The Twiceborn Queen (The Proving Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

looked a wreck compared to her, with a scrape across my cheek and raw patches on my hands and elbows where I’d been thrown to the stone flagging of the terrace. My chiffon skirts were sadly torn but I’d had a lucky escape, thanks to Luce’s quick reactions.
    Monique, who should have been standing on my other side, hadn’t been so lucky. It was her blood that stained Valeria’s dress and coated the broken walls and floor of the throne room. Plus a few other people’s outfits, which were going to need epic dry-cleaning. There wasn’t much else left of our youngest sister, and Elizabeth was seriously unamused.
    Oh, not because Monique was dead. We were expected to kill each other off. Last woman standing got to inherit our dearest mother’s throne. She just didn’t appreciate the battle beginning in her own throne room, with such destructive results. Not to mention the possible risk to her precious person.
    An ornate grandfather clock in the corner ticked solemnly as Elizabeth let the silence lengthen, each swing of its massive pendulum reproaching us for disturbing the peace of the queen’s domain. I stared down at the carpet beneath our feet, following the intricate swirls and flowers of its design, and tried not to draw our mother’s attention. She disliked me enough already.
    “The Presentation Ball is intended to introduce the candidates to the domain,” she said at last, her voice as icy as her gaze. “It is not meant to host the outbreak of hostilities. Such breaches of etiquette are not to be tolerated.”
    Trust Elizabeth to label the murder of one of her own daughters as a “breach of etiquette”.
    “It could have been anyone.” Valeria’s blue eyes, so like our mother’s, were wide with a very unconvincing innocence. “Why assume it was one of us?”
    Elizabeth shot her a scathing glance. “I believe the expression in these cases is cui bono? ”
    Who benefits, indeed. It had to be one of us.
    “Perhaps an enterprising shifter, trying to win favour …” Valeria persisted.
    “Oh, give it a rest.” Alicia rolled her eyes. “We all know it was you. Who else has a griffin on staff?” She turned to Elizabeth. “Are you going to let her get away with this?”
    “If you mean, am I going to fight your battles for you, Alicia, then no.” Elizabeth didn’t seem to care much for any of us apart from Valeria, but I swear her lip curled as her gaze rested on Alicia. “But when I find out who was responsible they will be punished.”
    Right. I had no doubt Elizabeth was pissed, but pigs would fly before she punished Valeria for anything. Valeria was the golden girl, firstborn and favoured to win the proving.
    The door opened, admitting Gideon Thorne and two men in dark suits, part of Elizabeth’s security team. Thralls, by the look of them. Their gaze went straight to Elizabeth when they entered, and never wavered from her face as they waited, hands clasped loosely in front of them.
    Thorne’s aura shone a brilliant red, though not as bright as the queen’s. Apart from the thralls, everyone in the room was outlined in dragon red. We were probably the six most powerful dragons in the domain, though the light of half of us would flicker and die soon enough. Thorne would most likely outlive us all. He’d been around for centuries and had the knack of ingratiating himself with the right people. Nasty little bootlicker.
    He perched on the corner of Elizabeth’s desk, the only one permitted to sit in her presence, and indicated the thralls.
    “These are the ones.”
    “You were responsible for security tonight?” she said to them.
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Did you search each guest as instructed?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “And yet someone managed to smuggle a bomb into my throne room.”
    There didn’t seem to be an answer to that, so they said nothing, though I noticed one of them swallowed convulsively. Even thralls, near-zombies though they were, responded to imminent danger.
    “It’s very