A Queen of Gilded Horns (A River of Royal Blood #2) - Amanda Joy Page 0,8

I knew what was coming, I couldn’t help but flinch when Falun spoke again. “And the other thing?”

My jaw clenched as I struggled to think of a way out of this conversation. I never should have told Falun I’d been considering looking in on Baccha. The more he appeared in my dreams, the more I couldn’t help but want to know exactly where he’d gone.

And yet, I refused to give Baccha the satisfaction of worrying over him.

Falun, who’d seen Baccha’s sudden, unexplained departure for the betrayal it was, hadn’t been able to hide his disappointment when I mentioned Baccha. We have enough on our hands without worrying about him. He should be worried about you.

And if his silence was any indication, Baccha wasn’t worried about me. The bond we’d created, using our blood to make our magicks coalesce, allowed us to communicate mentally. I could still feel Baccha like an anchor on the other side of the bond, tugging at me whenever I let my thoughts drift toward him. Baccha had gone off, likely to fulfill his duties to the Tribe, and declined to include me in his plans.

So why did I want to check in on him? Maybe I was still searching for a reason to put my faith in him again despite every indication he could not be trusted. In my weakest moments, I allowed myself to fantasize that Baccha had gone off to the Tribe to beg them to help me gain the throne. But it was foolish to believe Baccha had anyone’s interests besides his own in mind.

“I changed my mind.”

Some tension around Falun’s ultramarine eyes eased as he arched one cinnamon brow. “You’re sure? Of course I’m glad to hear it, but last time we talked about him, you seemed worried.”

I shrugged, chewing on my bottom lip. “You were right. It’s not like our bond is broken. If he wants me to know where he is, he can inform me anytime.”

“Just,” Fal adds, gaze darkening, “like he could’ve told us the truth the entire time.”

Before my nameday I told Falun about Baccha’s lies and the Tribe being the real reason the Hunter returned to Myre. Fal hadn’t held it against Baccha at first, but when Baccha left, making it clear he really had been using me the entire time, all Falun’s affection for him had melted away.

Baccha fled when we needed him most. He would have to come crawling back.

When I said nothing, Falun slung an arm around me again, the long tendrils of his hair tickling my cheeks. He smelled of freshly turned soil and honeyed fey wine. “You don’t need him. We don’t need him.”

I wasn’t so certain.

I wouldn’t have made it out of the last few months alive without Baccha. But there was no use pointing that out, so I nodded and wrapped an arm around Falun’s waist, drawing him farther into camp. “Come on, I’ve left Aketo alone with my sister long enough.”

* * *

By now I could admit one of my more spectacular mistakes of the last year was kidnapping my sister with only a vague plan to control her. All I’d been sure of at the time was that I couldn’t leave her in Ternain. My mother would’ve crowned her in my absence. But the difficulty in keeping a prisoner, especially one I hoped to persuade not to kill me, hadn’t dawned on me until we fled.

Chains were one thing—and had their uses. Before we left Ternain, Anali and Falun had stolen a set of shackles from the Palace dungeons. They were an invention of the Sorceryn, with spells woven through the iron to keep whoever wore them from summoning magick. Their weight was light enough to keep my sister mobile, and crusted with glowing runes, she was impossible to miss while wearing them. My stomach had curdled when Anali explained that these were used to transport khimaer to and from the Enclosures.

When Isadore first woke as my captive, bound to a horse tethered to mine as we left Ternain’s outskirts, she had barely seemed to notice the shackles.

Her eyes grew wide as she took in the scene. Fury wicked through her like flame and she began to shake with it, eyes rolling as she searched for a weapon. Before she could say a word, I gripped the bone handle of the dagger at my hip and held up the stoppered silver bottle hanging beside it. “I brought enough to drug you for a month straight. If you cause