The Exiled Queen (45 page)

Micah licked his lips. “Perhaps you take some kind of perverse pleasure in stalking me, but—”

“What I’m saying is, if I wanted you dead, you would already be dead a dozen ways. I let you live because now I got a different plan. You Bayars need to learn that you can’t have everything you want. I’m going to teach you. This is just the beginning.”

Micah’s eyes narrowed. “Is that a threat?”

“Absolutely.” Han smiled. “Any time you start a fight, you’d better know who you’re coming up against.” He stood. “Be seeing you.”

MATRIMONY

OR MURDER

It was a gray and gloomy Thursday—though warmer and more humid than any April day had a right to be. Raisa was done with classes for the day, but she didn’t want to go back to Grindell Hall and watch Amon watch her. He’d been edgy for days, even before the episode with Han.

“What is the matter with you?” she’d demanded the night before in the practice yard. “I’ve never seen you so jumpy.”

“I have a feeling you’re in danger,” he said. “I can’t shake it.”

“Is this about Han Alister?” she’d asked, pausing with her staff across her body.

He shook his head. “No. Not entirely, anyway. I’ve felt like this since Hallie came home. Like something bad is about to happen.” He adjusted his grip on his staff, carefully placing his hands. “I’ve learned not to ignore those instincts. Please be careful, Rai.”

She’d debated whether to show Queen Marianna’s letter to Amon, and had decided against it. Could Amon’s worries have anything to do with that? Could he sense how unsettled she was, how tempted she was to travel back home?

In the midst of all this, Raisa had exams to study for, and a decision to make about what to wear to the Cadets’ Ball. Female cadets had the option of wearing either their dress uniform or a gown. The uniform would be easier, but Raisa was afraid she’d be taken for somebody’s boyish young squire who’d been allowed to stay up late.

Sometimes she actually missed dressing up.

Still, it was probably too late to hire a seamstress, and unlikely she’d find something to fit her in the secondhand shops along Bridge Street.

Tonight she’d meet with Han. Her heart accelerated. She’d sent a message to Hampton Hall.

Han, I apologize that our evening ended so abruptly. It was wonderful up until then. AB apologizes also. Well, that’s not strictly true, but I apologize for him. Looking forward to Thursday, and to the dance.—Rebecca

There’d been no reply.

Maybe I should see if he shows for tutoring tonight before I look for a dress, Raisa thought glumly. She was tempted to cross the bridge and find Han at his dormitory, but that could end badly in a number of ways.

Amon’s edginess was catching. Raisa found herself constantly looking over her shoulder, feeling the itch on the back of her neck that said someone was watching her. Gray wolves clustered on the quad, their ears pressed back against their heads, and she heard their plaintive howls late at night.

Finally, she hid out in an upstairs reading room at the Wien House library and tried to study. But Han Alister kept intruding into her thoughts. And Amon Byrne. And Marianna, her mother. One moment she decided to return home to the Fells as soon as exams were over, the next she worried that her return might precipitate a crisis. She read the same paragraph over and over until she fell asleep, her face pillowed on her arms.

“Newling Morley?”

Raisa looked up to see a nervous-looking cadet standing in the doorway. She blinked at him hazily. “Oh! I must have fallen asleep! What time is it?”

“It’s after nine o’clock,” he said. “The library’s closed.” He scanned the room as if to make sure, then added, “Everyone else is gone.”

Then it struck her. Nine o’clock! She was supposed to meet Han at eight. On Bridge Street. Madly, she scraped her papers and books together, stuffing them into her carry bag. Would he have waited? Would he have come at all?

The click of the door latch made her look up. The cadet had stepped inside and shut and locked the door.

On second glance, he didn’t look so cadetlike. Maybe it was his ill-fitting uniform and the fact that he was older than most of Raisa’s classmates. Perhaps it was his flat black eyes and the way his nervousness dropped away like a cloak he wore against the weather.

Maybe it was the way he moved toward her, like a predator.

“Thank you for waking me, Corporal,” Raisa said, her heart thudding under her jacket. “What’s your name?”

“My name’s Rivers,” he said. “Corporal Rivers.” He circled around the table toward her, seeming unaware of the fact that he was wearing a cadet scarf. Not a corporal’s.

Wolves slunk along the walls, whining uneasily.

When Rivers got within range, Raisa snatched up her jar of blotting sand and flung it into his face.

