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“You hunt Fae?” He was barely able to gasp the words. “For the Queen.”
“Something like that.” I really didn’t want to get into it. Besides, the way he was looking at me was more than a little concerning. I had expected a barb about them being gone or something about The Goddess, sure, but that look was more horror than I anticipated.
“Ziah?” I asked, actually growing a little concerned. He didn’t seem to be breathing. “You alright?”
He nodded once before he turned, his grubby little face only looking back once before he took off across the camp at a sprint, running right for Ryndle who had been talking to a few others with far too much animation.
Ryndle froze as Ziah reached him, both of them turning to face me.Horror lined Ziah’s face, but there was only joy in Ryndle, that wide smile of his stretching uncomfortably.
That was not a reaction I would expect from the leader of a religious faction that worshiped a Goddess that had eradicated the Fae. If he thought the Fae were supposed to be gone, he would have been as horrified as Ziah. Yet he looked at me and smiled as though he knew something I didn’t; as though he knew something about the Fae.
I nearly bolted over there, demanding answers to what he knew and what I was clearly missing. But before I could take a step he turned, vanishing into the group of his zealots who swallowed him as though they were hiding him from me.
Hiding whatever it was he knew.
Chapter 31
Elara
The next morning the Boy was not there.
The room was eerily quiet when I woke, the air chilled from the winter that was not far off. It was usually around this time of the year that I mourned the loss of the maid that would light the fire every morning while I slept, something that the Boy had begun doing a year or so ago.
That should have been the first sign.
The second was when I left my room and faced the same black shrouded figure I always did. The dark leathers, the inky cape that hung nearly to the floor, the sword with the white snake pommel. Except instead of the white snake brooch that held the Boy’s shroud in place this man’s tunic was embroidered with it.
He shifted as I entered, the snake appearing to slither over his chest as he faced me, the lack of shroud putting his face in full view. I had never fully seen the Boy’s face before, but it didn’t matter. I knew at once that this man was not him. The Boy did not have hair the color of dirt and a permanent sneer on a crusty lip.
“Who are you?” I stood frozen in the doorway, not wanting to move any closer, and not simply because the man was glaring with all the hatred and disgust I usually associated with my mother.
“I am your guard.” His lip curled, the motion revealing yellowed teeth.
“You are not from my father’s army.” I looked him up and down. I had never seen this uniform anywhere but on the Boy. Up until this moment I thought it was unique to him.
While the snake may have been different, everything else about it was the same. The leather bindings, the way the cape lay. It was obviously a uniform and not a new one, the man’s boots were scuffed with mud and something foreboding that I didn’t want to know the origin of.
“Where is the Boy?” I could have sworn I saw those chapped lips curl slightly at my question. He remained silent, that snake on his chest moving with each breath he took.
“Where is the Boy?” I asked again. His eyes nor lips didn't even flicker. “Answer me.” I tried to put on my best princess voice, not that I had one, but again the man didn’t even twitch.
I had tossed and turned all night, thinking of the Boys’ voice, of Batian and his bizarre behavior, and all the threats and promises that had been painted in the air.
One thing above all stood out, if everything Batian said was true, I really couldn’t stay there. Which meant one thing, I needed to speak to Father, and perhaps even my Uncle Jahn. If I was to escape, I would want them to come with me.
The Ramal, escape? The idea was ludicrous, and yet I couldn’t strip it from my mind.
I took one step forward, ready to head out the door but the man sidestepped, firmly placing his boulder of a frame right in front of the door.
“Excuse me, what do you think you are doing?”
“I am keeping you in your room, by order of the Ramal.”
“The Ramal?” I almost laughed. There was no way Father would order that, although I was sure many of the things he had recently ordered had not come from him. I straightened my spine. I only had one day before the Walk of the Maiden was due to begin. If I wanted to build any kind of plan, I didn’t have time for any of this.
“Good. That’s who I am on my way to see.” I took another step, but the man again angled himself before the door.
“Get out of my way.” I tried again, keeping my voice firm as I once again stepped toward the door and he once again stepped right between me and my only escape.
