Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Eurydice
Light rain fell over the meadow. Not a blowing, cruel rain—the kind that reminded you of beauty, of growth, of life.
I’d slit Rhiannon’s throat in this meadow.
Twenty paces away, Haskel lifted his face toward the sky and squinted. “Feels bloody nice.” Droplets slipped down his beard, fell to the grass. “Make it hurt, girl.”
I stood shivering, soaked through. We’d been in this meadow an hour, as soon as the rain had started, and I hadn’t felt a flicker of magic. No storms, no acid, no pain.
Over at the tree line, Dorian sat against a dry trunk while his squire stood at attention beside him. Finch, a coltish boy who was no doubt fascinated by the fact that this was his queen. I, who’d spent an hour standing uselessly under rain.
I couldn’t control the acid, just like I couldn’t stop Dorian from watching on. Just like I couldn’t please Haskel.
“If you stare at your veyre much longer,” Haskel rumbled, “he might think you aren’t as averse to him as your words suggest.”
I twisted back toward Haskel. “It’s not working. I can’t do it without—”
“Fear of death?”
I flicked my sodden braid off my shoulder. “A midday shower doesn’t put that in me.”
“And an eight-hundred-year-old fae warrior doesn’t either, I suppose?”
“Perhaps when we first met.”
He ran a hand through his wet hair. “That’s your first problem. You think fear of the underworld is the only way to call on your magic.”
“And what’s my second problem?”
“You’re too young and foolish to fear death unless it’s bearing down on you with blade or spear. So we must find another way.”
“How do you call on it?”
“Oh, there are many ways into the castle. But not all of them work for all folks.” He cupped a hand at his mouth and turned toward the tree line. “Come on then, the two of you dry sods.”
“Haskel, wait—”
He waved me off. “Put aside the wills and wonts of young love for an afternoon, would you? There’s a fucking kingdom to be rewritten.”
Dorian high-stepped through the grass with Finch not far behind. When they arrived, they stood twenty paces off from both of us, making a triad. “I expected to feel the sting of acid,” he said. “Or at least a twinge.”
“Yes, well, your queen’s all up in her head. ‘Death is a blade’ or some such.” Haskel shrugged and began tromping off. “Can’t get to her magic without brainy nonsense, and you know that’s not my way.”
I stepped after him. “Haskel, wait.”
He grumbled something about his soles pruning in his boots and dripped off toward the trees and, presumably, the dry citadel.
“He’s always brute-forced his way to his magic,” Dorian said after him. “Haskel’s not the type to poke around in anyone’s head.”
“And you are?” I turned and locked eyes with Finch, who’d clearly been staring. His gaze dropped at once.
“If need be.” Already Dorian’s black hair had fallen halfway out of its tie under the gentle rain. Locks of it were pasted to his cheeks like he’d been painted, curse him. “Seems you’re the emotional type when it comes to magic.”
“The emotional type?”
“It’s just a description.”
“So is honest, but I wouldn’t want to mischaracterize you.”
Finch’s eyes had gone wide as he stared between the two of us.
“It’s a word. Just that.” Dorian set a hand on Finch’s shoulder; the squire’s eyes went wider. “What’s your magic, boy?”
“Fire, ser.”
“Really? The rarest kind?”
“Yes, ser.” He was either shy or guarded. I’d guess maybe a little of both.
“And how do you get to your magic, Finch?”
Finch had straightened under Dorian’s touch. “I smell it.”
Smell it?
Dorian nodded. “Explain that for us.”
“The scent of burning is unmistakable, ser. And when I need to use my magic, I just look for that smell. Sometimes I can only find it in my memory.”
Dorian clapped Finch’s shoulder. “Sensory, then.” He patted the boy’s back. “Go on, before you get too wet.”
Finch hesitated. “What should I do, ser?”
“How much of my library have you gotten through?”
Here his green eyes gained a certain light. “Only the histories of Aurelia.”
“Try the histories of Noctere today.” Dorian winked. “They’re far more compelling.”
This time the boy didn’t hesitate. As he departed through the wet grass, Dorian and I turned after him. I had not expected the fatherliness, the warmth.
“A squire,” I said. “One who can read.”
“Who likes to read. Even rarer.”
“He seems far too soft for this court.”
“The greatest miracle of all.” I caught Dorian watching me in my periphery. “I should hope to keep it that way.”
I turned toward him. For the first time in weeks, the open wound between us didn’t feel so tender. “How do you propose to do that? Will you keep him back when we travel to Highmark?”