He was quick. He nearly managed to dodge out of the way, but some of it went into his eyes. He scrubbed at them with the heels of his hands, and that’s when she saw the garrotte dangling from one fist. Grabbing up the study lamp from the desk, Raisa smashed it into the side of his head and ran for the door.

Somehow, he was on top of her before she could get it open.

Grabbing a fistful of her hair, he yanked her head back, looping the strangle cord around her neck. As he pulled back to tighten it, Raisa slid her hand between the garrotte and her windpipe—another trick from Amon Byrne—braced her feet against the door, and launched herself backward, smashing her head into the assassin’s chin with an audible crack.

The assassin’s head struck the edge of the table, and they both went down on their backs, Raisa on top. Raisa ripped away the strangle cord, rolling to her feet and groping for her dagger.

But Rivers lay still, his head at an impossible angle.

Raisa turned and fumbled at the latch, her hands shaking so hard she could scarcely manage it. Finally, she yanked the door open and ran straight into Micah Bayar.

He closed his arms tight around her, pinning her arms to her sides. Lifting her, he carried her back into the room, turning her so she was pressed up against him, her back to his front.

She fought for her life, screaming and kicking and squirming and flinging out her elbows, employing all the street-fighting skills Amon had taught her. Micah held her in such a way that it was difficult to gain leverage enough to do any real damage. She smashed her heel into his kneecap, and his breath hissed out in pain, but he didn’t loosen his hold. Instead he smacked her knife hand against the wall until she dropped the blade. He kicked it away, and it pinged as it hit the wall. She tried to memorize its location, in case she had the chance to get it back.

Power trickled into her, a current that ran down her arm and into Elena’s talisman ring. A fraction of Micah’s usual output.

“Is that the best you can do?” Raisa said, still struggling to free her arms. “Magically impotent today, are we?”

Unexpectedly, Micah laughed. “I am a bit drained at the moment, I will admit,” he said. “I have missed you,” he murmured, pressing her close, his lips against her hair. “Truly. And to think you were right here, all along. What a wasted opportunity for clandestine trysts away from that wretched nurse of yours.”

“I haven’t missed you,” she retorted. “Go away, and I’ll let you know when I do. If I don’t cut my throat instead.”

“We need to talk,” Micah said. “I could stand here holding you, which I am thoroughly enjoying, but it is difficult to talk to the back of your head. I would prefer to look at your face. If I let go of you, can we have a civil conversation without my risking the fate of the unfortunate on the floor?”

Well. If they were going to talk, Raisa wanted to be able to read Micah’s face, too, and try to discern what lay behind the words.

“All right,” she said. “I promise to hear you out.”

Micah loosened his hold and took a step back. When she turned to face him, he looked her up and down, taking in her soldier’s tunic, her shaggy cap of hair, the Wien House emblem embroidered on the front. “You are transformed, Your Highness,” he said. “Are you really at Wien House?”

“I’m in a special program for royalty in exile,” Raisa said. “For princesses who refuse to marry at swordpoint. We’re learning to fight off unwanted suitors.”

“There were no swords in evidence, as I recall,” Micah said. He paused for a heartbeat. “My father was most displeased with me when I let you slip away on what was to be our wedding night. I wish you could have been there to share it.”

“Your father’s displeasure, or our wedding night?” Raisa said.

Micah laughed again. “Both. It has been a less interesting world without you.”

Micah looked different from the last time she’d seen him. His hair was shorter, cropped into a student cut. His face seemed thinner, as if he’d lost weight, though it was hard to tell under the cloak. But he was as breathtakingly handsome as ever, his dark eyes shaded by his black brows, shadows layering the fine bone structure of his face.

He also looked scuffed up and bruised, as if he’d recently been in a fight.

Micah glanced down at the man on the floor. “Brava, Your Highness,” he said. “He’s really very good.” He drew off his leather gloves and slapped them thoughtfully against his palm. He was trying to radiate confidence, but his hands shook a little.

“Well, he can’t be that good,” Raisa said, trying to sound offhand. Trying to control her own shakes.

“On the contrary, he is. He just underestimated you. We all did. We’ve been looking for you for months. I should have known you’d be down here with Corporal Byrne. And that your copperhead father was in on the conspiracy.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Raisa said. Damn, damn, damn, she thought. The Bayars would welcome an opportunity to be rid of the Byrnes and Lord Averill, to remove those voices from the queen’s ear.

