Ignoring us won’t change anything, Adelina. Your sister will still die. And you’ll be happy about it, won’t you?
The whispers push at my mind until I grimace, clutching my head.
“Your Majesty?”
Sergio’s voice beside me sends the voices skittering to the recesses of my mind again. I relax a little in my seat and look over at him. He returns my look with obvious concern. “It’s nothing,” I say. “I’m thinking of Raffaele’s letter.” I hold it up to show Sergio.
He lets out a grunt of approval as he tears into a leg of roast hare. “Perhaps he’s heard rumors of your split from her and wants to use it against you. Violetta might not even be with him.”
A part of me still stirs at the thought of Raffaele—and instantly, I imagine him on the deck of Queen Maeve’s ship, surrounded by flames, his forehead pressed against Enzo’s, calming the prince, looking back at me with tragic, tear-filled eyes, shaking his head in despair. If justice is what you seek, Adelina . . . you will not find it like this.
“They are in Tamoura,” I say a little too loudly, in an attempt to drown out the whispers. “No doubt working with the Golden Triad there. Their rulers must think using my sister against me will make me act carelessly.”
“They’re trying to trick you into a meeting,” Sergio replies, although he casts me a careful glance that doesn’t match his bold words. “To get you alone in a room. But what they’ll get instead is an army.” He throws back the rest of the drink in his cup, visibly reacting to how strong it is, and then clears some space on the table before us. He pulls out a wrinkled parchment and spreads it out. He has been carrying this with him everywhere lately, so I’m already familiar with it. It is his battle plan for Tamoura. “I’ve been digging up all the maps I can find of the landscape around Alamour. Look: The city itself is surrounded by high walls, but if we can get up here”—he points to a strange outcropping of cliffs that meander along the eastern side of the city—“we can find a way to get over the walls.”
“And how do we do that?” I ask, folding my arms. “Baliras can’t fly that far inland, not in a Sunland desert. They’ll suffocate in the dry air.”
The instant I say it, I know the answer. I glance at Sergio, who gives me a sly smile as he pours himself a cup of water instead of wine. “I think I know someone who can bring us a good storm,” he replies.
I give him a smile back. “It should work,” I say, leaning forward in my seat to peer more closely at Sergio’s calculations. I’m impressed with the way he has split up the rest of our men. “We’ll surprise the Tamourans in their own home.”
Sergio’s eyes sweep once over the festivities, out of habit. I follow his gaze. Off in the corner, a path is being cut through the crowd, causing cheers and taunts to go up. The entertainment has arrived. “We’ll do more than surprise them,” Sergio replies. “We’ll defeat them so soundly that their Golden Triad will soon be mopping your marble floors.”
Our conversation pauses as the procession makes its way to the main clearing. It’s led by two young Inquisitors who now gleefully shove forward several people with bound arms. They stumble and fall, then crouch into some resemblance of a bow in my direction. All around them, the crowd cheers. Wine spills out of goblets.
“Your Majesty!” one of the Inquisitors calls up to me. His hair shines in the light, revealing a glimmer of scarlet red against the black. “Found these four in the streets and brought them in for you. I overheard one using the word malfetto. Another was trying to pass as one of us with false markings.”
At that, the crowd—all of whom are marked—starts to shout curses at the people tied up on the ground. I peer at them to get a closer look. One is an old man, while another is an aging woman. The third is a boy, barely out of childhood, while the fourth is a girl newly wedded, still wearing double bands around one of her fingers. I can tell the girl is the one who was trying to wear false markings—the color in her hair and against her skin looks disturbed, where an Inquisitor must have smeared his hand across it.
“Burn them all!” someone yells, and this is met with a thunderous cheer.
“Let’s have some fun!” another shouts.
Over by the archway, Magiano’s eyes meet my own. He isn’t smiling anymore. Their fear and hatred fill this place. The whispers chitter again, fully awake now, and the terror wafting off the four prisoners fills my senses, feeding me. I take them in and feel little pity. After all, not much time has passed since they once stood by and watched as the marked were dragged through the streets and set ablaze, saw our families stoned to death by crowds of enthusiastic onlookers. We used to be the ones to sneak powders and potions from apothecaries, desperate to hide our markings. How quickly our former enemies have tried to adopt our appearance—how eagerly they smear colors on themselves in an attempt to be more like us.
Why shouldn’t we cheer their punishment now?
Beside me, Sergio has gone silent too. I look on as an Inquisitor lights a torch from one of the lanterns, then glances expectantly at me. So does everyone else. The noise fades as they wait for my command.
I am their queen. The malfettos, the malformed, the marked. I give them what they want, and they give me their loyalty. It is what I want too. My gaze turns to the trembling prisoners on the ground. I stop on the youngest, the boy. He stares back at me with vacant eyes. Beside him, the old man lifts his tear-stained face long enough for me to see the blinding hatred in them. Demon queen, I know he’s thinking.