Page 43 of Malice

I don’t bother to fire back a retort. And I don’t trust my voice even if I had one ready. I leave the rest of my plate and drag myself to my Lair to get my kit, then trudge through the streets of the Grace District. This autumn is colder than most. Everyone else is already wrapped in their early winter furs, but I feel nothing of the chill. Only the sharp-footed dread picking its way along my scalp. Is it Queen Mariel? Has she decided to do more than simply warn me away from her daughter? Or Endlewild—I shudder at the thought of what the Fae ambassador might want.

At the servants’ entrance, I present the summons. But I am not escorted through the usual halls. This time, we break right, directly into the royal wing. The dragon crest glowers at me from every column and windowpane. Other servants and courtiers abruptly change direction when they spot me. My escort unlocks a door to a set of back stairs, and we climb higher and higher, until sweat beads along the back of my neck and between my shoulder blades.

Unnervingly stoic, at last he slows, then ushers me through another narrow entrance. I stop short, face-to-face with a monstrous set of doors carved to look like the rough hide of a dragon. Stone wings flare out from either side of the frame, covered in golden armored scales. A neck as thick as my torso rears up from the tip where the doors meet, the ruby eyes on its head glinting in the torchlight. The handles are taloned feet, with Briar roses branded into the soles. Its jaws are opened in a scream, its mouth huge enough that it could snap me in half.

I shiver, imagining my own emerald blood dripping from between those polished teeth.

Quite against my will, I am pushed inside. And I immediately realize it was no ornamental choice that the doors resembled a dragon. That it seemed as if I was walking into the belly of a beast to enter this room.

Maps line the walls, Briar and several realms beyond the sea. Trade routes and ocean currents. Diagrams of beastly warships and lighter ones built for stealth and speed are pinned beside them. A huge ebony table, the wood shot through with silver, dominates most of the room. It’s littered with papers and waxy candle nubs and discarded quills, their inkpots left carelessly open to dry out. Maps are spread here, too, with bronze markers arranged in intricate formations.

This is the king’s room. The war room.

As per her alliance agreement with the Etherians, Leythana and her heirs cultivated a military renowned throughout the world. But the later queens grew lazy, preferring to spend Briar’s significant coin on gowns and parties and placating their husbands.

Tarkin, though, is different. Before breaking Mariel’s curse, he came from Paladay, a landlocked northern kingdom on the other side of the Carthegean Sea. It is a country famed for its horse trade, as well as its insatiable desire to expand its borders. And the Briar King clearly inherited Paladay’s lust for glory. The War of the Fae was over long before Tarkin came to power, and we’ve had no hint of conflict since. But Tarkin shovels coin at his army as if war could be declared any day. Briar’s forces have tripled in size since he married Mariel, though they have little enough to do but train in the yard, patrol the mountain border, and stage mock battles from the Fae war.

But that knowledge does nothing to calm my rabbit-quick heartbeat as I discover the floor-to-ceiling windows along the right wall. All of Briar sprawls out beneath my unsteady feet: The pastel domed and gabled rooftops of the Grace District, its elegance bleeding dry at the barrier marking the gray, gritty Common District. The thick outer walls of the realm. The sea, vast and unyielding, blurring in smudges of turquoise and indigo on the horizon. Ships the size of my fingernail cutting through the choppy water or bobbing in the harbor. There are no panes on these windows, only clear, unbroken glass, giving the illusion that this room teeters on the top of a cliff. That those inside it are far above, ruling from an unimaginably high vantage point.

And that those rulers could easily toss their enemies over its edge.

“Do you like it?” I wheel around, my kit slipping in my hands, then sink automatically into a low curtsy. The Briar King watches me from a corner. I hadn’t even heard him come in. “The glass is said to be sound against even dragon’s fire. I had it forged specially.”

The thought of the expense makes my stomach roll. There have been no records of dragons in Briar since Leythana sailed in on her ships. And for all we know, those dragon carcasses were just a story.

“Are you hungry? Would you care for some wine?”

He motions to a back table laden with fresh fruits and buttery cheeses and a decanter of claret so dark it’s almost black. All of it probably poisoned.

“No, thank you, Your Majesty.”

“Suit yourself.” He pours himself a healthy glassful, though beneath the shadow of his beard, his sandy white skin is ruddy with a flush of wine. “You must wonder why I’ve summoned you.”

Wind gusts against the wall of glass until it groans. I inch as far away as I can, trying to ignore the nauseating image of myself plummeting into the eaves of the Grace District.

Tarkin strolls idly along his table, adjusting the markers on the maps. “It occurred to me, after the incident with Duke Weltross, that yoursingularabilities may be underappreciated.”

I knew I had not heard the end of the duke.

“I consider myself quite foolish, actually. I knew when you were discovered that you were special. That your…unusual…blood would serve Briar well. It’s why I didn’t kill you, though I was certainly advised to do so.” A slow smile spreads across his face that raises the hair on the back of my neck. “I applaud that decision even more so today.”

Somehow, I don’t take that as a compliment. “I don’t understand your meaning.” I set my kit down and begin rooting through the vials. “Perhaps Your Majesty would like an elixir—”

“No, Dark Grace.” He closes the lid of my kit. The amethyst on his signet ring glitters. “You are too modest. I heard that you ended the duke’s life with a mere touch.”

He is too close and I wish for something to steady myself. But I refuse to let the Briar King see me weaken. “The duchess was grieving. Confused. As was everyone else in that room.”

Tarkin resumes as if I hadn’t spoken. “I also heard of a fountain that started spewing mud some time ago. The royal gardeners were quite perplexed.”

Dragon’s teeth, I’m an idiot.

“And then”—the smell of the wine and the spice of roasted game wafts from his breath—“at our dinner. When you turned a royal rosebush into some kind of vicious plant. I saw you with my own eyes. Am I also confused?”

He lifts one eyebrow, looking at me like I’m a particularly elusive stag he’s just taken down. I resist the urge to grab his magic and bend it until he crumples like a used rag.

“Please.” Tarkin pulls out one of the chairs at the table. “Sit.”

The last thing I want to do is sit. But I doubt how much longer I can stand, and so I allow myself to perch lightly on a chair.