CHAPTER SIX

Imogen couldn’t help but gawk. Her attacker was the effigy's living twin, only far more painful to behold. The terrible beauty, trapped in marble, was no artist trick but a true reflection of the man standing before her, his malevolence increased tenfold by a piercing gaze that pinned her in place.

Flaxen hair fell past wide shoulders and framed a stern, pallid face. Clad in an indigo tunic and trousers overlaid by a tarnished chainmail hauberk, pauldrons and vambraces, he was heavily armed and armored. A short sword and hand axe were strapped at his narrow waist, and he casually cradled the hook-back glaive whose blade had lightly kissed her neck. Judging by the manner of his dress, he’d not come to talk but to do battle.

Imogen wanted to bow beneath the weight of his scrutiny. He may not be her king, but he was still a king if his resemblance to the effigy was anything to judge by. And not only the king but one possessing the title of The Butcher.

Her back teeth clacked together in a rising chatter as he shifted his stance, and those peculiar eyes narrowed even more. So light a blue they almost faded into the surrounding whites, his eyes reminded her of the blind Blessed—those whose milky gaze saw into the past and the future but never what was before them. Unlike them, Cededa took in the here and now with a predatory gaze. He was as strange and beautifully eerie as the city he guarded. And just as extraordinary. If he’d been human once, he wasn’t now.

Had she not watched him as closely as he watched her, she might have missed the brief softening in his features at her mention of Niamh. That softness vanished almost as soon as it appeared, and his mouth stretched into a sneer masquerading as a smile.

One eyebrow rose, and those eyes skimmed her, doubt lurking in the blue ice irises. Imogen knew she fell short in comparison to her mother. Neither tall nor curved in the ways that tempted a man, she didn’t possess Niamh’s natural vibrancy or sorcerous abilities. Any who met her mother and then her daughter would conclude that the younger was but a weak shadow of the elder.

“Where is your mother now?” he asked.

The grief resting heavy in her heart since Niamh’s passing swelled. Imogen blinked away threatening tears. “She died.”

The sneer faded, and his stern features gentled. “I’ve lived a long time and amassed countless regrets. I truly regret your loss. Your mother was an exceptional woman. The world is poorer without her.”

Stunned by the unexpected sympathy, Imogen squeaked out a “Thank you.” She glanced down at the effigy and then again at the living king. The malice was still there, and the cruelty—stamped into the set of his mouth and the corners of his eyes. She didn’t doubt he’d earned his ghastly title, but in that moment Cededa of Tineroth seemed almost human in his obvious admiration of Niamh.