The Forest King’s Daughter

17

To trust a Dracu is to dance with chaos.

—E XCHARIAS, S YLVAN POET

C ASSIA STOOD IN THE BALLROOM, THE ONE ROOM IN Welkincaster she’d so far avoided. It was a long, high-ceilinged room with a dusty checkerboard floor, tall, grime-darkened windows, and crystal chandeliers covered in cobwebs. In the corners of the room, three marble statues, presumably Solis, Noctua, and Nerthus, stood in various poses, gathering shadows.

But it was the walls that had always kept her away. Every plaster panel was carved with the likenesses of Azpians.

There were imps grinning, imps scowling, imps sticking out their tongues. There were Skrattis with faces that might be upside down or right side up, depending on how you looked at them. Their features were exaggerated and varied to the point of being comical, stretched and flattened and twisted, all of them slyly mischievous and cheeky, as if they were inviting you into their joke.

Cassia grimaced. The Ancients must have liked Azpians. But there had been nothing to make her want to come in here. The scene reminded her too much of the Dracu queen’s vassals.

However, she’d be gone soon, and for some reason, she didn’t like the idea of leaving the restoration unfinished. The wilted plants in stone urns dotted about the room seemed to be crying out for her attention.

Turning her back to the grinning walls, she stepped to a drooping fern, lifting its limp fronds.

As the plant turned from sickly yellow to healthy green, a pleased flush warmed her cheeks. She was going to miss this aspect of Welkincaster, the way it made her feel powerful. But this place, and her pride in restoring it, would have to live in her memory—a bright, impossible thing to lighten the dark days of battle ahead.

Through the window, she saw Gutel outside in the courtyard with Voz at his feet basking in the sun. The weather was warm and fine, as it always was now on Welkincaster. She could be out there with them if she hurried. She moved to another plant, touching it with the hand that wore the ring. Its leaves lifted almost instantly, a bud of some kind forming.

“Very impressive,” Zeru’s voice said from the doorway.

She stiffened but didn’t bother turning, concentrating on sending life into the plant.

Zeru remained silent but she could feel his presence like the hum of bees. With a resigned sigh, she turned her head toward him. He was leaning against a pillar, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Did you run out of books?” she asked, still sending her magic into the leaves.

“I came to congratulate you,” Zeru said.

Having only seen him through windows or at a distance for over a week, she was surprised at his transformation. His hair had grown longer, falling raggedly over his forehead, and he looked like his only comb had been fingers running through it. A layer of stubble darkened his cheeks, which were sharper and more sunken than she remembered. And he had dark smudges under his eyes, making them look hard and bright like green diamonds.

“On what?” she muttered.

“On restoring the welkin.” He dipped his head. “I’ve watched your progress. I couldn’t help being impressed.”

“Unwillingly.”

“Of course.” He gave her a bland look that made his next words all the more surprising. “When we arrived, this place looked abandoned. Almost everything was dead. Now it’s bright and flourishing. Even the kobold’s wilted flowers are thriving. I’ve been forced to conclude that he’s right. You are the caretaker of Welkincaster.”

She’d never expected him to acknowledge that. Somehow, she felt more threatened than reassured by this display of humility. “You expect me to believe you’ve accepted that?”

“No.” He paused. “But I came to say it anyway.”

She watched him as he wandered the room, looking around it with interest. “Sylvans love dancing, do they not?” When she gave him a narrow-eyed look, he lifted his brows. “Isn’t it part of what sustains you?”

“I didn’t realize a Dracu would know that.” What game was he playing?

“You tried to teach me once,” he said. “Do you remember?”

She paused, reluctant to admit it. “Yes.”

“This could be the last time a Sylvan and a Dracu ever dance together,” he mused. “I can’t see there being any occasion for it in the future.”

She let her hand fall from the plant and straightened. “Don’t say that.”

His eyebrows twitched up. “Why does that bother you?”

She opened her mouth, closed it, and pondered the idea that their peoples would be at war forever. Would never share anything besides battles. Yes, it did bother her. “There could be some kind of peace.”

“The kind of peace that comes with using that ring to wipe out my people?”

As the truth of his words hit home, she gasped, shocked that she hadn’t considered this. Hadn’t let herself. She could not—No, she could not think about it. “You don’t know how I’ll use the ring.”

“Your father will have ideas about what you should do with your newly mastered power.”

It felt like steel bands were wrapped around her chest. Whenever the war entered her mind, she found some distraction to quell it. “I don’t even know if I’ll be proficient at that side of it.”

