and crawled deeper into the cornfield, burrowing as he’d burrowed in the straw, hiding.
JAUMÉ STAYED IN the cornfield until night fell, then he scrambled back over the stone wall. The village was burning. Flames leapt from the thatched roofs. Figures moved, silhouetted against the blazing houses. He heard yelps of laughter, like something from an animal’s throat.
He ran away from Girond, barefoot and quiet, on the very edge of the road, pressed against the forest, heading west. Thirst burned in his throat, in his chest. The creek flowed on the other side of the road, but he dared not drink, dared not even get close to it.
Those who drink the water shall thirst for blood. They shall be as wild beasts.
The tales he’d heard all his life were true. The curse was real, and if he drank from the creek it would take him too.
CHAPTER TWO
THE DIPLOMATIC SEAL had brought them this far: into Osgaard’s marble palace with an escort of armed guards, along echoing corridors where nobles stared openly and bondservants wearing the iron armbands of slavery cast cringing glances at them, into the throne room to stand before the king and his heir.
King Esger sat on his throne like a bull, thick-necked and massive with fat. Prince Jaegar sat beside him, bullish too. Both men had ash-blond hair and silver-gray eyes. Their expressions matched their coloring: cold.
Dareus had said they would walk out of the palace, that there’d be no need for bloodshed—but Innis knew he was wrong. The king’s pale eyes, flat with hostility, told her that. Like everyone in the Seven Kingdoms he saw them as monsters, abominations from across the sea.
He wants us dead.
King Esger and his heir wore golden crowns. The crowns didn’t rest on their heads; they were bound there, woven in place by their own long hair. Innis averted her gaze. The crowns seemed to grow from the king’s head, from his son’s, like misshapen antlers.
Guards flanked the throne, standing to attention. Their uniforms were gaudy—gold breastplates over scarlet tunics, loops of gold braiding—but the men were fighters, their arms corded with muscle. Sharp-edged swords hung at their sides.
Curse shadows shrouded the guards, a promise of coming death. The shadows lay on her, too, now that she’d set foot in the Seven Kingdoms. Innis saw them clearly—as if a veil of black cobwebs had been thrown over each person in the throne room—but the guards couldn’t see them. They stared ahead, stony-faced. She’d caught one looking sideways at her as they’d walked through the corridors, the ceilings resonating with the sound of booted feet. The expression on his face had been easy to read: fear, revulsion.
Innis counted the exits silently: the wide double doors at the far end and the smaller doors on either side of the room, all decorated with gold leaf.
Six doors and a score of guards. And four of us.
Only the silver disk around Dareus’s neck, stamped with the seals of kings half a world away, kept King Esger from ordering them dead. It seemed insubstantial protection, as puny as a child’s wooden shield against a battle-axe.
Tapestries stitched with gold thread hung on the walls. Between them, gilded mirrors were suspended, so tall they reached nearly to the ceiling. Innis saw herself in one, elongated and twisted slightly to the right. Beside her were Cora and Petrus, and one pace in front, Dareus. The mirror didn’t show the magic that was buried deep within them, the fire inside Dareus and Cora, the animal forms within Petrus and herself—lion, wolf, hawk.
They stood silently, waiting. Innis tried to be still, tried to not shift her weight, but it was unnerving to be surrounded by so much hatred. They’d behead us if they could, dismember us, burn us. Her heart beat too fast. Magic was a low hum beneath her skin. She wanted to grab hold of it, to change her body into something less vulnerable.
Footsteps echoed in the throne room. A young man dressed in brown with a royal’s long hair entered, and one pace behind him, a guard in scarlet and gold wearing the silver torque of a personal armsman.
Her nervousness intensified. This is it. Don’t make a mistake.
For a brief moment she heard the voices in her head again, the councilors debating: She’s too young to be a Sentinel. Her inexperience will jeopardize the mission. Innis pushed the voices aside. She drew a deep breath and measured the distance to the nearest guard, preparing herself for what might come.