Page 57 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers
The High King’s watery eyes move over the rest of us. With a single finger, he points to the raven-haired noble daughter standing next to where Caitria’s body lies slumped in the slowing spread of her own blood.
Oona.
Hope skitters between my ribs.
The Lady of Shadows is in this crowd, probably no more than a few feet behind any of us—maybe Oona will be her next target.
Slowly, tauntingly—as though she wants to be seen, to be admired—Oona lifts the fine black-and-crimson silks of her skirts, drawing the hem up her ankle, then up the curve of her long leg. A thin length of leather wraps around her thigh, and with eyes flashing to Prince Cashel, she reaches one hand up to draw out the four razor-thin knives lying flat against her sheath.
I risk a glance up to where the prince stands.
Arms crossed, he looks just as bored as ever.
Without a word, Oona tosses the thin blades up, and they slice menacingly, terrifyingly through the air, sparking in the flickering glow of candlelight. Each of the knives flies between her hands as easily as a market trickster might juggle apples, higher and higher with every toss, until there’s nothing but a blur of steel and shadows.
Drop them,I whisper silently to whatever ghosts of the Old Ones might still linger.
As if she can hear my thoughts, Oona steps back—and lets the knives fall to the ground.
A chorus of gasps.
My gaze snaps to the dais, bracing for the swish of a dark cloak that will bring that dagger at Oona’s throat.
But there’s no hiss of steel, no sudden cry of pain. Only murmurs… of awe?
I force my eyes back to Oona—and to where all four knives stick embedded in barely visible cracks between the marble tiles.
Exactly where Oona had stood a second ago.
A shrill cackle erupts from the High King, followed by applause from the High Queen. The prince offers a quick, tight nod to Oona.
My hand finds Talon’s, and relief unfurls to feel that they’re shaking too.
Oona steps back into the line, and two other noble daughters follow in the test.
In a flash of wild red curls, one of the noble daughters—Aisling, I think—flips a courtier twice her size over her knee, pinning him to the ground and driving a knife toward the hollow of his neck, only to stop a hair’s width from his ruddy flesh. Applause follows, but the man glares at her, an unmistakable dark stain spreading down the front of his pale blue leggings.
Another—Neve—with a narrow nose and tightly pursed lips, steps out of the line, striding for one of the grand vases of white roses.
A darkness stirs at the far edge of the crowd—the Lady of Shadows, finding her mark?
My throat goes dry. But the noble daughter draws eager laughs and an approving nod from the High Queen when she weaves each of the white roses into a crown and places it on her own head with a deep curtsy to the dais.
Eavan of Antrim is next.
She sings with a voice as rich as sweet cream, and for a single,haunting moment, the melody of the sound reminds me so much of my mother’s lullaby that tears inexplicably prick my eyes.
The words, though—they’re all wrong.
This is a song about the glory of the Crown. About the first High King, Berach the Cunning, and his heir, Fachtna the Unwise. About how they crushed the Old Ones.
My mother never would’ve sung me to sleep with this ballad of blood.
The High King picks at the tip of his bloodstained fingers, muttering.
At his side, the prince stiffens as his navy eyes jump to mine.
Then his father turns and points directly at me.
