CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“That’s a nice blade,” Maverick commented in greeting as we stepped into his private study.
For the first time in years, the familiar currant-colored walls etched with gold brought me no comfort at all. The number of hours I’d spent in this study almost rivaled the quantity I’d spent training with Gideon.
The ghost of a girl that had hidden behind her mother’s skirts the first time she’d crossed the mahogany threshold peered at me from the shadows, her wariness and curiosity tickling the back of my mind like particles of dust floating in a forgotten room worn with age, its once loved and overused components now covered with heavy white sheets. Never to be unveiled again.
That girl had died with her parents. And I stood in her wake, a damaged and imperfect replica.
I remembered how angry at the world I’d been, only three years ago, seated on the loveseat facing a hearth whose fire never died.
Seeking comfort from the only person other than Gideon who deigned look at me without disdain or hatred.
I remembered how surprised I’d been when he’d asked to just talk, blaming the request on a supposedly horrible day and the need for a change of company that wasn’t a weaseling member of court trying to further their agenda.
Someone real, he’d said. He’d looked disheveled—frustrated.
Slumped against his chair with a haggard look in his eyes that almost made him seem… lonely.
Back then, we rarely crossed paths at all, save for the rare summons where he’d use his magic to search for signs of change in my curse. Which was what I’d believed he’d wanted. But that night, I’d just come back from crossing out another name. My soul was heavy. Tired.
And so I talked. I talked to the king longer than I’d talked to anyone in a very long time. And it had felt nice to feel listened to, for once.
It had changed everything.
He indulged me with stories he claimed no one else knew of. Gave me bits and pieces of him while I fought to hold my own soul together.
Grand tales of gruesome battles, accompanied by tales of love I only dreamed of having myself one day, even if he warned me against it. Love is poison to the heart, he claimed. Sharper than any blade.
A habit that stuck. I kept returning. He kept inviting.
Sometimes, we sat for hours in silence, broken only by the scratching of his pen, or the flipping of a page while I occupied myself by the fire with a book I’d borrowed from the library shortly beforehand.
And now I’d returned, just as angry and full of hatred towards the world. Except this time I’d honed that anger into a weapon. One I would use to cleave my way to breaking my curse.
“You bring me here so casually, like you haven’t summoned me to my death.
Like it means nothing.” Boots squeaking on sleek black marble, I stomped past him over to his desk, a gargantuan slab of mahogany likely cut from the same tree used to build the archway lining the entrance.
It remained clear of paperwork, neat save for a pen that lay discarded on its surface.
My limp had worsened, but the bleeding had stopped, which meant I could deal with it later.
The pain was reduced to a steady, aching throb.
“You didn’t even help me out there, for stars’ sake. You would have let Kodhan drop me.”
“The hilt is exquisite. It’s Jareth’s son’s, is it not?”
I’d wiped it clean on one of his guard’s capes just to spite him. Anyone else’s head would’ve rolled. But mine remained snug atop my shoulders.
“Are you listening to me?” I nearly shouted. I toed our thin line. But I didn’t care, my anger too potent for caution to take hold.
Maverick sighed, finally taking his eyes off Kodhan’s dagger.
“Get out,” he ordered the guards who’d brought me up from the Dome. Only when the heavy door thumped closed behind them did Maverick speak again. “I heard every single word, Eloise. I always listen.”
I knew he did. Damn him. I sighed heavily, wiping a hand over my sweaty brow. “Then tell me why you really forced me into the Starlight Trials. No false niceties or cryptic words. Please. You knew I would die if it weren’t for the fact that I had help from my allies. I do not belong here!”
The doors were closed. No prying eyes. The truth could hide no longer. And the thrill of surviving Strength did nothing to smother my existing outrage.
I knew very well that this was likely my last chance to hear it.
He crossed the room in only a few strides, and with a feather-light touch, brushed his thumb across my cheek. Catching the stray tear that had fallen.
His skin was so cold I almost feared the moisture left on my cheek would turn to frost. But it was a cold I’d learned to appreciate. A bitter chill sometimes proved far better than numbing emptiness.
