Imogen gasped and took an involuntary step back, signing a protective ward with a gloved hand. The marble visage held an unearthly beauty. Either this king had been blessed with looks that made stars weep with envy, or the sculptor had chiseled the face of a god on a man. No one feature stood out. All came together in perfect synchronicity—finely carved cheekbones, a sharp jaw and long aristocratic nose, a sensual mouth set in sleep. The closed eyes were tilted at the outer corners, and a marble crown bound hair that fell across wide shoulders.

These things didn’t make her recoil. For all that divine beauty, there was a cruelty as well. If the sculptor had been unduly kind in carving features so exquisite, he’d also been unduly harsh in capturing a malice that ran deep and corrupted the very stone into which it was carved.

She turned away, unable to look any longer at the king’s profane beauty. Instead, she focused her gaze on the arcane inscriptions chiseled on the side of the catafalque. Like those of the statue on the bridge, they were written in a language she’d not studied under Niamh and doubted existed any longer outside Tineroth.

“My gods, Mother,” she murmured. “What is this cursed place?”

The sudden icy splash of fear against her spine was her only warning of attack before the cold kiss of metal touched her. She froze in a half-crouch, her eyes nearly crossed as she looked down at her warped reflection in the flat of an ax blade. Its razor edge rested steady against her throat, promising a quick and bloody end if she so much as breathed the wrong way.

To her left, a voice—male, soft with an icy humor—spoke. “I think the more important question is: who are you?”

CHAPTER FIVE

Cededa had not expected this—a lone woman wrapped as if she was prepared for burial, striding confidently across the Yinde Bridge to enter Tineroth’s boundaries. The mercenaries and thieves who periodically invaded the ancient city to steal her treasures tended to travel in packs as large as sixty but never less than ten and never alone.

He held the blade of his glaive against her graceful throat, noting the familiar markings of a Tineroth key scarred into her neck. Well, well, this was telling.

She didn’t answer his question, her gaze locked on his blade, her body bent and still as the effigy she faced. Only the shallow rise and fall of her chest betrayed her terror. Cededa admired her composure in the face of her fear. He eased the blade’s sharp edge a fraction away from her skin.

“I’m no longer in the habit of cutting a throat until I’ve had an answer, so you’re safe to speak. Who are you?” he repeated.

Her throat worked in a convulsive swallow. “Imogen,” she said in a shaking voice. “I seek the help of the Undying King, Cededa the Fair.”