Queen of the Night (The Revanche Cycle Book 4) by Craig Schaefer Read Free Book Online Page B

SEVEN
    Not far away, the remnants of another invasion force laid camp for the night in a small clearing. They didn’t have much. The supplies for Livia’s conquest of Lerautia were rotting at the bottom of the sea, drowned along with her ships. Hunters had done their best to hunt down game, dragging a few deer carcasses back for their dinner, and Livia’s followers kindled crude fires against the encroaching shadows. Their borrowed soldiers—what was left of them—mostly kept to themselves on the far side of camp, while the Browncloaks gathered around the fires hand in hand and sang soft hymns of courage against the dark.
    Livia’s empty stomach still managed to churn as she paced, her slippers crunching against loose dirt and scraggly grass. Lost in her thoughts, her eyes drawn to the shadows between the trees.
    “You look as troubled as I feel,” Dante said, walking at her side. She hadn’t noticed him approach.
    “Amadeo is right,” she replied. “That ambush was meant to stop us. The Empire is backing Carlo. And if the Imperial army is occupying Lerautia, we don’t have the troops to stand up to them.”
    “We don’t need to hold the city, signora. Once Carlo’s been dealt with and you’ve united the Church under your reign, the Imperials will have to bow to you. They’ll have no other choice. All we have to do is capture the papal manse, take your half brother out of the picture, and bring the College of Cardinals to heel.”
    “And if there’s another Imperial regiment or two between us and the palace doors, how exactly do we accomplish that? They’re expecting us, Dante.”
    He fluttered an anxious hand. “Wisely used, one soldier can do the work of ten. Don’t think of it as a face-to-face battle. We can employ subterfuge. Sabotage. Distractions and feints.”
    “Which none of Rhys’s troops are trained for—they’re veteran skirmishers, not spies. If we had access to the kind of people who could—”
    Livia stopped in her tracks. She blinked.
    “Signora?” Dante’s brow furrowed at her.
    “I know how to win,” Livia said, her voice distant now.
    Dante tilted his head. “Why do you make that sound like a curse, rather than a blessing?”
    She didn’t answer right away. She was too busy fighting a war in her heart. When she spoke again, she wasn’t sure if she’d won or lost.
    “I have to…do something. Something I don’t want to do. The last thing in this world I want to do. But it’s the only way to take the throne.”
    “I’m all ears,” Dante told her.
    “Can you be?” She turned to him. “Can you be all ears, and no mouth? Dante…I will require your silence. Now and forever. What I’m about to do, if it got out—it would destroy me. Me, my legacy, and everything I’ve worked to build.”
    “Which includes helping me to capture Mirenze when your crown is well and truly fitted,” Dante replied. “I’d do nothing to endanger that dream. If you don’t trust me, trust that.”
    She seized his forearm, clenching it in an iron grip.
    “Amadeo,” she said with a fervent stare, “can never know. Never .”
    “You have my word as a gentleman,” Dante said.
    She let go of his arm and took a step back. After a long moment of silence, she gave a resigned nod.
    “Come with me, then. And make sure nobody follows us.”
    *     *     *
    The white bone mask, carved to resemble the face of a gazelle, lay abandoned in a patch of black forest loam. Its owner, a young woman with long, coltish legs, had dropped it in her scramble to escape. As she leaped gnarled roots and crashed through dense underbrush, she chanced a panicked look back over the shoulder of her torn and muddy dress.
    He was still there. The man with the high-collared coat and the mask in the shape of a nest of worms, somehow keeping pace with her despite moving at an ambling gait. Casually carrying a butcher knife in one black-gloved hand.
    “I said I was sorry ,” Gazelle screamed. Her stalker’s