Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
The time that had pressed in on me all week now squeezed my chest in a vise, and I couldn’t find the breath to speak. We had barely begun—we’d only had a week to prepare.
It wasn’t enough. It was all we had.
In Dorian’s study, the floor went to liquid beneath me. The world swayed. My head felt light.
Dorian’s hand went to my shoulder, the iron weight of it centering me.
“The trial won’t start until we’re all before Rhiannon.
Go to your room. Get your leathers on, your bow, your sword, and whatever else you need, but don’t overburden yourself.
I’ll meet you in the throne room in twenty minutes.
” His eyes traveled between mine. “Just keep moving, Eurydice.”
Distantly, I felt myself nod. It was the first time he’d called me by my full name.
“Twenty minutes,” he said. “Repeat it.”
“Twenty minutes.”
He squeezed my shoulder and turned away. He crossed into his bedroom and grabbed at his tunic as he walked. He lifted the shirt up and the hewn slab of his back came into view. He was all corded muscle and sinew, and for the first time I truly began to understand his strength.
He lifted his leather armor piece by piece from the dresser, his movements swift, methodical.
Go, Eury, a voice said inside me. My mother’s. If you sit now, you die.
I moved fast. Down the hallway back to my room, barely seeing anything. When I entered my chambers, I stopped hard. Haskel stood there at the end of my bed, my bow and small hip quiver in his hands. The quiver was full of those white-feathered arrows.
“I heard the call,” he said.
I gave a nod, wordless. My voice had been stolen.
He lifted the quiver and bow. “I restrung the gutstring myself, to ensure it wouldn’t break or slacken on you.”
I came forward and took the weapons from him. “You’re the only fae I like.”
He stepped to the corner of the room, facing away as I changed into my leathers and placed my weapons.
I picked up my cloak; I hadn’t worn this except once, to briefly look at myself in the mirror when I’d gotten my leathers.
It hung dark with Sylvanwild patterns, the same as Dorian’s. The drape was light.
“It’s well made.” Haskel must have heard the sound of the cloak as I slipped it around me. “Mirek is the best of the Unseelie tailors.”
I clasped it at my neck. It was a perfect fit.
Haskel turned back around, observing me. “Aside from that flaxen hair, you look almost like one of us.” He stepped forward and set a hand to my arm. He leaned close and whispered, “See you keep yourself alive to the end.”
My throat tightened. “I will.”
Not quite hollow words; hopeful, desperate, willful.
A faint smile appeared on his face, then disappeared. Haskel turned and left, his large form barely fitting through the doorway.
I was alone. I took a breath and crossed to the door and shut it with my hip. Then I stood staring at the armor on the dresser. I had ten minutes before I had to be in the throne room.
I felt stuck to the spot, but I vibrated with energy. Some instinctive part of me sensed stopping was dangerous—stopping was death.
I lurched toward the dresser, picked up the guard’s belt and set it around my waist. I placed the hip quiver on one side and sheathed the short sword on the other, at the crest of my hip. The sheath was a perfect fit.
Then there was my other blade. My knife lay where I had left it, tucked beneath my pillow. I slid it into the pocket on my belt.
The bow was last. I pinned half of my cloak back at the shoulder and slung the bow over my head. The gutstring sat perfectly over my chest.
I tested my gait around the room. The quiver and bow were light and small enough that they didn’t obstruct me, nor the short sword on my left hip. I jogged a circuit and found them both well made; they didn’t jostle or clank.
Last, I stopped at the bedside table where my mother’s journal lay. Don’t overburden yourself, Dorian had said. But he had also told me to bring what was necessary.
If I was going to die today, I would at least die with the one possession I truly loved.
I picked up the journal and slid it into the breast pocket of my jerkin.
Before I left, I braided my hair with shaking fingers. The braid was so tight it hurt my scalp. I tied it off and stared at the human gazing back at me in the mirror.
I looked terrified.
But as my mother would say, terror is only a feeling.
I came down the staircase to the sound of a crowd in the throne room. Below, what seemed like a whole district in my kingdom had congregated—more fae than I’d ever seen at once. They filled the space to bursting, hundreds of men and women and children.
The court. Much of it, at least.
A certain thrill filled the air, an anticipation. Perhaps it was a thrill for them. Those who didn’t have to face death, or the death of someone they cared for, anyway.
On the dais, the throne was once again occupied. Rhiannon sat with the diadem atop her head, a long scepter in one hand, royal-purple robes spilling past her arms and pooling on the floor around the bramble throne.
