A Queen of Gilded Horns (A River of Royal Blood #2) - Amanda Joy Page 0,87

now. I would’ve expected my news would make things much easier for you.”

“Oh, is that why you waited so long to reveal it?”

He offered her a toothy grin. “Helping you is exactly why I waited, Ysai. I know you wouldn’t have believed that we needed her without some . . . convincing.”

“Drink,” Ysai repeated, and Baccha followed the order, tossing back the contents of his cup.

“Why did you come here?” she asked as the coppery liquid slid down his throat.

As ever, it loosened his tongue. He answered honestly, “To ask Moriya to teach Eva how to wield Khimaerani’s magick, and to request the Elderi’s help in making Eva into the next Queen. So I can be freed from my oaths.”

That last bit, he wished he could have held back. Baccha cringed at the light of victory in Ysai’s storm-cloud eyes. “Just as I thought. This is all about your selfishness.”

Baccha shrugged. “You may call me whatever you like, Ysai, but this is about righting my wrongs and fulfilling my duties as servant to the Tribe.”

“Mother Ysai,” she corrected absently. “It doesn’t matter now. The Elderi have decided we will find your Princess and test her. And when she fails, you will be the one to slit her throat.”

Baccha wasn’t chilled by the threat. It was the same one she’d made before. “Perhaps I forgot to share this, but the Sorceryn placed quite a nasty spell on Eva and her sister. Because of it, Eva can’t be killed by me or anyone but her sister.”

Ysai smiled like a cat with a canary trapped behind her teeth. “Then you, Lord Hunter, shall endeavor to break that spell. Lucky for me, you are known to be gifted in a number of magicks.”

Ysai rose from her seat as if she had said something of little consequence, nostrils flaring. “You should wash up. There is a stream nearby. We leave in two days. You are free to roam the camp until then.”

“But where are we going?”

She cocked her head. “I told the Elderi you would lead us to the Princess. I hope you are able to find her. Else we will be forced to make other plans.”

Baccha didn’t doubt that if he couldn’t offer Eva’s exact location, Ysai would use that as an excuse to forgo the testing. If she got it in her mind to go to the Southern Enclosure first—a journey that could take at least six months during Far Winter—Baccha might miss the succession entirely.

Break a Sorceryn spell. See a khimaer girl to the throne. Be free of his oaths. If he accomplished those feats, he would make sure Aunt Lyse wrote a song about his most legendary accomplishments yet.

As she was leaving, Ysai called back to him. “One last thing, Hunter. You should have asked my mother more about our magick. Your Princess shouldn’t need my help. The gift comes to you one way or another. And you’d best hope it has come to her, or she’ll fail the testing.”

At that, he offered a silent prayer to Khimaerani on Eva’s behalf. But there was nothing he could do about Eva’s magick or lack thereof now.

Once Ysai was out of earshot, Baccha climbed to his feet, muttering his oldest and most emphatic curse. He would wash his aged bones and then search for Eva. It could not be so difficult. She’d stepped right into his head. He shouldn’t have any difficulty waltzing into hers.

He summoned his wolves, instructing them to find the stream Ysai mentioned. He wasn’t going to stumble around this mountain searching for hours. And he needed an excuse to expend all the magick that had built up in the last days. He’d forgotten the headaches that plagued him when he went without using magick.

A brown-and-white-speckled whelp returned a few minutes later and herded him out of the cave, happily prancing through the snowdrifts and nudging him with her snout. The narrow stream was covered with an inch of ice that Baccha melted by calling a warm Wind from the South. The Wind wasn’t near hot enough to make the icy water bearable, but Baccha, having grown up on a mountain like this, couldn’t complain. It was deep enough to cover his shoulders, little silver-and-brown fish darting around his ankles. He found an abandoned cake of soap and a bucket on the shore.

Baccha washed up and laundered his clothes, calling for more Wind to dry them both. Once he’d dressed, he made sure no one was nearby and settled down