From the look on Nala's face even the spymaster of Tarua Teris hadn't known about her pen pal.
"That's impossible—your mother killed them all—"
"All but one. She's my pen pal. I've been communicating with her since I was a child—"
"She's your pen pal?" Nala exclaimed incredulously.
"And I think she'll be willing to help me kill Medea." Lysandra finished, ignoring Nala's protest.
"You want to work with a witch." Nala said, shaking her head. "You're insane. You're completely insane."
"Let's not rehash over what we already know," Lysandra interrupted. "We don't have much time, Nala dear. You're going to have to listen to everything I say next. In half an hour—"
"Half an hour!" Nala protested. "We need to plan, to prepare, to stop and think about all this—"
"Already handled, sweetie. I'm afraid thinking isn't really your strong suit, so I did it myself. No more interruptions please."
"In half an hour, the last witch will be arriving. When she comes, you'll be in the vents—"
"This is such a cliché," Nala groaned.
"—and will drop out a few metres from my mother's bedroom. You'll shoot her—I've already got the bow prepared, so don't fret if you haven't brought your own—"
"Arrows and vents!" Nala was almost shouting by now. "You think no one's tried that before, Lysandra?"
"You'll purposefully let the alarm go off—" Nala groaned at that. "I will be conveniently placed to rush to her defence. The alarm will also signal the last witch, who'll break through my mother's wards whilst you distract her. Last witch kills mummy, we all live happily ever after."
"Letting the last witch back into the world is not a good idea," Nala warned. "What if she decides to become Empress herself?"
"Then we deal with that later. You wanted an assassination? This is how it happens. Are we doing it, or are we not?"
"We're doing it." Nala grumbled. "But if we all die, it's your fault."
"Naturally," Lysandra smiled.
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The last witch wasn't nearly was impressive as Lysandra had imagined. Over the years she had imagined a thousand different forms for the last surviving member of a race that had destroyed the goddesses and created unbreakable walls around the continent.
Instead she found a bedraggled girl with haunted eyes, a pale face and tangled, ragged black curls. She looked half-feral and was dangerously thin. But those eyes—he violence and hated that glimmered in those eyes reminded her of who, exactly, she was dealing with. A witch. A being of ancient and wicked power, a person capable of rewriting the laws of magic and nature. Someone, who, once upon a time, had gifted Medea with such unfathomable magic. She shivered silently, her only concession to an instinctual fear.
"Hello," Lysandra smirked. "A pleasure to finally meet you."
"The pleasure's mine," the witch replied. Nala paled at the sound of her voice: it was an ancient, cold sound filled with hate and death and a thirst for blood.
"You know the plan?" Lysandra asked.
"Of course, witch-killer's daughter." She replied. No venom or hatred in the words. Witches didn't care much for family ties. She couldn't care less if she was working for the daughter of the woman who hunted her kind to near extinction.
YOU ARE READING
Queens & Liars-Sequel to Three Broken Kingdoms (Completed)
Fantasy'She was a blade, forged in the flames that had burned her kingdom.' Book 2 of the Lost Continent Asriel and Miras have fallen. Their legendary armies are gone, their cities burnt to their ground, their people enslaved or murdered. The Empress now r...
