Page 75 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers
I break her hold with a quick pivot and a silent slash of my right hand.
Without hesitating, I hold the long blade toward her and risk a glance back over my shoulder to where Neve steps out of the path and into the pool of flickering light cast by the castle’s torches. She wears no blades on her—none I can see, at least—but in the bright glow of the torches, a glint of thread-thin wire flashes in a coil around her wrist.
My stomach twists. In the darkness, with only the moonlight, I hadn’t seen it.
“That’s a necklace of thorns.”
Aoife’s voice sharpens on the last word.
Shit.
“You know what they do, right?” Her blue eyes narrow in a way that reminds me of her cousin—the prince.
“Of course I do.”
I just haven’t seen one until now.
The Cymrean version of a garotte, only… worse.
Under pressure and a jerk at just the right angle, the thread-thin steel splinters along almost invisible lines. Normally, the thorns lie flat against the thread of metal. They’re impossible to see—until they tighten around your throat and pierce into your flesh.
A necklace of thorns will rip your jugular to shreds with one precise twist by the attacker.
Finn’s been trying to source them for our stall for a year, without luck. Cymrea bans the export, and no one else knows how to get the thorns to lie right.
So, Neve does have ties to the High Queen’s people. This proves it.
And Aoife… I swallow hard. Aoife probably just saved my life. Still, suspicion grates at me beneath the gratitude. “You followed me?”
Her sandy hair flutters as a cool breeze skitters.
“Yes,” she admits, fingers worrying the worn hem of her purplecloak.
“Why?” There’s a creeping feeling that comes with realizing she didn’t make a single sound as she must’ve followed me out of the castle. I never sensed a thing.
“I was in the garden when you came back this morning. I saw you pacing. You seemed…” She frowns. “Restless. Given those girls already tried to kill you twice, I figured we probably shouldn’t give them a third opportunity.”
My palm slicks around the hilt of the blade. “Are you going to tell anyone?”
Even if it’s allowed, I doubt the High Queen would take kindly to a peasant trying to kill one of her favorites, if that’s what Neve is.
Aoife holds my hard stare with one of her own. “Why would I do that?”
“Don’t nobles stick together?”
“Maybe.” Aoife shrugs, but there’s a bitterness behind the pain flashing across her pale face. “But none of those girls ever stuck with me.”
I remember the whispers.
The sharp, narrowed eyes of every noble in that room before the first test. I remember the eyes like needles in the baths—andhow they weren’t just aimed atme. Every hiss, every viperous sneer: They were aimed at Aoife, too.
The clang and clash of weapons from the training yard twists with sharp laughter, and the kind of hiss that leaves no doubt one of the noble daughters just drew blood.
Aoife takes a step past me, nodding toward the castle.
“Still.” I arch one brow, following her. “Why keep a secret for a peasant?”
In the dim glow of the castle lanterns, I can’t make her out clearly, but I hear the seam of pain threading through her answer.
