A Queen of Gilded Horns (A River of Royal Blood #2) - Amanda Joy Page 0,7
afford mistakes,” Anali repeated. “If you go into that village and someone recognizes you, word will travel.”
I brushed a hand over the base of my horns, claws clacking against their ridges. The horns grew an inch into my hairline and every nearby curl wound around them in dense tangles. I missed Mirabel’s steady, patient hands braiding my hair. The haphazard twist at the back of my neck was the best I could do.
“Few will recognize me like this.” My voice was soft, so much so that I was surprised when Anali heard it over the wind.
Her eyes hardened. “Even if they don’t know who you are, tales of a horned girl on the Arym Plain will travel. The Arym Plain, where your father’s family has lived for centuries. Whoever else knows about the King will know exactly what that means.”
I couldn’t argue with that, but my mind was not going to be changed. Six weeks and I was no closer to understanding my khimaer magick. No closer to learning who I really am.
Six weeks with Baccha gone. And now two days here, wasted as we waited and watched. “We’ve been lucky all this time. The Queen won’t wait forever to strike. And we’re too exposed. We need shelter. We need baths.” And we needed to consider what would come next.
I needed to consider my future, and Myre’s as well.
Anali frowned but, after a long moment, nodded. “What are my orders, Your Highness?”
I cringed at the honorific and cut Anali a sharp look. She blinked in apparent innocence, knowing well enough that references to my nobility irritated me now more than ever. I expected to hear news that I’d been stripped of my land and my titles soon enough. I imagined it would give my mother great pleasure to do so. “When we return to camp, call everyone back. Tonight we plan, and when the sun goes down tomorrow, we are getting inside the wall.”
“As you say,” Anali said with an incline of her head. “You are so like your father.”
“What?” I blurted, every thought in my head going still at the mention of Papa.
“I always knew the sight of a terrible plan forming behind his eyes, and I know the sight of a fool one forming in yours.”
“Better a daring plan than a safe bet—those always go awry,” I said with a smirk. I remembered those bright eyes. Papa could stare into space for hours, working out a plan, moving around all the pieces in his head till they fit.
That was one change that had come in these six weeks. I could think of my father without seeing his dead body. I felt a stab of guilt at just that small measure of comfort. How dare I be comfortable with, or even accepting of, my father’s murder? I had left Ternain with my promise to find his killer unfulfilled.
Despite Katro’s insistence that his mother, Lady Shirea, had been behind the plot to kill my father, I was certain she’d only done so at someone else’s direction. Someone at Court, someone I knew.
And I could get no closer to the truth out here.
Anali and I trotted through the scrub grass in silence until we reached the edge of camp a few miles away. At dawn, Falun had led a group of four scouts—all we could spare—far out into the Plain. They must have already made it back, because we passed one—Arame, a human with earth and water magick, ice-chip eyes, and rich, golden-brown skin—as he sighted down his arrow.
There was a meaty thunk as he shot two guinea fowl racing through the underbrush. Anali walked over to speak with him as he set off to retrieve the birds.
I didn’t wait for the Captain to catch up. As soon as I stepped foot into our small camp, Falun walked into my path and slung an arm over my shoulder.
I loosed a sigh and managed to smile up at him. “Back from hunting already?”
He nodded, muttering something about a herd of wildebeest and needing to chop wood to make new bows, before an unsubtle pivot to the real reason he’d approached. “How did you sleep?”
“Fine,” I lied. I had woken screaming, unable to shut out the last image of my nightmare—my body swinging from the Queen’s Palace gates—and the smell of rotting flesh, so vivid in the dream, seemed to still fill my nostrils. I hoped Aketo hadn’t told him about the nightmares. I didn’t need more of them worrying over me.