Of Quest and Triumph: Court of Bones and Ash, Volume 3 by Harper Layla

Author:Harper, Layla
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Alura Press, LLC
Published: 2023-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 3

Victoria

“So, who are you, anyway?” I gesture to Dorata’s splashy getup and snort derisively. “The vrou king’s concubine?”

“There is no vrou king. Eimyrja has yet to take a consort.” Thora’s daughter gives me a wicked smile that wakes the flood of prickles at my neck. “Perhaps that will soon change.”

“I feel sorry for whoever fills that role.” My step falters. Wait a minute. She’s not suggesting Khao, is she?

“Say what you will about human fragility,” Dorata quips over her shoulder, “your mind is sharp. You could have been an asset to our court, Victoria, were you not so biased against us.”

“I—”

Eimyrja wants Khao.

We enter a narrow, musty-scented corridor with jagged rock walls glistening with moisture. I place one shaky foot in front of the other, my mind stuttering, caught on a single thought like a stuck gear.

The vrou queen wants Khao.

My Khao.

Was this Eimyrja’s plan all along? Or did she set out after Myrkur’s remains and Khao was the icing on what should have been an impossible feat?

“Come along,” Dorata says. “We are nearly there.”

An aged wooden door looms ahead.

My guard, a scarred vrou with shaved hair and tattoos stamped into the sides of his gray scalp, proceeds ahead and opens it with a hard yank.

A narrow stone staircase slightly wider than him leads into a darkened stairwell. Glowing stones, like the one Khao had given me the night we’d found the brownie’s decaying body—the night we’d walked into Eimyrja’s trap—are embedded into the rock along the edges of each step.

Dorata takes the lead, and I follow behind. The second vrou guard is at my back, joined by a third. Thora is restrained between them, wrists shackled, and unlike me, the guards take no chances, sharp blades raised to her neck on each side.

The staircase is an endless nightmare, tight and curved and desperate. How on freaking Earth will Tauriel find me if I’m three or four stories beneath a mountain made of solid rock with Khao probably in the vrou queen’s chamber?

Negotiating.

Instantly, my brain spawns an image of a beautiful vrou woman locked in his arms, and a surge of jealousy twists the knot in my throat when I think about him sharing firsts with anyone but me.

When I’d heard mention of a proposition, I’d thought…

I don’t know what I’d thought. That he’d broker some kind of deal? Maybe trade court secrets to buy us time until Tauriel and her forces could arrive?

Never in a million years did I think negotiating meant joining Eimyrja’s court as her consort.

As her king.

But even in this, Khao gets the raw end of the deal. Hulemork is his legacy. His kingdom. He’s the last vrou heir, not some queen no one knew anything about. He shouldn’t have to negotiate his place, or iron out a deal.

A deal he’ll work to save the people he protects because Khao is the most loyal person I know. He won’t betray Rogar, his king. His friend. He won’t.

And he won’t endanger me.

This knowledge eases some of the fire in my throat.

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