Chapter twenty
Delia of ValliaIn the ensuing confusion as the soldiery boiled across to gape at the wreckage and the blood-soaked refuse within I was able to slip past. Of one thing I was certain. Whoever may have been in the flier, Delia was not one of that company. A Chulik offered to bash my brains out at the rampart until I rapped out the password. “Zamra!” I had chosen that. The confusion without was matched and overmatched by the confusion within.
“Dray! You have it?” Delia ran up to me, eager, alive, ready to let me have an earful for endangering myself. I shook the water bottle.
Together, we went to the small private inner room where Queen Lush lay on a pallet, panting shallowly, withering away. The emperor sat by her side, frightened even to hold her hand in case the brittle bo
