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“Someone help!” Idalia shrieked.
Slowly, Markus’s gaze slid down to her face, his shoulders slumping forward. She was the only one who could see the accusation in his eyes. They narrowed as if to say ‘I know it was you’ before they fluttered closed and his body fell.
Air was knocked from her lungs as the brunt of his weight was caught against her chest. The hard ground caught her fall, sending a dull ache up through her tailbone. The staff at her back shifted in its harness, pushed up by her landing.
“Oh gods!” she cried. Acting had come naturally to her since she was a child. A pouting lip here, a summoned tear there, and any sort of exaggerated emotion could generally get her whatever she wanted.
Markus’s weight was rolled off of her. Dust covered her back and then her knees as she sat herself up to kneel at his side. Figures moved to block the sun, shadows of men crossing over one another in a circle that surrounded the queen. They all leaned forward to watch, with hushed speculation.
His flesh was still warm as she pressed two fingers to his throat. No heartbeat. No pulse.
A sob broke her lips. She shook her head.
Burke’s arms were around her as he pulled her head into the crook of his neck. Her body shook with well-practiced motions and easily produced tears.
“He’s dead. He saved me and he’s dead!” she wailed loud enough for the crowd to hear.
Several men stepped back, likely the ones who’d never seen a dead body before. Many of the middle class were spared the heartache of poverty and the cutthroat nature of riches. Guards elbowed their way into the fray forcing the men back, giving the queen her space to mourn.
“We’ve found the traitor!” The call echoed through the guards until it reached those who remained silent nearest the queen.
Idalia lifted her head, her eyes red rimmed and glassy. She sniffled, wiping away tears with the back of her hand. “Where is he?” she asked in a hushed voice, then again louder. “Where is he?”
Avoiding stepping on Markus, Idalia stood with a stomp of her foot in the dust. A leaf crinkled under her heel. “Bring him to me!” This time her voice was a roar that reflected the need that coursed her veins. Markus’s death was enough to remind her of the rewarding sense of euphoria she gained when she followed the demand of her staff. Her limbs felt airy as if her body might float up off into the cloud at any moment. Her head was light, empty of all thoughts except for one.
Kill.
Kill the traitor.
“My queen?” the nearest guard questioned.
When Burke’s hand settled on her shoulder that’s when she knew she had spoken the thought out loud. Clearing her throat, she tried to smooth down her shirt and re-tuck the material back into her waist band. A long inhale helped to calm her fires.
The group of men split quickly allowing a single path to the queen. Two guards dragged one of the suitors forward. He frantically kicked at the ground, creating divots in the earth at every chance he got. His brown curls looked messy, his lip already split and bleeding.
“I didn’t do anything,” the man said, turning his face one way and then another. He would not find anyone who would believe him there. “I-I was enjoying the ride one minute and then the next I was being knocked from my horse. It wasn’t me. Please. My Queen. Please.”
Idalia didn’t see a man begging for his life before her. She only saw the hit of a drug she needed to take. It didn’t matter who she hurt as long as she got what she needed. What the staff needed.
“Stand him up.”
The suitor was crying now. Big fat tears rolled down his cheeks creating tracks in the dirt that he’d kicked up onto himself. The way his lip stuck out and shook reminded her of a child. There wasn’t pity for him in her terrible black soul.
“Please,” he sobbed. “Please.” As if manners could help him now.
A laugh almost bubbled out of her. Instead, she cracked a small smile.
“He was the one you caught shooting arrows in my direction?” Lifting her chin, she looked to the guards holding him so tightly.
“Yes, Queen Idalia. We watched him draw the bow himself.”
“No… No…” Tears held to his eyelashes, pinched off as he squeezed his eyes closed and shook his head. “No, I swear it.”
“Did anyone else see this man shooting?” Not a soul responded as she looked from face to face. “Guards?”
A few dared to mutter that they had not seen him with a weapon at all but they were too far out in the crowd for her to match the voice to the person. When she faced the suitor once more the guards at his side shifted as her scrutiny fell upon them. One swallowed audibly.
Was it that clear on her face?
