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The shaman knows better than to call her bluff Broken, he looks at ht, oldboy You’re on your own He stands and shuffles toward the door “Ozgard” He stops and turns to his Queen in hope “I will find the truth If this…Fá is known to you, there will be no mercy”
The Valkyrie shove him out
Of the four in Sefi’s council when first she hired me, only the huue Almost
“Why would Volga be queen?” I ask
Sefi nods, expecting the question She gestures to the hearth and calls for the servant to bring wine I do not join her in sitting She watches Amel’s replacement open the bottle and pour the wine Xenophon samples it, nods, and returns to his perch behind her shoulder She drinks heavily and gestures for me to join her
“I don’t think I’ll be drinking anything around here anyti about?”
She twirls the ith her gloved hand Xenophon pipes up “Your Majesty knoas hesitant with regard to the hiring of Mr Horn I believe he has contradicted my assessment More than ever, he is of value to the Alltribe Show him or you will lose him”
A shadow of herself, Sefi listens to her White She takes off her coat, then her vest underneath, and rolls up her right sleeve and relove and a thin layer of ameat
I recoil “What is that?”
“Yellow death,” she replies
Her skin is sulfur yellow and hideous Mottled scales climb from her elbon to her hand Raw fissures crack the skin and wind through the patches to weep riffin’s reins, a strip of raw skin shohere the scales sheaved off Fresh scales are already pushing their way to the surface She winces as she moves the hand
“A gift froner poison It corrupts the DNA itself, I a the arion of the body” She rolls her hand around to inspect it “It has not conquered usts him, as it should That is why I let hirew cold to him What it touches, it infects”
“And it’s why you couldn’t draw the bow”
“At tiroeak until the pain passes For all the medici and scientists, it is only Xenophon who slows it But I was foolish I did not take his rimaces “It cannot be stopped by any means we possess, or all our helium can buy”
“When?”