Even so, she stopped her horse, swung off and pulled a pebble out of the pouch at her belt, just to make sure she was on the right track.

She threw it and watched it skitter down the narrow, not-oft traveled road through a thick forest. The road where she’d been traveling for some hours now.

But her eyes narrowed beyond it.

Was that…?

She stared.

It couldn’t be.

She clicked her tongue to tell her horse, Fortune, to follow her. She put one hand to the hilt of the dagger on her belt and opened her senses before she moved forward slowly.

Very slowly.

The glow in front of her did not get stronger, but it also did not waver.

A healthy, fit being would glow much brighter should she send a seeking pebble in its direction anywhere near it.

She could not be twenty meters away, but that glow was barely lit.

And it couldn’t be anyone else.

No one.

But G’Seph.

That kind of glow could only mean…

She began to move more swiftly, staying alert and aware of her surroundings, both through her actual senses, as well as her magical ones.

She felt nothing.

Except the life force coming from the direction of that glow.

He was hurt.

Badly.

Perhaps even dying.

And he’d been left in this wood.

Who would do such a thing?

Melisse got closer.

And closer.

He was lying in the leaves, a thin blanket pulled over him, held tight to his chest by his arms.

“G’Seph?” she called softly, feeling Fortune shift uncomfortably at her back. “G’Seph?” she asked more firmly when he did not answer.

She cast a spell to light the area about him and gasped.

Her horse whinnied and shifted again.

“Good goddess, what happened to your hands?” she whispered, reaching out to him, staring at the bloody stumps expertly bound where his hands should have been.

When he didn’t answer, just seemed to be attempting to slide away from her, she lifted her gaze to his face.

He smiled, and it was grotesque.

Fortune neighed, and Melisse sensed her steed starting to rear.

It was then the warning her Dellish sister Rebecca gave her—a warning in all that was happening she had not remembered—came to the forefront of her mind.

Unfortunately, it did this right before the pain exploded at the back of her head.

67

The Confrontation

Queen Mercy

Grand Corridor, Second Floor, Birchlire Castle, Notting Thicket

WODELL

“Queen Mercy!”

Mercy pretended not to hear him and kept moving.

“Your Grace, Queen Mercy! One moment!” Carrington called.

She carried on walking, not rapidly, but decisively away from him.

“My queen!” he snapped loudly, much closer, as if he were running, and she sadly could no longer pretend her thoughts were elsewhere and she hadn’t heard him.

Therefore, with resignation, she turned, pretended to look surprised and remarked, “Why, Carrington.”