Chapter 2
“That was incredibly, stupidly reckless.”
There was frost in the Rendran queen’s voice. Cassandra kept her eyes on the obsidian and quartz patterning the floor of the throne room, a sour mixture of shame and frustration tinging the back of her throat.
“Think what would have happened if you had been captured,” the queen continued, her tone clipped and regal. “The queen’s shadow tossed in a Mediran prison. How would that have looked to the Alliance? To Ineti? Or to any of the other powers on our border?”
Cassandra fought the urge to snap out a retort in her defense. She had been somewhat reckless, sure, but she’d had a plan. And she hadn’t been captured in the end. It had all just ended...stupidly.
When she’d been late to the rendezvous point, Tomas, the captain of the queen’s guard who had been her second on the mission, had come to find her. He’d said she’d been slumped near the road outside the palace, stripped of her weapons. Annoyance had slid through her. Outside the palace. Not in it.
And he had been nowhere to be seen.
Cassandra had seethed the entire way back to Rendra. He had let her go. But why? Was this just another part of his game? Another thing he could use to laugh at her?
“You may rise, shadow,” the queen said.
Cassandra straightened from the deep curtsy she’d been holding. The queen’s face was a mask of sternness and propriety. Her dark, graying hair was swept back from her cheeks, giving her face a heightened, regal angularity. She was seated in a tall throne made of woven metal and inlaid with lapis lazuli that had been the seat of the kings and queens of Rendra for hundreds of years. Her gown of deep blue was fastened with tiny gold buttons to the neck, and Cassandra could see lines around her mouth that hadn’t been there even a few months before.
The queen had been young when she’d ascended the throne eighteen years prior—hardly twenty-seven, not much older than Cassandra was now. She was the only legitimate child of the prior king, and she had never married, though there had been more than one ambitious courtier who would have jumped at the chance.
“Now,” the queen said, casting a look at Tomas who stood at attention not far behind Cassandra. “Thank you for doing your duty, captain, and keeping my shadow safe.”
Cassandra did her best to keep her fists from clenching. Here, in the throne room, even with just Tomas and a few of the queen’s other advisors watching, was not the place to break decorum.
“I expect a full, written report by morning,” the queen continued, addressing Tomas. “You are dismissed.”
“Your Highness,” Tomas said with a quick bow. He gave Cassandra a nod—of pity or solidarity, she wasn’t sure—then turned and left the hall.
Silence fell over the grand space, and Cassandra’s eyes wandered up to the ornately carved marble that arched above the queen. When used for holding court or greeting foreign dignitaries, the room came alive with movement and color and life—but now, in the emptiness, it felt a bit too much like a tomb.
Cassandra did her best to keep a neutral smile as the queen rose. Her advisors, dressed in the heavy ceremonial garb of the court, rose as well. Cassandra felt suddenly small beneath their gazes.
“You must be tired,” the queen said at last. “Retire to your chamber for the night. I will speak with you in the morning.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Cassandra’s chest tightened, and she did her best to keep her frustration from showing. The queen hadn’t even offered her a chance to defend herself before Tomas. Before the advisors.
Her mind flashed suddenly to a silver fox mask and the sting of a knife at her back. For a moment, her heartbeat quickened. She could not think about him now. She was already embarrassed enough.
Cassandra swept another grand curtsy and turned to go.
“Shadow?” the queen said.
Cassandra paused, her eyes focused on the open door of paneled cedar at the end of the hall.
“I have never known you to act without thought. Do not do something so rash again. For my sake.”
Cassandra gave a quick nod of deference and left the hall.
***
The queen was lounging on an ornate divan by the window when Cassandra entered the royal suite. The older woman turned as Cassandra pushed the tall bookshelf closed with a click and batted a cobweb from above her eye. The narrow corridor into the royal suite had been built as a means of escape many, many years ago. There were few who knew of its existence—but the queen’s shadow, as the face of the royal intelligence network, was one of them.
“You know, when I cast you in the role of shadow, it was supposed to be a purely ceremonial position,” the queen said as Cassandra dropped into a tall chair with elegantly embroidered cushions.
Cassandra raised a brow at the queen. “You can hardly have expected me to keep it ceremonial, Your Highness. Besides, Andre clearly didn’t intend for it to be.”
The queen sighed, but Cassandra detected a hint of amusement in it. “I do appreciate your efforts for my sake, Cassandra. But what you tried with Ilin Serra—what I said in the throne room was true. It was reckless.”
Cassandra’s nostril”s flared at the mention of his name. “It wasn’t reckless, Elena. I swear. Nothing is ever straightforward with him. It’s like an elaborate dance. A game. I know what I’m doing.”
“Do you?” The queen arched an elegant brow. “It seems to me that if you refused to play at all, you might come out ahead.”
“I play by my rules, not his,” Cassandra said tightly. ”You shouldn’t worry so much. I know what I’m doing.”
“You’re my sister, Cassandra.” The queen leaned forward earnestly. “My only sister. It’s my duty to worry.”
“Half-sister,” Cassandra muttered.
“That doesn’t make a difference!” the queen snapped. “Certainly not to Medira and certainly not to me.”
“Medira doesn’t know who I am,” Cassandra returned, the old anger flaring in her chest. “The court here doesn’t even know who I am.” Because her father—and Elena’s—had never claimed her publicly. There was almost a twenty-year age gap between them. It would have been a scandal. And there were always those who might try to use her to depose her sister, though being queen of Rendra was the last thing in the world Cassandra wanted.
The queen nodded. “And I have gone to great pains to keep it that way, for your own safety. And to protect your position as shadow. Which was something you wanted, by the way. So, when you do something like this...” She trailed off.