“We thought it peculiar when a cadet from Oden’s Ford visited Lord Demonai, and Demonai went to the queen,” Micah said. “So when the girl left, we thought it worthwhile to have her followed. She came straight back here, to Grindell Hall. With a focus that narrow, it didn’t take long to pick you out.”

“And so you sent an assassin after me,” Raisa said.

“Four, actually,” Micah said. “The other three were waiting downstairs while Rivers came in to find you. They were puzzled that you didn’t come out when the library closed.”

“Why kill me?” Raisa asked, figuring she might as well know before she died. “Was it because I jilted you at the altar, or —”

“Well,” Micah said, “we Bayars are very sensitive about being jilted, after that episode with Queen Hanalea. But my father also worries about your rebellious nature and your close connection to the clans. You even look like a mixed-blood.”

“I am a mixed-blood,” Raisa said, lifting her chin.

“Mellony is also, but she doesn’t look like a copperhead. She looks like her mother. So my father has set his sights on her. He would like to see a more malleable queen on the throne. He has been unsuccessful in persuading the queen to disinherit you, and needs to get you out of the way so his plans to marry me to Mellony can proceed.” Micah said all of this matter-of-factly, his black eyes fixed on her face.

Raisa stared at Micah, her stomach clenching into a miserable ball. It was a good thing she’d missed supper, because she would have lost it right then.

She felt impotent, utterly frustrated—and frightened. As the Montaignes had amply proven, nobody was more at risk than someone who competes for a throne—and loses. The Bayars would cut her throat or strangle her and leave her in some back alley—the apparent victim of a street thief. Too bad rebellious Raisa had left the protection of Fellsmarch and got herself killed.

“Mellony is thirteen,” Raisa said. “I hope you have experience babysitting, Micah, because you’re going to need it. Assuming the Demonai don’t assassinate you first. Married at thirteen, widowed at fourteen. Poor Mellony.”

Angry tears stung her eyes. “Even if you survive, you’ll be ruling over a country torn apart by civil war. The Fells will become the Arden of the north. You’ll never win against the clans in the mountains, I’ll tell you that right now.”

She extended her hand toward Micah and spat out a curse worthy of any of her clan ancestors. “By Hanalea’s blood and bones, if you marry Mellony ana’Marianna and mount the Gray Wolf throne, may you be fighting for the rest of your short and miserable life. And may Mellony’s babies be copperheads, every one.”

Micah blinked at her, stunned to silence. His gaze dropped to her extended hand, and his eyes widened. Seizing hold of her hand, he dragged her into the pool of light spilling from the sconce on the wall. He nudged Elena’s wolf ring with his forefinger, turning her hand so it caught the light.

“Where did you get this?” he asked.

Raisa shrugged, pretending indifference, though her heart was pounding. “I think it was a suitor gift. For my name day.”

“It looks like clanwork,” he said, frowning.

“Most of my jewelry is clan made,” Raisa said, trying unsuccessfully to pull her hand free. “That’s no surprise. They are the best metalsmiths in the Seven Realms.”

Micah tugged at the wolf ring experimentally, then with more force. It did not budge.

“Take it off,” he said, thrusting her hand back toward her.

“Have you turned robber as well as murderer?” Raisa asked. “The Bayars aren’t rich enough as it is?”

“That ring looks like a talisman,” Micah said. “It might account for your resistance to wizardry.”

“It’s just a ring,” Raisa said, tugging at it herself. Even if she’d been trying hard, which she wasn’t, it wasn’t going anywhere. “And it seems to be stuck. So unless you want to chop my finger off, you’ll have to let it be.”

“All right,” Micah said, raising both hands. “We’ll let it be. For now.”

“Why are you here, anyway?” Raisa asked. “Did you want to dip your hands in my blood and curse me for the crime of refusing to marry you? Did you want to see if your assassin did the job right, or join in?”

Micah nudged the dead man on the floor with his foot. “To be precise, he’s my father’s assassin,” he said. “Not mine.”

Raisa stared at him, speechless.

“I came to offer you a choice,” Micah said, turning the ring on his own finger. “I can take you downstairs and deliver you to the assassins waiting outside,” he said. “Or you can return to the Fells and marry me.”

Raisa collapsed into an armchair. “What?”

Micah smiled thinly. “I think you are exactly right. The copperheads will have no doubt who is responsible for your murder. Even if you are dead, naming Mellony princess heir and marrying her to me will cause a firestorm of protest. The clans will rise in rebellion. It would cast a pall over our reign and any children we would have.”