Whoever had looked closer at my father’s life must have ferreted out the truth and killed him.

Sunlight graced the limestone wall of the estate, which rose tall enough to kiss the relentless lapis sky. It dwarfed every other structure in Orai several times over. A simple teakwood door sat in the center of the wall, and the limestone bricks were etched with ancient beasts. A detail I could not make out from so far away, but our first night here, Anali and Falun had ventured close enough to take note of them.

Twin spires, lit like bars of golden sunlight, peeked out behind the wall, the only detail of the estate that was visible.

Even with an eyeglass, this was all I could see from miles away. All I had seen of my father’s family and home, after two days of surveilling the estate and Orai. In those two days, no one had gone in or out. No one from the village approached the estate or so much as glanced its way. I watched the windows high up on the wall for signs of movement, even knowing there was no use.

No figures would come to fill them. My guards had been keeping watch all day and all night. They saw no more than I did. And everyone they questioned in the village either shook their heads and ignored them, or said the house had been silent for a year.

What was the family living inside that wall to this village? How could the Lady of the House lead it without interacting with it? I came here seeking answers about my father and how he’d managed to hide as a khimaer for so long, but I couldn’t deny my hope for a plan. A list of allies and nobles sympathetic to our cause would help. Or even better, a way to persuade the Court and my mother to accept a khimaer Queen, when a lengthy set of laws designed to keep khimaer from amassing any power stood in my way. I’d searched through all my father’s things before leaving Ternain and found nothing.

I hoped Papa’s family would be able to give me those answers. If not, well, I wasn’t sure what I’d do.

“How much longer must we wait?” I asked, slapping the eyeglass shut. Sweat coated my skin, and I shivered as it cooled in the wind.

Anali ignored my question. “You saw exactly what I did. There’s been no movement.”

“How long must we wait?” I said quietly, not bothering to hide my impatience.

Anali’s sooty eyes flitted to mine and held. Her ice-white hair, a sharp contrast to her darkly luminous skin, was braided tight to her scalp. In the weeks since we left Ternain, she’d woven colorful bits of fabric through the braided ends and fine gold chains hung from the ram’s horns that framed her face, dangling violet beads that matched her feathers. Neither was a decoration