Josephine's voice kills any man who hears it-except for the assassin sent to capture her for the king that's been chasing her all her life...but what happens when he decides he doesn't want to hand her over and keep her for himself instead?
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A drop of water plopped onto my cheek from a leak in the planks above me.
Or maybe it was one of my tears.
I couldn't be sure.
"Josephine, just answer his questions, and then he won't hurt you or them. Right, Amell?"
"Whatever you say Orenthal. You've done your job well. I'll even send Cursebreaker up to your rooms in the hold when we all get settled in Farriah. There's just a few things I need to know about Hefeta's Elders before we go. Josephine, your sister here says you're a lovely singer. I wonder if her husband has had the pleasure of hearing your wonderful voice?"
"No, please, don't make her do that to—"
I hadn't glanced my sister's way twice since waking up, but after our uncle backhanded her across the face and sent her sprawling to the ground, my eyes found her then.
Her face was a pale, bedraggled mess of red splotches, from the hit and crying, it seemed.
Her normally immaculately kept hair had fallen down around her shoulders limply, and in the dank, dreary light of the sub-level of the boat we were being kept on, I couldn't tell the expression on her face, but in knowing what my powers could do to men, I could only imagine the horror on it.
The disgust.
The barely kept rage.
I knew, because it was exactly what I felt inside.
I shook my body in my binds a bit, trying to loosen something, but the only thing I accomplished was in making the leather strap fall forward and slip down my face to land around my neck where the collar used to be.
"Briggs, grab a few vials and start collecting some of her blood."
A lantern flickered to life, the light throwing grotesque shadows across the walls as they danced and quivered with the movement of the men around me.
Briggs leaned in close, his lips and chin blanketed by coarse copper facial hair and his deep set brown eyes were bloodshot from the long trek through the woods.
He smelled of horses and sweat. It made my eyes water.
Marlisa tipped her head up, and our eyes caught just as someone inhaled a shocked breath of salt brined air.
"She's got the mark. She's been marked by Death."
The soldier that I assumed was named Briggs had stopped directly in front of me and peered down at the mark on my forehead that I'd almost forgotten about, even as my head swam and black dots obscured my vision.
I still hadn't eaten anything, and the effects of the winterbane were still coursing through my system.
"He's going to come for us if we touch what's his, Amell."