I came to the bottom of the stairs and was engulfed in the crowd. Eyes found me, and the fae nearest me seemed to move away. I was, I realized, distinct: clearly no fae, an undersized sword on one hip, a small quiver on the other, and a short bow over my back.
Everywhere I looked, faces displayed dark intensity, the same wildness I’d encountered in Dorian. I wondered if it was possible to look bored if you were Sylvanwild.
“Eurydice.”
Dorian appeared, pushing through the crowd. His sword hung at one hip, and his leather armor was the color of night. His hair had been pulled back, his forehead and cheeks sharp-edged. Or maybe that was just the seriousness he wore on his face.
He came to my side, eyes flitting over my weapons and armor. “Haskel and Mirek did good.” He let out a breath, set his hand on my arm. “This way.”
He led me through the crowd toward the center aisle and the throne. The press of bodies thinned, and offset from the central dais we came into a group of familiar faces.
These were the men I had seen that first night, the ones who had stared and jeered and laughed. Except this time their partners were with them—and every one was a woman. Of twelve pairings, the spiritstag had each time paired a male fae with a female.
“The pettifey arrives,” a voice said. His partner, a tall blue-black-haired fae with a high ponytail and a sword sheathed at each hip, stood beside him and stared like she would like to kill me or eat me, or one and then the other.
“So there is a human,” another voice said from my left. It was almost a question. The voice belonged to a woman with hair cut tight to her jaw; she was petite for a fae, but the silver chakrams on her left hip weren’t. “One less pairing to fret over.”
“The spiritstag chose her,” a third voice said from opposite me—the most familiar of all. I startled, my eyes darting in that direction. “Just like the rest of us.”
There, ten paces opposite and staring at me, stood Faun. She hadn’t donned armor; she still wore the linen tunic and pants I’d seen her cleaning floors in. Her black hair hung loose around her shoulders, and I didn’t see a single weapon on her. Unless you counted those canines.
But her ebony cloak was deceptive. Who knew what lurked under it.
“You—” I said. “You were chosen?”
“Months ago,” Faun said. She seemed to sense the question in my head—who was her partner?—and she gave an infinitesimal nod toward a redheaded male fae standing not far behind her. He was tall but slender and seemed uninterested in anything but Queen Rhiannon and the direction of her gaze.
When Faun and I met eyes, satisfaction touched her mouth. She seemed to know something I didn’t.
I set my hand to Dorian’s forearm, and he leaned toward me. I whispered, “Faun—she cleans my room. How—”
“The strongest,” Dorian said, voice low enough just for me. “The spiritstag always chooses from among the court’s strongest.”
Faun. The strongest.
I couldn’t help myself; my gaze kept straying to her, and something twisted and strange touched my heart. Perhaps more than anyone here, I feared and respected and envied her all at once.
That’s a woman who could bite a man’s face off.
I prayed I would not have to meet her in the trials.
A noise like birdcall rang through the throne room, spreading amongst those present. Around me, all joined in. Speaking voices fell away, and only the birdcall remained.
Everyone turned toward the throne, where Rhiannon had risen.
Through a gap between bodies, I caught a slender view of her in her royal robes, resplendent not in gold or jewels, but in the wild majesty of her court.
The fabric shimmered like leaves kissed with rain, dyed in shades of deep forest green and bramble purple, threads of silvery bark running through the folds.
Vines embroidered in thorned filigree curled across the sleeves, and the train of her robe flowed like moss down the steps of the dais.
She advanced, the hem whispering across the floor. She lifted her scepter, carved from dark wood and inlaid with glinting stone, and the birdcall faded to silence.
Her scepter lowered, and Rhiannon’s eyes moved over the crowd. She seemed larger, more regal than at any other time, as though she were twice as tall and powerful. The diadem gleamed under the amethyst light.
“Welcome all,” she said, “of the autumn court. Today we gather at the behest of the four spirits. Their long-awaited call has sounded, and the trials of the four courts will commence. The spiritstag has chosen its aspirants, present here today, to lay claim to the title of champion. As the queen of the court, the spiritstag has whispered into my ear the nature of the first trial. In a moment, I will name it.”
Beside me, Dorian’s arm pressed against mine. It was the first time I didn’t recoil from his touch. His warmth seeped through the leather into me, and I leaned back toward him the smallest fraction.
No matter what animosity we felt toward one another, in this moment I yearned for solidity.
Rhiannon’s gaze fell upon our group, standing to the left of her. She seemed to stare directly at me.
“The first trial will be the Eldermaze.”
As soon as the words left Rhiannon’s lips, a wail broke out somewhere in the throne room.
Like the sound of a child weeping.