The mask he so carefully maintained fractured for a moment, fatigue flashing behind his dark eyes. But he ushered it away as quickly as it came. He hadn’t been resting. Or was it the toll he paid for conducting the trials with so much magic?
“Your allies are there to support you when need be. Through any means necessary.” He dropped his hand, but didn’t back away.
“My faith is placed on you getting through all three trials. And it is rarely misplaced.” Kinder words for I am never wrong.
And I always get what I want. “I saw it in his eyes. Jareth’s son was never going to drop you.
You’re quite stubborn, you know.” A small smile.
“He needed a way to convince you to jump. And he found one.”
With a watery breath, I allowed one more tear to fall before pulling myself back together, like winding up a ball of yarn that had unraveled too far. Maverick silently waited, with far more patience than everyone gave him credit for.
How many times had we done this, between these four walls? Unravel. Wait. Ravel again.
Too many.
He saw right through the torrential storm of emotions I kept on a tight leash. Rage broke every rope I tied around its neck. Most of it slipped free only around him, after all. It made sense for him to pick them apart. He was too observant not to.
A brutal realization clicked into place as my thoughts cleared enough to replay his words. I braced my palms flat against his desk to keep me upright. “You instilled the ally rule because of me.” A selfish thought. An absurd accusation, at that. But not entirely impossible.
“I will not lie by saying that the decision was made without taking your safety into consideration,” he admitted, gracefully making his way around his desk to pull out the cushioned, high-backed chair that let out a creak under his weight as he settled into it.
He toyed with the sole pen on his desk, weaving and flipping it through his fingers.
“However, that is not the sole reason as to why I instilled the rule. The number of suspected people vying against the crown is painstakingly high as of late. It is as I said. They insist on banding together, so I merely respected their wishes.” He slammed the pen back down abruptly, nearly causing me to jump out of my skin.
I swallowed thickly. No one could know about my role in this. Not even my own allies.
But there were smart people out there. Kodhan being one of them. They—he—would connect the dots eventually, even if neither of us parted with the truth beyond these walls.
“How many?” How many traitors to the crown did he place alongside me in the trials?
Cogs visibly turned in that calculated mind of his. “Enough.”
Humming absentmindedly, I pushed off his desk with a wince, walking two fingers along the spines of his books as I limped towards the warmth of the crackling hearth.
Hundreds of them lined the wall, spotless and in pristine condition.
Though none were of particular interest to me.
War strategy manual, history textbook, another war manual but for soldier tactics…
Each one proved terribly dull and far less intriguing than the last.
I plucked a loose thread poking out from the back of the loveseat, and asked, if only to occupy my mind from rehashing the last few hours, “What are you going to do about them?”
“The same thing I always do.”
Find and kill each one of them. Alongside those they were connected to.
“And you want me to… help you?”
“You might be able to gain more information than I can.”
I shook my head in bewilderment. “No one would ever tell me anything.”
“You would be surprised at what can be revealed when tensions are high.”
The flames crackled in the silence that followed.
A burning urge to tell him about the countless names Diana had given me resurfaced for the thousandth time. And stars, I wanted to. Even with allies, I couldn’t predict how well I’d fare in the next two trials.
Diana couldn’t kill me if the remaining trials did it for her. Though at least I’d have told him the truth. She would be executed for her wrongdoings, without the grace of a trial.
But there was always the off-chance Maverick would kill me for my admission. Tear a hole through my chest where I stood, robbing me of the chance to win. To obtain any magic of my own.
It was too late now. I’d waited too long. They were his people, after all. Admitting guilt after the first murder was one thing. Admitting to several, over the course of many years, was another thing entirely.
His hand fell onto my shoulder so suddenly that I startled, leg screaming in protest. I hadn’t even heard him stand from his desk.
“Something troubles you,” he remarked. His thumb traced the column of my throat as his onyx eyes bore into mine, reading my very soul. It didn’t matter how many walls I built. He tore them all down with little effort.
Many things troubled me.