“The killing side, you mean?”

She felt her face stiffen, every part of her saying no to the reality of that. Unable to speak, she nodded.

“Cassia. You’re deathly pale. You can’t even talk about it. How are you going to kill us if you can’t even talk about doing it?”

“Stop. Just stop.” She hadn’t killed anyone with the ring, and maybe her father would see its potential for other uses and change his mind about its purpose. Ha! A hysterical laugh bubbled up at the thought. The king would not let her use the Solis Gemma to garden .

Zeru cleared his throat, drawing her gaze. She hadn’t even noticed him move to stand in front of her. Her pulse was racing, her palms as damp as if she were facing an enemy. Which she reminded herself she was.

“I had a thought,” he said, his lean face serious. “Maybe a Sylvan and a Dracu could dance together one last time.”

She watched him warily. “Why would you want that?”

He looked up at the ceiling as if something there required his immediate attention. “Sylvan power is replenished by dancing. I just thought…” He met her eyes with studied casualness. “If you don’t want to, just say no, Sylvan.”

He’d been talking about her using the ring to kill, and now he was offering to give her more power? “You don’t want to do that. Giving me more power is contrary to everything you want.”

He shrugged. “The ring can’t hurt me. All you can do here is make the flowers grow.”

He probably thought that was true. He considered her safely trapped here. “But why?” she persisted. “Why would you want to even test that theory?”

He looked around. “I don’t know. We’re in a ballroom. We are in a realm so separate from our homes that nothing here will seem real once we’ve left it. Maybe some rebelliousness has taken hold of me. Or it would make me laugh to do something so ludicrous. What does it matter why? It won’t hurt.”

Never trust a Dracu. The phrase ran through her mind.

He leaned in a fraction. “Be brave, Sylvan. No one will ever learn your shameful secret, that you danced with a Dracu. I could even vow not to tell.”

She swallowed, wondering why she was even considering this. “I don’t see the point.”

He shook his head, taking a step closer. “I’ve watched you tend flowers for weeks. Does everything need to have a point?”

She lifted her chin, defensive of her hours spent in the garden. “Flowers have a purpose. Beauty.”

His lips curved up a fraction. “Maybe the memory of our dance will linger in this place, never quite dying, no matter how faded it becomes. That’s a kind of beauty.”

The breath locked in her chest, but she couldn’t let him see that his words had affected her. “You’ve been reading too much. You’re getting poetic.”

He grinned. “Just one dance.” He offered his hand, palm up. “What could it hurt?”

Without letting herself think, she reached out and placed her hand in his. As he caught his breath, Cassia couldn’t help but feel she had made some small but grievous miscalculation. A little decision that would lead to big regret.

“I had no tutors to teach me formal dances,” he reminded her, a hint of defiance not quite covering his insecurity. Up close, she could see the short dark hairs on his chin and a muscle jumping in his cheek. She didn’t know what he was feeling, but this wasn’t the cold, indifferent Zeru of the past few weeks. Which somehow made her fear him more. “But you tried to teach me once,” he added. “Let me see if I remember.”

Zeru bowed, then stepped closer, then back, holding himself stiffly. She recognized the steps of a Sylvan dance, which brought a sudden memory of them cavorting together as children under the light of a full moon. Zeru hadn’t been so tense and formal back then. Her throat felt thick. She should turn away now and walk out. But it made something twist in her chest to see that he was trying.

“You have the first part right…” She put one of his hands to her waist, sucking in a breath at the intimacy of it. She lifted her other arm, nodding at him to do the same. Their hands clasped so that they were brought closer as they turned in unison, their chests almost touching. Cassia swallowed, her breaths coming faster at the attentive look in Zeru’s eyes. They turned to face forward, moving in a promenade with joined hands.

“This seems a great deal like walking,” he pointed out.

“You’re not supposed to march,” she said, giving him a wry sidelong glance. “Where’s your Dracu grace?” If there had been other couples, this would have been the time to walk around them on the outside. “Imagine there are other dancers,” she reminded him.

“Of course,” he said. “Other Sylvan dancers, ready to gut me as I prance by.”

She couldn’t help a grin. “Killing a dance partner is considered bad manners.”

His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “I could try that on the battlefield. Start twirling around and see if that makes the Huntsmen think twice about ending me.”

Cassia’s laugh echoed around the room. “That would certainly confuse them.”

They were both smiling as they came to face each other. She held out her hands again, and he took them, moving forward and back in a repetition of the earlier movements. He had learned all the steps now. But he wasn’t quite dancing.

