The Queen's Assassin (Queen's Secret #1) - Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,10
curtains. A good place to hang on, stay concealed.
Please just this one thing, I beg myself. Get out of the water. Gritting my teeth, I lift my upper body until I’m lying across the top of a stone. A horse whinnies from beyond the hill; a man shouts. Another man grunts again and again, as if he’s punching someone. I rest a moment to catch my breath and listen to the brawl beyond the hill. The men are still struggling against some interloper, but it means they’re not coming any nearer to me, so I swing my right leg up onto the rock and hoist myself out. The heavy boots I’m wearing definitely weren’t helping me in the water.
The sounds of struggle subside abruptly, as if someone’s won. Dripping wet, I crawl over to the willow and hide beneath its curtain of leaves. It’s quiet now. They may have left—or killed one another. Either way, not my concern.
The sun is already setting; one of my aunts would definitely have started looking for me by now.
There hasn’t been any other sound from beyond the hill for some time now. I don’t like it here. Unlike the ruins, this place bears the stain of death. Violence. Its energy is an invisible fog. I place my palm against the willow’s sturdy trunk to brace myself so I can stand.
A powerful shock surges straight through me.
Suddenly, I can see a soldier wearing the Renovian colors, bleeding out into the earth. Another soldier with a missing arm, leg snapped upward into a terrifying pose, is groaning. I want to go home, he cries. I want to go.
One man is almost fully submerged in the river, only his legs sticking out. And countless others are strewn about in the same condition, or worse. Everywhere. The dead. This is the Battle of Baer, playing out before my eyes. I can smell the stench in the air and hear the death groans, but it isn’t real. I’m not there; this is just an illusion, a place memory. One so powerful that those with the sight can see it if they try. Even if they don’t try. Aunt Moriah said sometimes such visions find the seeker, rather than the other way around.
I have been seeing visions since I was ten years old.
Then I look up. And there he is. King Esban.
I recognize him from his chiseled profile on Renovian coins. A striking figure, like the fabled shipbuilders of the north countries: tall, broad shouldered, bearded, golden hair flowing from under a dented silver helmet. Noble and brave, just as the stories say, but with kind eyes. They never mention that.
I feel the urge to go to him but I can’t move. I know what’s about to happen, and I want to call to him, to warn him. But when I try to yell, nothing comes out.
A man charges toward him, sword raised above his head. He’s wearing a gray Aphrasian robe and their unmistakable black mask. The king is steady. Metal meets metal with a clang. They struggle, the rebel monk pushing the king back; the king shoves him off with equal force. The monk aims his right leg directly at the king’s stomach, but Esban steps away so the kick lands off its mark, barely grazing his hip. He stretches his arm back and swings the sword at the rebel with all his might. The monk dodges the strike. The king is furiously red, chest heaving, teeth bared. He lunges at the monk again.
They go on like this. It seems that neither can win. The other soldiers haven’t even noticed the skirmish on the mound yet. I try to scream, Help him! But I can’t, because as real as it seems, I’m only watching. Witnessing the past.
I look back up.
The rebel is on the ground. The king walks over to him and lifts his sword. For a brief moment I hope King Esban will win this time. That the past can change. But the monk rolls and swipes the king’s leg out from under him. He stumbles, falls. He’s about to get up when it happens.
The monk drives his sword straight through King Esban’s chest.