Page 10 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

“They set the northern halls on fire.”

“What’s in the northern halls?”

He swallowed. “It’s where the Tenebrose Academy has classes on Fridays. Our queen lends it to the students.”

“Why would they attack that area?”

“The queen…she’s quite fond of the children.”

A planned attack, and someone who is close enough to her to know where to attack and how to get inside the castle unnoticed.

She stood at the top of a wall tower, on the narrow edge, barely wearing anything, her long dark hair violently floating in the chilling wind, not letting me see where exactly her gaze had landed below in the city. There was nothing behind that look.

It was empty.

Too empty to belong to her.

Too empty to belong to the woman who used to possess so much colour that not even nature had.

She lifted a bare foot forward and then jumped from the tall tower, a gust of wind carrying her and making her landing soft.

“Hells, Thora,” I muttered, fading just below and behind her.

Isjordians still roaming the city halted in their tracks and many others started coming out of their homes to watch her walk their streets, more giant ice wolves materialising behind her and spreading around the city. She’d gotten so much better at doing that. Her connection to the ice creatures was precise to the point she could give them life entirely, not just command them.

Isjordians looked among one another. Some unsure, some frightened, some unphased yet curious.

Thora didn’t move one bit, not even lift a finger. Her eyes found me in the distance where I was watching her, leaning against the shadow of a building. She was looking at me, but she was not seeing me. Her stare was entirely lost into a void—a void I had never seen her lose herself into before.

“What have you done, Rora?” I murmured, narrowing my eyes on her.

Her wolves of ice returned. One of them holding a man between its jaws.

The creature threw the limp body to her feet. Still somehow alive.

She breathed so slow, almost as if she wasn’t breathing at all. Not one word, not one movement, her eyes glued on the man with broken bones and skin, laying on the ground glaring at her.

“Get up,” she ordered, and his muscles suddenly twitched and he groaned, not from pain, but utter terror. The sounds slowly turned into whimpers and pleas as he got to his feet—his broken feet held by broken knees and a broken spine.

How was he standing?

My shadows spread, searching for signs of dark craft, magic of any sort, anything to explain what I was seeing, only to return without answers. The man was moving on his own will.

“I will not bow before you,” he bellowed in Old Ysolt.

“I do not need men like you to bow to me or stand beneath me. I do not need men like you to fear me. I do not need men like you at all,” she said. “I do not need to kill men like you. I don’t care to kill men like you. You’ll do it yourself. Like the rest of you will.”

The man plucked a dagger from his baldric, shakily raising the blade to his throat and sliced it through. Even after he’d choked on his own blood, stopped spurting and breathing, he remained on his feet, his lifeless eyes blown wide as they focused on her, the fear still fresh in them.

“It is late,” she said to the crowd when the body collapsed to the ground. “You all might return to your homes. No more of them will make it in or out of Tenebrose after tonight. You have my promise.”

Most seemed to believe her, trust her, too.

Others were still staring in disbelief at the man.

At what she’d done.

I walked behind her as she made her way back inside the castle walls, alone, barefooted and undressed, not a single guard to protect her in sight. Not once did she turn around or look around or acknowledge anyone she passed, not even when she made it to the castle wall gate. If the soldiers had not been quick to open them, she would have crashed against them. If the skies had fallen to the ground, Thora wouldn’t have noticed.