“Loosen your shoulders,” she instructed. He did. But the rest of him was as tense as a bowstring. “When you’re fighting, you move like water. Why can’t you dance like that?”

He looked up, eyes widening as his hand came to her waist for the turn. “Like water?”

She tried not to be so aware of how close his chest was to hers, and the heat that was creeping up her neck. “You’re a spectacle of destruction.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Thank you.”

“That wasn’t meant as a compliment.”

He grinned. “Then you’re doing it wrong.”

The turn kept them locked together, and her pulse did something funny when he smiled. “You were fighting even as you stared at me,” she added, not knowing why she would bring that up. She took a breath as they faced forward and began the promenade. “On the battlefield.”

As their hands fell apart and they walked past the imaginary couples, he replied, “I recognized you. And the reason I move smoothly when I’m fighting is that I’m relaxed.”

“Hmm,” she said, turning to face him again. “Nothing more calming than maiming and disemboweling your enemies.”

His eyes glittered as his mouth quirked up on one side. “Exactly my feeling.”

“So, pretend I’m about to kill you,” she suggested, her hands finding his. Warmth traveled up her arms from where their palms met, making her pulse beat faster.

“Ah, that may work.” He spun her so that her back was pinned to his chest. He leaned into her, his hair brushing her cheek. “Now I have the advantage. Your arms are trapped.”

Tricksy Dracu. Her pulse slammed. She hadn’t seen that coming.

“Oh yes, very conducive to dancing.” It was almost an embrace. She could and should extricate herself. Now.

But he was swaying back and forth, his breath warm against her neck. “I like this better.” His voice was low and soft in her ear. “Almost as good as dismembering enemies.”

His right arm lay across her chest, gently trapping her while his left found her waist. Why didn’t she move away?

Her pulse was mayhem. What was happening?

“This isn’t really dancing,” she observed, her voice shaky.

“Cassia,” he said, his voice low and entreating. “Do we have to be enemies?”

Panic started somewhere in the back of her neck and radiated out from there like a shower of sparks. “You of all people ask me that? Of course we do.” She turned to face him. “What deception is this?”

His eyes held hers as securely as his hand, a warmer green than she’d ever seen them. “No deception.” The afternoon light painted him in gold, making his eyebrows and eyelashes look darker by contrast. “You have no reason to trust me. I’ve given you none.”

Suspicion was firing like arrows in her mind, and yet she still wanted to hear what he had to say. “So far, we’re in agreement.”

“But… maybe there’s a way we can work together. For the common good.”

“The common… good.” She waited for her mind to catch up with everything being thrown at her. “There is no common good. Not for us. There is good for you or there is good for me. They’re at odds.”

“What if they weren’t?” He sounded so serious. Almost as if he weren’t playing a massive game with her, which he had to be. “What if we could find a way to help each other?”

She heard her own breathing. “Did you find something in one of those books?”

“That’s not why I’m asking. I’m asking because…” He squeezed her fingers. “You love it here. Anyone can see that. You are… happy.” He swallowed. “When I first found you on the battlefield—”

Found her? “Captured.”

He dipped his head. “Yes. I thought you were the Deathringer in truth.”

“I am …” She said it through her teeth, trying to tug her hand free.

He watched her without expression. “I’ll let you go if you listen to what I say next.”

“I’m listening.” Did she have a choice?

“I thought you were ruthless. Bloodthirsty. A trained killer who reveled in the blood of Dracu. That’s what the stories said. What I assume your father wanted my people to believe. But you’re none of those things. You wield the ring because… because I gave it to you, and then your father knew of its potential as a weapon, and he tried and failed to teach you how to use it—”

Failed! He might as well have been slapping her, his words stung that much. “You know nothing—”

“I have eyes.” He moved closer. “These past weeks as I sat in the library watching you and Gutel restore the welkin, you transformed. I can see. I see you . You’ve found another purpose for the ring, and you revel in it. You love healing things and making them grow. You bask in tending and nurturing. You didn’t kill me, though you had more than one chance. You are not a killer, Cassia. You weren’t meant to be one. Why pretend to be something you don’t want to be?”

She looked at him, wondering how he could stab her so successfully with only words. You are not a killer. Even her father had never said something so damning and so final. Zeru might as well have said, “You will never have the love of your father,” or “Accept your failure as a forgone conclusion.” Nothing could have acted upon her more like a douse of frigid water.

