Shadow Queen - By Deborah Kalin Page 0,89

if the conversation bored him.

My heartbeat juddered in the silence and I fought to keep my hands still, unclenched and untwitching.

‘Your threats and promises are both as empty as the winter wind,’ Said Dieter, bringing his gaze back to his brother. ‘Attack the Turholm, and the boy –’

‘Dies?’ Sidonius interrupted with a sneer. ‘If so, you lose any advantage. And any chance of surviving.’

‘Suffers,’ Dieter corrected him, then stood. ‘I will bend knee to no one. If you’ve nothing further to hint at and imply, let’s be done with this chicanery.’

‘Your creature is dead, Dieter,’ I said, my voice arresting him before he could turn away.

A dark shadow touched his eyes as he measured me. I kept my expression closed, giving him no clue that my words might be untrue. Did he grieve for the golem? Or did he merely wonder how it had died by my hand?

‘The throne is mine by right. Hand it back, and this all ends here,’ I added.

Sidonius and Dieter both looked at me with matching expressions of disdain, banishing any doubts as to their kinship.

‘A moment alone with my wife, if you please,’ Dieter said to Sidonius.

Sidonius nodded and withdrew to the ranks of his men, but not without a sharp glance my way. Gerlach retired as well.

Dieter stepped closer – enough to lower his voice, not enough to make Sidonius nervous. ‘I held your life in the palm of my hand for weeks on end. And I did nothing. Remember that.’

‘I’m quite familiar with the details of your little trick,’ I retorted, anger quickening my tongue.

He considered this, obviously wondering how his arcana had been broken.

‘I did what was necessary to keep you alive,’ he said, not pursuing the questions shadowing his gaze.

‘Ha!’ The laugh exploded from me, sharp as thorns. ‘Oh yes, I was valuable to you – I made sure of it. Don’t confuse any affection you may have felt for genuine emotion, Dieter. I did what was necessary to keep myself alive.’ The words were bitter in my mouth. ‘You simply thought me weak enough to ignore.’

‘Well,’ He said, regarding me, his gaze speculative. ‘At last you don’t need to convince or manipulate me anymore.’

‘See what progress we’ve made in our marriage.’

‘Do you know why I seized the throne?’ He said, stretching out the fingers of his right hand as if fighting the urge to make a fist. ‘Because the Turasi falling was inevitable otherwise. The Svanaten are a weak bloodline, too weak to keep the snakes from our borders. Ravens take your eyes, your aunt kited off and married one of them! If you don’t know what she planned with that boy of hers, you’re as stupid as the rest of your kin.

‘I thought it’d be her who handed us over to the empire. But you’ve outshone any of her meagre efforts, Matilde. You’d give us over on a platter, garnished with an eternity of servitude.’

I flinched, but anger kept my back straight. ‘You’ve always underestimated me, Dieter, always made the mistake of taking my intent at face value. Yet you think you’re the clever one. Why? Because you can perform tricks with clay?’ I put every ounce of disdain I had into my voice, until it pumped through my veins and oozed from every pore.

He leaned close, his pale and witching eyes pinning me. ‘Don’t underestimate me,’ he said, his voice low and thrumming with violence. ‘I’m not always nice. And don’t overestimate yourself. You don’t have what it takes, Matilde,’ he said, then turned on his heel and strode back to the horses, Gerlach falling into step behind him.

I stood watching them until their horses were small with distance, until Sidonius put chill fingertips on my forearm.

‘Lady,’ he said. ‘It’s over. Let’s go.’

I looked up, my cheeks rubbery with schooling them to blankness. ‘He won’t yield.’

‘He will,’ said Sidonius. ‘Tomorrow we ride to war. And Ilthea always wins.’

THIRTY-SIX

SIDONIUS DIDN’T SPEAK on our way back to the camp.

As soon as we reached his command tent he gathered his captains to council. He ordered my attendance, though there were no introductions to his men. He demanded every fragment of information I could dredge forth, from the depth the Turholm’s walls extended beneath the ground to the number of men under Dieter’s command, from the strength of the fortifications to the quantity of stores. It took every ounce of concentration I could muster to answer him while balancing honesty and my desire to retake the throne with keeping my court