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“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.”
