AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘No, thanks, Ildrie,’ Andala said, forcing her tone and her expression to stay neutral. ‘I’m just heading back to my room.’
‘Suit yourself.’ Ildrie shrugged, holding up the bottles of liquor she carried. ‘Almost forgot these. Figured no one would notice right now if we did some drinking on the job, not with everything going on in there.’ She jerked her head towards the palace proper.
Andala’s stomach plummeted. ‘Why? What’s going on?’
Ildrie blew out a breath. ‘It’s madness! The king and his men, and the seneschal … Well, let’s just say they’re not exactly seeing eye to eye on what to do about the skylark.’
‘The skylark?’ Andala’s heart had ascended to her throat. Tendrils of panic were creeping through her blood like curling vines. ‘What have they done with the skylark?’
But Ildrie was shaking her head. ‘I don’t know the ins and outs of it, only what I’ve heard here and there. But what I did hear seems like a nasty business. That creepy old seneschal – they think he …’ She paused, looking uncomfortable for the first time Andala had ever seen. ‘It seems like he wants to do something with the lark’s heart.’
It took a moment for the words to sink in. If Ildrie was right, it wasn’t the lark herself Terault wanted. It was her heart. And that meant …
‘Oriane,’ Andala breathed, her vision clouding with panic now.
In the space of a heartbeat, she was gone.
243Her feet pounded on the stone floors like Cricket’s had back on the road. This was not the way Andala had planned to do what she had to do. She had hoped to at least see Kitt first, to say goodbye, to explain herself. But there was no time for that now. She had to get to them, before they got to Oriane. Before—
Thud.Andala collided with a body as she rounded a corner. ‘Watch where you’re going, girl!’ someone shouted, but she didn’t stop to speak to them, or even to see who they were. She had to get to the ballroom.
Ildrie had been right; the atmosphere in the palace was charged and unpleasant. People had emerged from the rooms they’d been holing up in, congregating in the hallways to mutter anxiously to one another. Andala charged between them, not caring who she bumped or pushed aside. ‘Move!’ she shouted at one densely clustered group of noblemen who took up the width of a hallway. They dispersed to let her through, frowning, no doubt galled by the audacity of a servant to speak to her betters in such a way, even here at the end of the world.
Finally, finally, the doors to the ballroom appeared. Breathing heavily, heart bruising against her ribs, Andala weaved her way towards them. Rather than nobles, there were guards here – dozens of them. And other people, too, who held themselves like guards but were not uniformed as such. Instead, they wore strange, matching garments, a kind of sky-blue robe that Andala had never seen before. She began to push past them, but one of the real guards soon stopped her.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked roughly, fingers tight around Andala’s arm.
‘In there,’ Andala said as confidently as she could, nodding towards the ballroom doors.244
The guard laughed. ‘Like hell you are.’
‘I’m her maid.’ Andala tried to wrench out of his grip, failed. ‘The skylark – I’m her lady’s maid.’
A nasty sneer crawled across the man’s face. ‘A fussy, useless job when she was a person. Even more useless now she’s a songless little bird.’
Heat flooded Andala’s body in an angry wave. ‘Let me go,’ she growled.
The guard’s smirk dropped, a dangerous look replacing it. His grip tightened painfully. ‘Are you going to be a problem, maid? Do I need to—’
‘Andala!’
She spun around at the familiar voice.Kitt. Thank the skies, it was Kitt. He was pushing his way through the crowd – Andala noted that they parted a lot more willingly for him than they had for her. When he reached them, he looked down at the guard’s hand on Andala, then back at the guard himself. His expression was enough for the man to let go, scowling as he moved away.
‘Are you all right?’ Kitt asked.
‘I’m fine.’
His eyes lit suddenly with desperate hope. ‘And did you—’
But he stopped talking at the look on her face. Andala shook her head. ‘I can’t go into it now, Kitt, there’s something I need to do. You need to get me in there.’
‘Into the ballroom?’ It was Kitt’s turn to shake his head. ‘You can’t go in there. Tomas, Terault – they’re—’
‘Get me in there,’ she repeated. ‘Trust me, Kitt. It’s what has to happen.’
Something about her tone must have given him pause. He sighed. ‘Fine. But before we go in—’245
‘No time,’ Andala said, already turning away. ‘We have to go now.’ And before he could protest, she had begun to fight her way once more through the press of bodies, leaving Kitt to tail after her and head off anyone who tried to stand in her way.
