Isle of Wysteria: The Reluctant Queen Read Online Free

legitimized and he could leave in peace; if he refused, he would be tried for theft, and the captain would probably have him executed on the spot. In one single move, she presented herself as being simultaneously merciful, generous, and dangerous.
    “You really are my angel,” he mused as he rose to his feet and dusted himself off. “But your plan is naïve. You forget, I’m not part of your crew. I have no loyalty to any of you. I’m not one of your ‘good guys,’ okay? Ten times this chest is tempting, but not worth risking my life over. I can just accept your offer and leave, and you'd never see me again.”
    Alder shrugged. “At least he is honest about it.”
    Now numbering in the thousands, the gathered animals began to move. Up the mooring lines they skittered and climbed, their beady red eyes occasionally flashing in the darkness.
    Athel smiled wickedly. It made Tigera feel afraid.
    “Do you know why I trust you?” Athel asked, spinning her staff around.
    “You trust me?” Tigera asked with wide eyes.
    “Absolutely. You see, you are a selfish person...”
    “Please.”
    “Let me finish. And a selfish person can always be trusted to do what is in their best interest. Selfish people are the simplest to predict, and the easiest to manipulate. It’s something my mother taught me.”
    The nearly invisible crowd of approaching animals was now all around them, dropping silently onto the deck, moving as one, surrounding their prey.
    “Then there is hope for you yet,” Tigera praised.
    “So,” Athel concluded. “As long as I create a situation where doing what is in your best interest is also what I want, then I can always trust you to do what I want.”
    Tigera held his hands out. “And that is where you have failed. Money is simply not enough to make me stick my neck out.”
    In the darkness around them, the ever-tightening circle of thousands of teeth and claws drew within just feet of the trio, ready to strike.
    Athel held up her fingers. “Do you know what this is?”
    Tigera squinted to see in the dim moonlight. It looked like little more than a grain of sand.
    “This is a cruisao seed. Your dinner tonight was quite special, you consumed hundreds of them.”
    Tigera touched his hand to the bones on his necklace and the mass of animals halted at his command. “And what can it do?”
    Athel took her boot off the chest and dropped the seed down through the keyhole. She twisted her staff in her hand and the chest nearly came apart as dozens of razor sharp thorns tore right through the metal. From the tip of each spine, a steaming clear liquid dripped down.
    Tigera clucked his tongue. “Okay, you have my attention. And what about the...uh...the oozing stuff, there?”
    “Well, that’s the best part. Alder, tell him what a tree-singer can do with cruisao seeds.”
    Alder cleared his throat and stood up straight. “It’s pure evil, the kind of thing we wish we could undiscover. Forbidden except in times of war, which I’m afraid we technically are, the venom in the barbs destroys your ability to control your body. Your muscles freeze, you cannot breathe, your heart cannot beat. You spasm so hard, you break your own spine. But that is after your skin melts off.”
    Tigera took a step back. “You're not an angel, you're a demon!”
    “See? And Privet said you could never be intimidating,” Athel slugged Alder on the shoulder with enthusiasm.
    “Thank you, my Lady.”
    Athel stepped forward and looked Tigera straight in the eyes. “It will take about a year for the seeds you ate to fully leave your system. Until then, I can activate them at any time. It doesn’t matter where you go. Even if you are on the other side of the world, I can impel them.”
    For several moments, neither one of them said anything. Alder looked back and forth between them, wondering what would happen next.
    Tigera fingered his necklace, and the hidden hoard of hungry animals slowly retreated back into the darkness. “It