The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and..

“You’re wrong. I stopped,” I said. “Would any of them
have stopped? Would your Queen?”
She said nothing.
“I have no desire to kill innocents. I want to help the
people of Solis—free them from the Blood Crown. That is
what we wanted to do,” I told her. “But they killed my
brother and took the one person who means the world to
me. I will do anything to get him back. No matter how badly
it stains my soul.”
“Then you know how to get him back,” she snapped.
“Submit to her and take Atlantia in her name.”
I shook my head.
“So, you won’t do anything for him, then?”
“Because once she has what she wants, she will kill
him,” I said. “She will kill me.”
“Then I guess you’re screwed.”
“No. Because I won’t let either of those two things
happen,” I said. “I’m going to give her what she wants, but
not in the way she thinks.”
Curiosity flickered through the Handmaiden, but then
her attention shifted just the slightest to my shoulder.
“Poppy,” Kieran called quietly as several archers on the
Rise scrambled into their nests.
Her chest rose with a shallow breath. “She’ll take him to
the capital. I don’t know where. No one knows where she
keeps her…pets.”
A shiver of rage brushed my skin, stroking the throbbing
in my chest, and her lip curled in disgust. It was brief. I
wasn’t sure that she was even aware of it, but I saw it.
“But it doesn’t matter,” she continued. “She’ll have
every Revenant on hand guarding him. She’ll have him
watching over your King,” she told me, and I knew that she
spoke of the Prince. “You won’t get near him.” She lowered
her bow, her shoulders settling. “Unless you can bring the
fire of the gods with you, none of you stands a chance.”