Cassandra knew she was right. It was imperative that no one knew of her true relationship to the queen. She would lose her freedom in an instant. And Cassandra didn’t think she could stand to live cooped up in the palace the way the queen did.
“Well,” Cassandra said into the silence. “I did achieve my goal at least.”
The queen’s head snapped up. “You did?”
“Of course,” Cassandra replied a little too vehemently. She’d let herself get distracted, sure, but she’d still done her duty. “Well, mostly.”
“Oh no.” The queen swung her legs off the divan and fixed Cassandra with an exasperated stare.
Cassandra forced an overly bright smile. “I did manage to find my way into the quarters of the Inetian ambassador to Medira.”
The queen nodded. It had been the true purpose of the mission. Her game with Ilin Serra had been a stupid distraction.
“I uncovered correspondence from the Inetian emperor to the ambassador. It confirmed that the rumors are true—that Medira does intend a marriage alliance.” Cassandra suppressed a shudder. The Mediran king was well on his way to sixty, and the Inetian princess was barely nineteen.
The queen sounded suddenly tired when she finally did speak. “And what is the intention of this alliance?”
Cassandra opened her mouth and then shut it again. She still wasn’t sure why a nation as powerful as Ineti would want to ally itself with a state as small as Medira. Rendra and Medira inhabited the same peninsula south across the sea from Ineti—but the two nations were fairly insular, with little in the way of resources Ineti did not already have access to from their own lands. It simply didn’t make any sense.
“I’m still not sure,” Cassandra admitted.
The queen sighed, and for a moment, Cassandra could see through her mask to the worry beneath. Even in private, she maintained a facade. A facade Cassandra had rarely been able to break through.
“I discovered something else too,” Cassandra continued. She could still see the sharp lines of the pen strokes across the paper, smudged in places where ink had blotted out of the pen. “There was another letter—an anonymous letter—that mentioned something about an Inetian presence in the Malathi pass.”
“The Malathi pass?” the queen said, leaning forward. The pass sat in the remote southern mountains that passed through both Rendra and Medira, though the pass itself was firmly inside Mediran borders.
Cassandra nodded. “These Inetians plan to meet with the enclave of Sorothi chanters there.”
The queen’s brows knit together. “But why? What could they want with the chanters?”
They had all heard stories of the Sorothi chanters, of the power they wielded—power that tore at the fabric of the world when it was used. Power that could open a gateway to a realm of shadow and release the monsters hiding within—monsters that had no business in their world.
The chanters’ magic had been banned by the Alliance to the south, Ineti to the north, and most other states within Rendra’s orbit, and so they’d retreated to more remote areas to continue their work. They’d settled in the Malathi pass in the south-west of Medira, not far from the Rendran border, twenty years earlier. They’d kept mostly to themselves, so Medira had left them alone. If Ineti wanted access to the chanters, then there was something very, very wrong going on.
“I don’t know,” Cassandra said, trying to keep her frustration at bay. She wished she had more to tell the queen. She had rifled through as much of the correspondence as she dared before snatching the letter and slinking away along the eaves of the palace where the court was celebrating the solstice. That had been when she’d spotted him. And she hadn’t been able to resist the thought of messing with him.
“So, this letter,” the queen said. “Do you have it?”
Cassandra’s face flamed. “I did have it,” she muttered, dropping her eyes from the queen’s.
The queen watched her for a moment. “Ah,” she said at last. “Ilin Serra took it.”
Cassandra nodded. Damn that man. “That’s why I need to go to the pass. We need to figure out what Ineti wants with the chanters. Why they are looking for an alliance with Medira. All I know is that this cannot be good for Rendra.” She also knew that he would act on the contents of the letter immediately, now that he knew she’d read it. And she had to act fast before he did anything to thwart her.
The queen sighed, passing a tired hand over her face. “Yes. Someone must go. But it does not have to be you.” She paused. “Send Isabel. That girl has shown a lot of promise.”
Cassandra’s fists clenched. She couldn’t deny that Isabel was the best agent in her network, but she needed her here. “It has to be me, Elena,” she said vehemently. “Isabel is promising, but I’m the best you have. And I know Ilin Serra better than anyone. I can spot his tricks from miles away.”
The queen raised her brows. “Can you?”
Cassandra’s cheeks flamed again. “Yes,” she said stubbornly.
The queen hesitated. “It’s quite a journey to get to the pass.”
“I have my ways,” Cassandra returned. “You know I do. Contacts along the route. I am the queen’s shadow, after all. I inherited the knowledge of those who came before me.”
The queen sighed, tapping a finger against the lace of her gown. “I know,” she said at last. “I know you’re right. But I worry that Ilin Serra has this knowledge too.” She paused. “You are quite blind when it comes to him.”
“I am not!” Cassandra snapped. “And if he has this knowledge, then maybe Medira will rethink their alliance with Ineti. I need to move quickly, to get there before Ilin Serra does. To understand what Ineti wants.”
The queen stood and made her way to the window. The Rendran capital spread out below, its old stone buildings glistening in the afternoon light. Her sister was worried about her, but Cassandra had always shown herself to have a level head before. She knew she was the one person the queen trusted beyond all others. There were too many political games that went on at court.
“All right,” the queen conceded at last. “You leave at dawn. Outfit yourself accordingly. It won’t be an easy journey.”
Cassandra nodded. She had been out to the Malathi pass once before to make contact with those who had been allied to Andre Alarcon, the shadow before her. To make sure they were still willing to serve. She had people who could guide her.
“I won’t be reckless, Elena,” she said.
“I certainly hope so.” The queen sighed. “Just don’t let Ilin Serra get to your head again.”
“I won’t,” Cassandra said. “I swear it.”