❖ QUEENKILLER, KINGMAKER Book 2 ❖
A year has passed since Isla rescued Tam Mai from the dungeons, but her sister's mind is still trapped and broken. There is only one person Isla knows can help her.
Meanwhile across the sea, a prince seeks justice f...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
'Eldest Isla?'
'Yes, Tamma?'
'When can we go home?'
'What did I tell you about such questions?'
Tam Mai sighed. It could not be helped. Isla, too, was tired. They had no proper rest for what must have been months, now—constantly on the move, chasing leads, following breadcrumbs. It was a miracle Tam Mai lasted as long as she did.
'I'm so sick of water,' she said.
Isla squeezed her closer. Her sister was only three years younger, but her speech and demeanour remained closer to those of a child rather than one of a nineteen year-old, and it was difficult not to treat her as such. 'I know. I am, too.'
'And I miss Noi and Uncle Bart.'
'But think of all the stories you can tell them later, and all the pretty pictures you've painted for them.' Isla took Tam Mai's book from the bedside table.
It was one of the few things that survived all their travels. Isla had bought it for her when they arrived at Elingar along with a whole set of watercolours. It took a while before Tam Mai's natural love for painting reared its head, but when it did, she could spend days doing nothing else.
The first few pages were filled with raw colours, rough shapes. They improved gradually over time, but the pensiveness remained; undefined brush strokes that together implied at more distinctive images, her penchant for darker pastels ...
There was the kitchen of their home in Elingar: washed-out cabinets, cooking fire that dappled into sunlight, and Noi tossing a wok full of vegetables and herbs. Next came a series of semi-abstract scenes—Cannersly Hall surrounded in an explosion of greens and carmine that was its vineyards; Sir Edric ruminating over a desk filled with ink blots and floating scrolls; Aldir lost among rows and rows of books, pages melting into a moonlit library.
Then came what Isla called the Sea Series, which documented their journey back to the Eastern Isles. Isla smiled sourly, thinking back on her debates with Noi and Aldir. Neither thought it was prudent for them to leave, but in the end, they had no other choice. Isla may have rescued Tam Mai from those dungeons, but those dungeons never left her. She was slow to adapt and struggled to speak in her own language let alone learn a new one; but more concerning were the night terrors from which it was becoming progressively more difficult to wake her, or the deluge of sheer panic that would consume Tam Mai at the slightest provocation.
Not a single healer in Elingar could help her, not even with Sir Edric's connections. So they returned to the Eastern Isles—Isla, Tam Mai, and Noi—back to Napoa and the wisdom of her witch-doctors.
Here, Tam Mai's paintings took a turn into a collection of dark portraits. Faces marked with coloured dust and partly hidden beneath bone-masks, hair covered in thick veils, robes that blended into empty backgrounds.
