Page 87 of To Save a Kingdom

Zadé’s jaw went slack. “You’re a shapeshifter!” If they weren’t careful, everybody would be changing shape, and they wouldn’t be able to trust that anyone was who they said they were.

“No.” Elessan’s face went a sickly green. “What have you done with Tsara?” He picked up Zadé’s dagger which she’d dropped at some point during their interrogation and pressed the sharpened edge beneath the shapeshifter’s chin.

The imposter’s eyes hardened as she glared at Elsan. “Disposed of her.”

“When!”

“When do you think? As soon as Roland arrived.”

Zadé’s knees went weak. “How, exactly, didja do that? Is she still alive?” That was a foolish question. Of course, she wasn’t. It would take too much effort and be too risky to keep her as such, but still, she had to hope.

Shapeshifter Tsara’s upper lip curled. “You think I have the time and energy to babysit a captive?” She snorted. “Her body’s buried in the middle of the forest outside town.”

Zadé’s gut clenched, and she fell to her knees. Until this whole Elsan marriage kerfluffle, she’d never had a problem with Princess Tsara. To find she’d been murdered and dumped in a shallow unmarked grave was just… She shuddered.

Elsan’s jaw had turned rock hard. It was amazing he didn’t crack a molar or something. He drew the tip of the blade down the shapeshifter’s neck. “What will happen, do you think, if I slit your throat?” he asked, his tone darker than Zadé had ever heard before. “Will you die looking like you do, or revert to your natural form?”

Zadé’s brow wrinkled. She’d had no idea shifters came with their own shape. Now she’d have to ask Princess what she really looked like. After they rescued her from Brooks, of course.

Tsara’s quicksilver eyes flashed. “What do you know about it, single-skin?”

“Not as much as I’d like to,” he muttered, his words dark. The muscles in his arms tensed.

“Wait!” Zadé yelled, lunging forward as the blade pierced the shapeshifter’s flesh.

Elsan froze, whirling on her. “What?”

Zadé turned to stare into the odd eyes that were so similar, yet so different from the real Tsara’s. “Why?”

A trickle of red wound its way down the shifter’s throat. “Why what?”

“Why’d yeh do it? Why take her place? Why manipulate yer way inta marrying Elsan? Surely there were easier ways to get whatever you were after?” Her eyes flicked to him, then back to their captive. “No offense, Elsan.”

He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “None taken.”

“Yeh knew there’re others of yer kind here. They’d have given yeh what yeh wanted, within their ability and reason.” Princess was too big-hearted that way.

Tsara bared fangs that were longer and sharper than any fae’s had the right to be. “You mean the human’s so-called queen?” She barked a laugh. “She’s so deep under Shadow’s thumb, she can’t see the world beneath her nose. Besides, any power she’s managed to cling to is slipping away. She’ll be lucky to survive the day.”

Elsan went still, as if he’d forgotten about Aliya’s imminent danger. His eyes flicked to Zadé. “Did you get all the info you need?”

Swallowing, Zadé nodded.

The shifter’s eyes bulged as his blade slashed across her throat.

Zadé watched with slack jaw as the body fell. It morphed into a gelatinous blob of phosphorescent goop. She inhaled, fighting the urge to step forward to investigate in case it was contagious or toxic. A few heartbeats later, it lost cohesion and collapsed into a puddle of water which drained into the grass beneath their feet.

Zadé blinked like an idiot as she stared at the spot where Tsara had been seconds before. That explained why she’d never heard of a shapeshifter corpse, and likely why the world knew so little about them.

“Well, I suppose that answers that,” Elsan said, wiping the blade on the ground. Suddenly, he hissed, dropping his dagger as he clutched his arm to his chest. A red light flashed around him, leaving after-images glowing in Zadé’s vision.

Shaking his hand, he traced the faded scar on the skin of his palm for several heartbeats. With a grunt, he got to his feet.

“What?” Zadé grabbed his upper arm to steady him. “Yeh alright?”

Closing his eyes, he nodded. “I have a headache that could end worlds, and just found out my childhood best friend is dead. And I think that, somehow, I just fulfilled the first half of my blood vow… with my wife gone, I suppose that leaves me as next in line for Roland’s throne as he has no other heirs. Otherwise, I’m fine.”

Zadé wrinkled her forehead. She couldn’t quite tell if he was being sarcastic or not. Now was probably not the appropriate time to ask what that nonsense about a blood vow was, or how he thought Roland would react to the news. Accepting the dagger Elsan held out to her, she slid it back into the sheath at her waist. “Well, suppose we should getcha armed?”