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

narrowed in contemplation.
    “No, not her. Something better. Much better. Gazelle, look at me.”
    Gazelle raised her tear-stained face, forcing herself to meet Nessa’s gaze.
    “I’m in an excellent mood, and we have an appointment to keep, so I’m giving you a gift. As of this moment, you have exactly one year to live.”
    “One…one year?”
    Nessa pointed at Despina. “In Vel Hult, tales are still told of the Shrike, swooping from the trees to gobble up stray children. And Despina hasn’t even been there in ages. You have one year to make something of yourself. To earn a name, to build a legend. To prove to me that you’re worthy of joining my coven. If you succeed, I’ll welcome you with open arms. Fail, and I promise you’ll wish I had killed you today.”
    She snapped her fingers and waved a hand at the others. “Now come along, everyone. I think you’re really going to like this.”
    As she led her followers away, Hedy walked at her teacher’s side.
    “Thank you,” she said softly. “That was kind of you.”
    “Kind? Hardly. She’ll spend the next year living in mortal terror. The fear might push her to greatness, if she has the spirit for it. It’s up to her.”
    “And if it doesn’t?”
    Nessa gave Hedy a sidelong smile.
    “You’d best hope that it does. If not, you’re the one who’s going to kill her.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
    The morning sun crested over rolling hills, casting the Verinian countryside in olive and gold. Standing at the peak of a grassy knoll, a crisp wind running fingers through her pinned-up hair, Livia stood still as a marble statue.
    Dante fidgeted at her side, looking down at his hands like he wasn’t sure what they were for. “I can’t believe you hid this from me,” he said for the fifteenth time. “I heard about the ‘miracles,’ how you made the assassins in Rhys’s keep vanish, how you saved Kailani’s life, but I assumed they were all stories. Just peasant nonsense.”
    “Would you have believed they were genuine miracles?” Livia asked him.
    “Between believing your god actually exists,” Dante said, “and believing that Livia Serafini dabbled in witchcraft…no. I would choose to believe neither. Rationality rejects both answers.”
    “And yet,” Livia said, “here we are.”
    “It is, I admit, an irrational world.” He dropped his voice to a near mumble. “And right now, Mari Renault is ferrying medicine to the sick.”
    Livia furrowed her brow. “What’s that?”
    He shook his head, waving her question away.
    “Now you understand why no one can know about this,” she said. “Ever. Amadeo knows about my…past indiscretions, but I promised him I’d left that all behind.”
    “To speak of it would consign us both to the pyre, signora. You’ve secured my silence by dangling a sword over my head. Are you absolutely certain you want to do this?”
    “The stakes are too high. We’re too close to victory to turn back now. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
    He fell into a pensive silence. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught him staring at her.
    “You have an odd look on your face. What?”
    “I merely remember,” he said, “when I had to goad and cajole you to stick a toe into the shadows. Now you’re plowing into the dark like you were born there, and dragging me with you.”
    “I thought that’s what you wanted.”
    He stroked his goatee, contemplating her.
    “I’m not sure what I wanted.”
    “At the end of the darkness lies the light, Dante. A new day. A new Church. Hope, and peace, and prosperity for all of the Gardener’s children.”
    “And when the dawn comes, will you be there to greet it?”
    She sighed and shook her head at him.
    “How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t matter . This is all for the greater good.”
    “For someone who doesn’t matter,” said a voice at their backs, “you’ve certainly made my life interesting.”
    They hadn’t heard the approach. No footsteps, no crackling of fallen