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He scowled at me from across the room as if he was about to lecture a naughty toddler. We must work with her if we’re to defeat these demons.
I turned up my nose, leering at the intrusive women from beneath my lashes. Our daughters will defeat the demons, I answered Marius.
Our daughters will need all the help they can get, including your sister’s army. Please, darling. He sat up, wrapping a sheet around his waist. For our daughters.
I heaved a weary groan as Daminica returned from the dressing room with a powder blue beehive wig. “Very well.” I shooed Daminica away. “I’m not wearing that blasted wig, and you’re not painting me like a clown.”
I turned my scowl on Lady Veronica as she giggled behind her hand while batting lashes weighed down with thick paints. It looked like hairy spiders had died on her eyelids. I jutted a hand on my hip. “You think it’s funny?”
“I’m sorry, Your Highness.” She pulled back her hand while flashing a knowing smile. “It’s just that Shiri said the same thing.”
“You know our Shirina?” Derrick blurted while striding toward Lady Veronica.
The bitch had the nerve to bat her spider lashes at my mate while splaying a hand across the feathers on her chest. It suddenly occurred to me that those feathers had come from Ravini males. No doubt, they were tokens from her conquests. Well, I knew two males whose feathers she’d never collect.
“I do.” A youthful blush shone beneath her thick, white face paints. “I consider her a dear friend.”
I protruded my chest, my top lip curled back in a snarl. “Funny,” I taunted, “she never mentioned you.”
“The queen would’ve killed Princess Shirina if not for Lady Veronica,” Lady Daminica said. “She is a powerful seer and convinced the queen to spare your daughter.”
I cut Lady Daminica a glare. Did these two think they could work together to intimidate me? “Malvolia wouldn’t have survived a battle with my daughter,” I said haughtily.
Daminica shook her head. “They’ve already battled in practice. Had Malvolia wanted, she could’ve snapped Shiri’s neck.”
I clutched my throat in horror, my stomach roiling at the thought that Shirina had been so close to death. What sickened me more was that had Malvolia succeeded in killing her, my child would’ve died thinking her parents loathed her.
“The queen might not be a white witch, but her black magic is still very powerful,” Daminica added, “and she has far more experience than the princess, especially when it comes to killing.”
Veronica folded her hands in front of her, her eyes clouding with distant memories. “A wise sage once said a witch’s greatest folly is underestimating her enemy.”
“Which sage said that?” I asked.
Veronica leered at me. “She hasn’t been born yet.”
Tari
MY LEGS FELT EVEN HEAVIER by the time I returned to our bedchamber. I checked on the rabbits and then went to Finn, who was waiting in bed for me. He held me in his arms and gently rubbed my back while I waited for the fuzzy feeling in my head to subside, but it didn’t. I had this strange feeling like I was living in a dream or I’d smoked the herbs that grew deep in the forest. And though I had a heaviness in my body and a weariness in my soul, I couldn’t sleep. How could I when I had so much weighing on my shoulders, from the sacrifice Enso would need to make on the morrow to the tension between Ash, Helian, and me to the inevitable battle we would face against a powerful demon and whatever army she possessed? And if my sister and I failed, the world would fall, including my daughters and unborn son.
“Where’s Ash?” I finally mumbled, my voice sounding slightly slurred.
Finn continued to rub my back while pressing kisses against my temple. “He said he needed some air.”
Odd, I hadn’t seen him leave. Then again, my sister and I had been preoccupied with telling each other stories in a quiet nook on the other side of the great hall.
A groan tore through me as I sat up. Ash was avoiding me, and I refused to go to bed with this tension between us.
Ignoring the throbbing in my head, I shrugged into the golden robe I’d worn at supper. Then I waited for a wave of dizziness to subside.
“Sweetheart,” Finn pleaded, “come back to bed.”
“I can’t,” I answered. “I need to find Ash.”
He threw off the patchwork blanket and climbed off the bed. “I’ll come with you.”
I wouldn’t fight him on it, for ashamed as I was to admit, I would need to lean on him until my world stopped tipping. He grabbed a lantern off a nearby table and took my hand, then pushed open the drape covering our door and led me through our suite of rooms to the outside. I tensed, tugging on his hand when the girls’ giggles echoed from inside Shiri’s room.
They’re having fun, I said to him through thought.
