❖ QUEENKILLER, KINGMAKER Book 2 ❖
A year has passed since Isla rescued Tam Mai from the dungeons, but her sister's mind is still trapped and broken. There is only one person Isla knows can help her.
Meanwhile across the sea, a prince seeks justice f...
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She only needed to follow the noise. It came from all the way on the other side of the compound; a resounding shudder like a great rakhsa was stomping through the earth. Isla had just exited the bath house when she heard the first boom, sending her scampering behind the closest pillar.
The cabin had led out onto a raised walkway, sheltered under a trellis propped by rows of columns draped in flowering vines. Isla leaned back against the hard wood and hid until she was calm enough to peer out and assess her surroundings.
But the place was utterly deserted.
The walkway cut through an edge of the rajini's gardens, running parallel to the compound walls that stretched just across a row of trees and flowering bushes. Kiet's main estate stood some distance ahead of the walkway, where it merged right into a porch that straddled the southern wing of the estate. There was no movement, no light behind the windows far across the line of pillars. The estate looked haunting with bougainvillea crawling up its walls and grappling the sills in red blooms.
Where was everyone? Were they all taking refuge in the labyrinths? Surely Kiet would know Khaisan had his men waiting at all its exits.
Isla stepped from behind the pillar and made for the estate, her eyes on the compound walls and the countless spearheads that rose above them. Kiet's bird was a shadow in the darkening sky, calling out every so often as though to warn its master.
It was between its high-pitched cries that the voice came, startling Isla in her skin. The royal herald had been selected specifically for his theurgy—a gift that allowed him to project his voice and dampen others—and now it came bearing down upon her as though the man stood yelling through a horn a mere inches from her face.
Maharaj Khaisan had arrived, and he was calling for Kiet's surrender.
No. There was no way he would refuse the offer—not if it meant saving his men. No, no, no, no. Isla ran down the walkway, the wood creaking under every weight of her sandals. She reached the porch, pounded against the first window she passed, trying to peer through the panel blinds. 'Kiet! Akai!'
Anyone!
There came no response, only the loud, rhythmic battering continued in the distance far ahead. Isla gave the window a final blow before abandoning it entirely. Her fist was raw and bleeding as she sped further down the porch. All the other windows she passed were just as unyielding; she tried a door but it felt barricaded shut—and then she saw it. Light, spilling out from an entrance near the end of the porch. Her breath was hitched by the time she reached the door, left gaping open.
She called into the empty hallway, but just before she stepped inside, she saw him.
She would have missed him if she had not spared that one glance. The porch extended past the estate into another walkway; one that led straight to the front gates. And there under its treillage he walked, calm as an afternoon breeze, the lotus mandala on his back.
