A Queen of Gilded Horns (A River of Royal Blood #2) - Amanda Joy Page 0,9
a stir or use your magick, I will be glad to dose you again. If you endanger my friends, if any of your actions get any of them killed”—I glanced at the guards riding low on their mounts around us—“I will return the favor in kind.”
I wasn’t sure what I expected, but when Isadore grinned at me, hatred filling her stare, I went still. So still that I didn’t react when she rose up in her saddle and leaped from her horse.
Or attempted to leap, but Aketo was there, catching her around the collar before she could shatter her legs or break her spine trying to escape the beast. The fog of the drug should have weakened her, but she bucked in the saddle like a wild animal, trying to throw him off. I caught her mount’s bridle, thanking the Gods the horse had remained calm enough for me to do so, and had to dodge Isa’s teeth snapping at my hands.
Aketo guided his mount forward. His eyes flitted to me and I nodded at the question in them. He wanted permission to use his magick to subdue her. Aketo could command the emotions of anyone he touched. I’d seen how effective it was as a means of control when we interrogated Katro.
“I’m sorry,” he told Isadore, and wrapped her bound hands in his.
Isadore bared her teeth in a grin. A grin that seemed to hold back a scream. “Don’t bother with that. We both know what this is.”
Her words landed like a knife in my stomach. She knew because she had spent years doing the same—controlling people with her magick.
I knew without scenting the air that his magick flowed through her. Isadore’s limbs went slack and she swayed in his grip. Her eyes now dull, but no less etched with hate, Isadore growled, “I will get free. And then I will kill you. Both.”
“I think we’re beyond all that now, Isadore,” I said softly, but the moment I spoke, she turned away.
We didn’t stop then, barreling down a road that would take us west to the coast, in the small hours of the morning. So Aketo rode on the other side of Isadore’s horse, and whenever she thrashed in her chains, he touched her wrist and a druglike tranquility swept through my sister once more.
He did not stop apologizing. And the knife in my gut did not stop twisting.
That night we reasoned that the shackles had weakened her magick enough that Aketo’s overwhelmed her. Unlike the night she had taken him, she was vulnerable now and I knew she hated it. Might hate the both of us for it forever.
Finding Aketo beside her horse once again the next day, she had made no declarations of revenge or mad escapes. She rode quietly between us, rage wafting off her like acrid smoke. No violence beyond a few curses under her breath promising me a frightful death, and no words exchanged between the three of us. Aketo and I traded meaningful glances whenever Isa seemed to forget our presence.
That was how it began at least.
How we had gone from that to the scene before me now in just six weeks was still a mystery.
Isadore and Aketo sat in front of my tent, a woven teal-and-goldenrod blanket from the Isles spread out beneath them. They bickered over the cherik board before them, even though the chipped enamel game pieces—what players called the “sacred animals” in sky blue and slate gray—hadn’t even been set up.
And yet there they sat fussing like children. Almost like . . . brother and sister.
It might’ve been comforting if it weren’t so infuriating. Though she’d promised to kill the both of us, somehow she and Aketo had made up. But that promise was the last time Isa had spoken directly to me in weeks.
Her hair, without the straightening irons of the capital, now fell in silken curls around her face. The color a richer gold than I could remember ever seeing it. A spray of cinnamon freckles danced across her cheeks and pert nose. In a sleeveless bronze tunic that showed off tattooed arms corded with lean muscle, and soft calfskin tights, she looked as lovely as ever. If not for the conspicuous lack of weapons stashed about her person, she might have passed for a member of the guard.
Laughter danced in her eyes even as she rolled them at something Aketo said. Isa leaned close, murmuring words I was still too far away to catch.