“I like growing things,” she said succinctly. “And I’ve enjoyed restoring Welkincaster. But I also love my people, who are under threat from yours. If I have to kill a few thousand Dracu with this ring to keep my family safe, I will do it.” Her neck tightened painfully, but she forced out, “That was my whole purpose in coming here. To find a way to master this ring so I could use it to protect my people.” That was true enough.

Something dark slid behind his eyes. “If you would vow not to use the ring against us—”

But she wasn’t done. “You only came to me with your parley when you had no other options left. Nothing has changed.”

She’d moved her gaze to his chest because she could no longer bear to look into his eyes, which were filling with things too complex and uncomfortable to see. And there around his neck was the chain that held the amulet, tucked under the collar of his shirt once again.

“Something has changed,” he said. “I’ve realized I was wrong. Your life was thrown into chaos by the ring… as mine was.” His voice came out more hoarsely as he added, “You were right when you accused me of blaming you for my own mistakes. It wasn’t your fault. Though I still hate what’s happened to you, I see that you were only trying to survive.”

“You claimed that you fought to get to me that night,” she scoffed, desperate to poke holes in his story. Her gaze flicked back to his, watching his reaction. “You were probably too busy laughing.”

“I was beside myself with fear for you.” His nostrils flared, and something in his eyes made her breath catch.

“I…” She wanted to say she didn’t believe him, but her throat closed up. “Then why didn’t you help me?”

“My father was holding me. I begged him to help you.”

Cassia stared blankly as her thoughts tangled together. A thin layer of sweat broke out over her skin. She didn’t want to hear this. Didn’t want to forgive him for that night. Didn’t want to think he had tried to save her. That he’d been a victim, too.

She especially didn’t want to think he might be telling the truth about her father.

He was making it sound as if being the Deathringer her father wanted would be a betrayal of herself. And though it made her furious, she sensed truth when she heard it. Those soft words, that insight from an enemy, threatened to overwhelm her. Swallow her whole.

His kindness might have touched some vulnerable part of her, but that made it more dangerous. She was so close to becoming what her father, what her people, wanted her to be. Weakness of any kind was her greatest enemy now.

“I don’t want to hurt you again,” he said, his voice earnest. “Can you hear the truth in what I’m saying?”

She made herself look at him. If only she could read what ran under the surface. He looked back with serenity, but something dark lingered behind his eyes. And she felt a connection to that darkness. That pain. A strange, unnamed, intangible shift was happening. Was in danger of happening. And she had to put a stop to it.

“But you will if you have to.” Why he’d had this sudden attack of conscience, or whatever this was, she had no idea, but she could not afford to be pulled around by concern for him.

“Yes,” he said in a flat voice. “I have a family, too. I’d do anything to protect them.”

She felt her shoulders relax. This was familiar ground. She dipped her chin in a single nod. “Now I see that you are capable of truth.”

As they stared at each other, she had the sense she had passed her own test. Her enemy had tried to weaken her, and she had resisted softening toward him. But it felt utterly necessary to do something to prove to herself that he had in no way swayed her. There was an opportunity she could not ignore. A way to get home even faster than she’d planned.

Following an impulse, she put a hand to his cheek and heard his indrawn breath.

Her enemy was… not immune to her. The knowledge went to her head, more intoxicating even than using her magic. Warmth had traveled from her palm into her arm. A breath stayed locked in her chest. Zeru blinked, something in his eyes showing recognition, a need for her to acknowledge that he wasn’t alone.

He wasn’t. Touching him was a sweet fire, making her pulse hum and her head light.

His eyes dilated as she brushed her fingers over his cheek, and his breathing quickened. When she cradled his jaw, his eyes fell closed, and his head dipped down toward hers. It gave her a heady sense of power, so strong it made her tremble.

Heart pounding, her free hand slid to the chain at his neck and drew out the amulet.

His eyes snapped open. “What are you doing?”

She placed the curve of the Solis Gemma into the groove in the amulet. Click.

No doorway appeared. Nothing changed. Nothing except a look of stark betrayal coming into Zeru’s eyes.

Cassia let her hand fall, sickness twisting her gut for reasons she didn’t care to examine. “It was worth a try.”

He stared at her for a few more moments before he spoke. “Selkolla told me the amulet is like the ring: It’ll only work if I will it.” Though his expression had smoothed, his voice was laden with heavy things. “I suppose you didn’t hear that part.”

“No,” she said, straightening her back. “I didn’t.”

Zeru inclined his head in a formal nod. “Now I see that you are, indeed, capable of deception.” His cheekbones looked sharp in a face as cold as the marble statues. “Well done, Sylvan. I couldn’t have done better.”