There was anxiety and confusion in the girl’s eyes, but someone must have taught her that lying was worse than showing fear because she answered affirmatively. “Y-yes.”
Lannahi left the table and faced Gannar who was on all fours. Blood dribbled from her nose and her hands trembled, but the red marks smeared on the floor meant that she’d been unable to overcome the enchantment. A vengeful part of Lannahi urged her to tell the stewardess to stay on her knees until morning, but reason dictated that doing so would only sharpen the blade that could one day stab her in the back.
“Dallal,” she turned to the enchanter. “Please undo your enchantments. I think ourallieshave had enough amusement for today.” She examined his bloody shirt and added, “Please remember those who gave you trouble earlier.”
The enchanter bowed and Lannahi responded with a curt nod. They wouldn’t have survived without him, but though she was grateful to him, the man also disturbed her. The ease with which he forced his will on others too much reminded her of Nihhal.
Lannahi started toward the door. The bump on her temple must be worse than she thought because her friends looked at it with concern before meeting her eyes.
Stopping in front of Akammu, she smiled and inclined her head. “Akammu, release your colleagues. We don’t want them to reproach you later, do we?”
“Right,” he began, relaxing slightly, but abruptly tensed as his attention was drawn over her shoulder.
Hearing a groan of pain, Lannahi turned around so quickly that she saw spots and had to force down the nausea clawing at her throat. She blinked, then found Blann, whose hair had now a color of deep black, crouching before Eshshar. His face was tight with pain and his hands covered his crotch.
“If you ever come within two swords of me, I will dig into you such a thorn that for the rest of your life you will cry every time you go to the waterchamber,” the green-tongued said. Small pits dotted her right hand where a cluster of thorns used to be.
The enchanters stared at her with no less astonishment than the landshapers, but Blann moved toward them without hesitation. When she stopped in front of Lannahi, however, her defiance evaporated as suddenly as her hair turned red, and she asked as if this was the only thing that had occupied her thoughts all along, “We will dine in your chamber, right?”
Chapter 17
Lannahi sent Erril to escort Blann and Souhi to the kitchen and headed to her chamber herself, accompanied by Esau and Akammu. They all clutched knives in their hands. Lannahi didn’t believe that Lizaar had prepared more than two traps, but remembering the role of Gannar, Eshshar, and Nuur in the first one, she preferred to remain cautious. She didn’t know what orders the rest of the palace’s residents had received so when she saw Ashared with a sword in his hand climbing the stairs connecting this floor with the underground part of the palace, she stopped, suspecting the worst. A long moment passed before she realized that no one was following him, and he was staring at them with surprise rather than hostile intent.
Sensing the tension in her companions, Lannahi moved slowly forward, but the closer she got to the stairs, the more certain she was. The man ran his gaze over the bump on her temple, her uneven, disheveled hair, and the knife in her hand and was utterly shocked. She noticed the drops of sweat on his brow and the fact that he wasn’t wearing a uniform but loose clothes and realized that he must have been practicing in the training room. He hadn’t known about Lizaar’s plan.
Suddenly, Lannahi felt exposed under his scrutiny. In the dining room, she didn’t care much about her appearance because everyone who was present had suffered humiliation in one way or another, but now, with the strong, proud, handsome man in front of her, she felt the urge to smooth her hair and hide her injured head.
Then Ashared noticed the tight expressions and stances of her guards and his grip on his sword tightened. Her embarrassment was crushed by a boulder of hard anger.
“What is it, captain?” she asked coolly, stopping at a safe distance. “Do you wish to issue a demand as well? Or do you intend to tell me more lies?”
The man’s confusion grew, but if he cared about his reputation, he had to respond to the insult. “I have never lied to you, Lannahi.”
Accustomed to him addressing her politely with her title, the emotion vibrating in his voice and the sound of her name coming from his lips surprised her to the point she couldn’t hide it.
“Your Highness,” Ashared corrected himself belatedly.
Lannahi collected herself. “‘As long as you are here, the Palace Guard will protect you,’” she quoted. “Didn’t you say those words the day I came here?”
“That’s what I said,” he admitted after a moment, though his expression was wary. He had begun to suspect the reason why Lannahi was in such a disheveled state.
“So how do you explain that your deputy and eleven other guardsmen attacked me and my personal guards?”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. His face paled, and his free hand, which he kept casually lowered alongside his body, clenched into a fist. She knew he couldn’t answer her. He didn’t know it had happened.
“It is possible that it was my mistake, though,” Lannahi continued. “Since you claim that you’d never lied to me, I must have misunderstood your words. I thought the protection you offered me applied to all dangers, but now I recall that we were speaking about the hostile shapeshifters living in these forests. The protection you had in mind referred only to them, was that it?”
Ashared looked at her with growing frustration. “What happened?” he asked, apparently having enough of their verbal joust.
For some reason, his ignorance annoyed her even more. “Ask your beloved Lizaar, whom youusuallydefend so bravely. I’m sure she will be happy to tell you what you have missed.”
He clenched his jaw. She knew her words had hit a tender spot. For a moment, she felt foolish, but she stifled her embarrassment and with her chin raised, she moved toward the stairs leading up to her chambers.
The guardsmen on the first floor seemed less surprised than Ashared and more suspicious, and Lannahi ordered her guards to stand watch at her door until the rest arrived. She used that time to put herself to rights. She brushed her hair and smeared ointment on the swelling on her forehead and the raw marks on her wrists left behind by the rough cord.
She lived. She had won. That was all that mattered.
During dinner, the mood was bleak. Dallal ensured that his enchantments hadn’t driven any landshapers insane and replaced Esau and Akammu on guard duty, claiming that he wasn’t hungry. Seeing his bloody shirt, Lannahi didn’t have much of an appetite either, but she forced herself to eat for Blann’s sake, who tried to chase away an awkward silence with a detailed explanation about the ingredients that went into the hair growth shampoo. Souhi retreated into herself, digesting her humiliation. Esau and Erril seemed self-conscious, probably thinking that it’d been the second time they’d failed as guards. Sensitive to the moods of others, Akammu remained silent, pretending everything was fine.
