Queen Ellora moved like a vision through the late afternoon mist, her steps quiet along the marble path that cut through the palace's eastern gardens. Roses, white ones, boomed around her in immaculate silence, and the breeze carried the scent of jasmine and old secrets.
A step behind her walked her advisor, Lord Cassien Vale, a man with salt in his dark hair and a voice always tempered with polite venom.
"You received the note," he said, as though commenting on the weather.
Ellora didn't look at him. "I did."
"Shall I assume the king hasn't seen it yet?"
She paused at a fountain carved with a griffin's head, the water still running. "He doesn't need to," she said. "Not yet."
Cassien studied her carefully. "You're not going to tell him that the girl is alive? That she's here?"
"Liora Miral is insignificant. She was discarded once. She'll vanish again."
"But she's with Lucien now."
