Chapter Twenty-Six
Ina did not slow when they crossed the last of the marsh bridges.
Derran and Karai came with her, all three of them still carrying the haste of flight in their bodies as they entered the throne room without so much as a herald to smooth the way.
The room was quieter than before. No music now.
No smoke drifting from little hookahs. Only a low uneasy conversation between those already gathered there.
Lugomir stood near the center of the room with Jasenka beside him.
Eogan had dutifully returned for the sake of protecting the new prince and princess.
He took up his usual place slightly apart, as if even in crisis he preferred not to look too easily included in anyone else’s arrangements.
Shayna stood near Jasenka’s chair, alert and tired, her hands clasped but not at rest.
“Where is Achlys?” Ina asked at once. She did not bother with greetings. The others looked at her, then at one another.
Lugomir answered first. “Around here somewhere, I’m sure. She’s never far.” Then, seeing the urgency in their faces, he crossed to the door and opened it himself, speaking to one of the fairy guards stationed beyond. “Find Lady Achlys. Bring her here.”
The guard bowed and left running.
A short while later he returned with Achlys by the arm.
She jerked free the instant they crossed the threshold and rounded on him with open contempt. “Unhand me.”
Then she took in the room. The gathered rulers of every court, seeming to glare at her in unison. The atmosphere gone from strained to pointed.
“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded. “I was in the middle of an important communication.”
“We know,” said Ina.
Achlys turned her head toward her with a barely-concealed snarl. “Know what, seed?”
The insult barely grazed Ina now. Too much else had happened for fairy contempt to bother her.
“We know you’ve been working with Zuri,” Ina said. “That you released her from her stone prison. That you want to take Lugo and Jassie’s place as ruler of the marsh court.”
For the first time, Achlys looked truly startled. Only for a moment. Then the coldness came back over her face, smoother than before.
“Are you out of your mind?” she asked, with more scathing disdain than Ina thought possible for a voice to hold.
Lugomir looked from Achlys to Ina. His voice, when he spoke, held hesitation rather than defense. “Are you sure, your Majesty? Achlys has always been extremely loyal to the princes and princesses of the marsh court.”
Ina nodded, though the certainty in her was not as simple as she would have liked. “Loyalty, it seems, does not prevent desire for the throne. She’s been working with Zuri.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Achlys snapped, acid on her tongue. Her control was still there, but strain had entered it now, like a crack under ice.
Lugomir did not answer, looking dazed.
Jasenka did. “Arrest her,” she ordered calmly.
Every head in the room turned to her.
“At the very least,” Jasenka went on, more quietly, “she can stay locked in the dungeon while we sort out this mess.”
The guards needed no second order. They moved without hesitation.
Achlys struggled harder than any court lady ought to have. “I’ve done nothing wrong!” she shouted as they seized her. “Nothing. Are you all mad? Lugo, look at me!”
Lugomir did look at her, but whatever he saw there did not change his expression.
They dragged her away still shouting, her voice carrying down the corridor in a rising stream of fury until distance and doors cut it off.
The room settled into silence after she was gone.
Jasenka turned to Ina, the circles under her eyes seeming to deepen as the lamps cast different shadows across them. Sounding defeated, as if she already knew the answer, she asked, “Have you found Zuri?”
“Not yet.”
Jasenka nodded once. Then she rose slowly from her chair and pressed her fingers to her forehead.
Only then did Ina notice the necklace. Jasenka had put it back on.
Even with many of the great diamonds missing from the sides, and some of the smaller ones still missing too, it still blazed around her throat in the lamp light. The red center stone sat at her collarbone, dark and watchful, too large and too alive-looking for comfort.
Something about that struck Ina now in a way it had not before.
Jasenka wearing it again while danger still moved unseen through the court.
Lugomir’s heart lying visible against her skin as if daring the world to take another shot at it.
She wondered why Jasenka would risk wearing it when any courtier could be Zuri in disguise and simply grab it off her throat.
“I am quite tired,” Jasenka murmured, exhaustion clear in her face. “I will go rest for a short time. Please, if you hear anything of Zuri, retrieve me at once.”
Shayna began to rise as if to follow, but Jasenka waved her off with tired impatience.
“I’ll be fine. I’m only lying down for a moment.”
Her lady curtsied. The others bowed. Jasenka left the room more slowly than she usually moved, though her back remained straight.
The moment the door shut behind her, Eogan said, more bored than anything, “Should someone keep watch over her? Just in case?”
Ina nodded. “I’ll go. I wanted to ask her something about the necklace anyway.”
She glanced at Derran and Karai as she said it, giving them the clearest look she could manage without words. Stay. Watch. Listen for me if I call.
They both understood. She could see it in the change of their faces, though neither liked it.
Without waiting for anyone’s answer, Ina went after Jasenka.
The marsh princess moved suddenly quickly for someone claiming fatigue.
Her skirts swept around the corners of the hall, colorful silk flashing once, then gone, leaving Ina to hurry after on instinct and memory.
The palace lamps had been turned lower in this wing.
The corridors felt quieter here, farther from the throne room, farther from witness.
By the time Jasenka reached her bedchamber, Ina was only one turn behind.
She saw the door close. She came up to it without noise, raised a hand to knock, then stopped. There was a voice inside.
Jasenka’s.
Ina pressed closer to the wood and held her breath.
She could not make out everything. The room beyond was too large, or the speakers too careful. But she heard enough to chill her.
“… arrested Achlys… dungeon…”
Another voice answered, low enough that its words did not carry at all.
Jasenka again, just audible. “… not worried… monster…”
The other voice answered again.
Then Jasenka’s came a little more loudly, a little more clearly, “We’ll need the queen’s heart, then.”
Ina gasped. Behind the door there was abrupt silence.
Ina straightened at once, stepping back with sudden horror. Her skin had gone cold, the chill running through to the base of her spine. She had just enough time to understand that she had been badly wrong about something before the door flew open.
A pale arm shot out, caught her, and dragged her inside.
Ina hit the floor hard.
The door slammed behind her.
“Your Majesty,” said Zuri with a nasty grin, “what perfect timing.”
Ina twisted to rise, but Zuri’s magic was already moving.
Vines and metal lashed out together, wrapping her arms, her waist, her chest.
The bindings tightened so fast that one breath became half a breath, and half a breath became a fight.
She strained against them with everything she had, but Zuri had learned from the last time when Ina had the use of her hands that she was not just some trifling queen, easily ignored.
There would be no room for leverage now, no looseness in the knot of living green and cold steel.
Across the room Jasenka stood by the bed, watching.
Not frightened.
Not captive.
Watching.
That truth struck Ina harder than the floor had.
Zuri put her palms together and opened them again. A long knife rested between her hands, glowing red like heated metal. A working blade, narrow and meant for neat harm.
Ina jerked again against the bindings, desperate now, and nearly got one knee under her. Jasenka dropped to the floor beside her, catching both her legs and holding them still with shocking strength born of panic and purpose together.
“Jassie,” Ina gasped.
Jasenka did not meet her eyes.
Zuri knelt and laid the knife against the left side of Ina’s chest with a care that was somehow worse than haste.
“Hold still,” she said. “Removing a heart is delicate work.”