Return to Shanhasson Read Free

him, but she’d placed him on her Council
for a reason.
    She never forgot a favor or a gesture of
good faith. That trust had been ill placed in King Challon. Hopefully Benton
was more worthy of her trust.
    She reached up to remove the gold crown
from her head and placed it on the gleaming mahogany table before her.
Intricately carved roses wound about the crown with long spiked thorns sharp
enough to make her scalp bleed if she didn’t place the crown carefully.
    Silence deepened in the room. The nobles
stared at the symbol of her right to rule this land as if it were the deadliest
serpent.
    Keeping her voice low, soft, and
pleasant, she said, “Would any of you like to wear this crown?”
    Royce made a small sound very much like
a whimper, Benton blanched, averting his gaze and shaking his head so hard he
lost his quizzing glass, while Phillip turned green as though he might vomit
beneath the table.
    “It’s very heavy,” she continued,
keeping her manner casual. “Every day that I’m here in Shanhasson, I hesitate
before putting it on my head. You see, when I’m here so very close to the Great
Seal, He stirs.”
    She didn’t mention His name, but every
Green Lander in the room shuddered and muttered a quick prayer to Our Blessed
Lady.
    Lygon, the Blackest Heart of Darkness,
had walked her Dreams for years, trying night after night to lure her into
Shadow. She didn’t try to hide the quiver in her voice or the dread thickening
her voice.
    Dharman pressed fully against her back
and dropped both hands to her shoulders. He held her against him, the heat of
his body solid and protective.
    “He knows when I’m here and strains
harder to break free of His prison. Each day the chains weaken and thin. Each
year, He touches the world easier. Someday He will stretch out his hand…” She
met King Challon’s light blue gaze, so similar to his dead nephew’s eyes. “…And
simply throttle us all.”
    “Not unless you die, Your Majesty,” King
Challon replied, thoroughly unruffled by her grim prediction. “As long as you
live, your blood bars Him away from Our Blessed Lady’s Green and Beautiful
Lands.”
    Somehow, she thought he meant those
words as a curse instead of a blessing. “So why are there so many attempts on
my life each time I return to Shanhasson?”
    None of them dared answer. Even King
Challon broke and glanced down, avoiding the question. Someone in this room
wanted her dead very badly.
    Perhaps all of them.
    :You
know that is far from the truth.: Sal touched her again,
deliberately nudging her thigh harder, a playful attempt to distract her from
such grim thoughts. :I want something
very badly, and I assure you, Khul’lanna, it is not your death.:
    Heat crept across her cheeks, but she
carefully kept her gaze up instead of looking down at the young man rubbing
himself against her side. At least most of what he did was hidden beneath the
table so her Council didn’t know.
    “Enough.” Directed at Sal, the word came
out harsher than she intended. King Challon’s gaze jerked back to her face,
narrowed in consideration. If a sharper tone got her Council’s attention, all
the better. “Am I High Queen? Do you want my protection against Lygon’s
foulness, or shall I allow His Shadow to taint you all until Our Lady’s Green
Lands are destroyed utterly?”
    They hesitated. They actually had to
think about it.
    She was losing them. Inch by inch, day
by day, her Council plotted more openly against her. She lost another acre of
her country to Shadow. She couldn’t be here every single day. Lady help her,
the few days she managed to travel such distance from the Plains was already
difficult enough. She and Rhaekhar both had extensive responsibilities to the
Nine Camps of the Sha’Kae al’Dan. At least they treated her with some amount of
respect.
    Most
of them , she amended. Even after three years, not all of
her husband’s people welcomed an outlander in their midst.
    I’m
losing , she thought