“Highmark will be a great honor. Might be he’ll have his first kiss.” He rubbed his fingers together. “But I won’t let him near the Killing Fields.”
A jag of envy struck through me. Just a few years ago I’d been Finch’s age, but I’d never had that softness. Softness like that made you a target. And here I was, standing in front of a man who told me I was the emotional type.
Dorian seemed to sense where my thoughts had gone. Or maybe he saw the tightening of my mouth. “I’m like you, you know.”
Now that’s bold.
“I’ve only ever gotten to my magic through emotion,” he said.
“And that can’t be changed?”
“Once you’ve built a road, why hew a new path?”
“Smell seems easier than emotion.”
“It is, and it creates a less intense magic.” Dorian gestured after Finch. “Is that what you want, a matchstick of magic?”
Fuck no. I curled my toes in my boots with a squelch. “But we’re back to the same place we started. I can’t make myself fear death while we stand in this flower-tickling rain, you looking like a wet dog.”
His lips curled, just a little. “Who says you have to fear death?”
“That’s how you got me there, with Rhiannon—”
“Because I needed something potent that day. Something potent enough to save your life. Death made you a blade.”
“And what else but death could make me a blade?”
He raised his hand. With a flick of his fingers, a gust of rain blew straight into my eyes. “I have a few ideas.”
Apparently Dorian had annals of ideas for how to humiliate me.
“Come at me,” he said after he blew rain into my eyes. “If you can.”
Happily. I’d been dreaming of knuckling his pristine, smug face for weeks.
For the next half hour I ran at him. And every time I did, a gust of wind threw me to the side or knocked me on my ass. Pain raced through my hips, up my spine. My teeth clacked as my head bounced, and he hadn’t so much as jutted out an elbow.
But he didn’t just want to deflect me; he wanted to destroy me by a thousand irritations.
He sent rain up my nose. He blew it under my collar, sending slimy wetness down my spine.
He slapped my braid in my face until both cheeks stung like when I was a girl who’d gotten slapped on each side for stealing a meat pie from the pub.
I’d gotten five slaps on each cheek, those big man hands not holding back until I apologized.
The wind blew, but Dorian didn’t move. The only signs of life were his fingers and his horrible mouth.
“Can’t imagine how you survived the Dip.” He procured an apple from somewhere in his leathers, rubbed it on his wet jerkin, and bit into it with a crunch. “You’re like a toothless puppy with worse balance.”
He was as godsawful as Faun at the hollow pool. Made sense; the two of them were rotspawn of the same court.
I sat in the grass, breathing hard, and found my legs too wobbly to stand. But I’d rather eat dirt than let him know. “Tell me about the Killing Fields.”
He took another bite, watching me with those coal-dark eyes. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything." I wiped rain from my face. "How it works. How champions die."
"Four courts, four pieces of land." He gestured with the apple, carving the air into quarters. "Each god’s magic is strongest in their own territory. The moment you step into the wrong part of the Killing Fields, you give up your advantage."
"Dividing lines?"
"Exactly that. You’ll feel it if you cross one—like a wall of water."
I pulled my knees up, catching my breath. "Why would anyone step into another court’s land?"
His smile was grim. “Either hubris… or because they were forced.”
“Forced?”
“Every champion is strongest on their own ground. So…”
“The goal is to get the other champions to step outside their land.”
“By one means or another.” Something flickered across his face—memory, maybe. "Some magics have an easier time of it than others.”
“Feralis and viridine,” I said. "They can both manipulate earth, right?”
He inclined his head, something like approval in his gaze. “Yes. Light and shadow can’t push or pull, but they can cross boundaries in their own way.”
“Light can blind.”
“As can shadow.” He took another bite. “Blinded, you’re nearly useless. So many champions have fallen to light and shadow.”
I pushed myself to my feet, legs burning. “So I’ll need to fight blind.”
“You’ll need to fight through anything. But whatever you do, avoid the Convergence.”
The Convergence. “Why?”
“It’s a soupy hell of magic at the center of our kingdom. Everything’s amplified and it all runs together.”
His jaw had tightened, gaze going faraway. I lowered my brows. “That’s where Carys killed the other queens, isn’t it?”
Dorian’s attention jerked to me. Hesitation—then a nod. “But your goal isn’t to kill them, Eury. Just to survive.”
That was what Dorian, Haskel, and I had decided in the darkness of the gardens. Just survive under my acid rain until the other queens were sapped or cowed.
He tossed the apple core aside. “And if you can’t even call on your magic in this field, then…”
I ran at him again, boots sliding across the grass. I threw blows at his sides, his face, but the wind deflected and I swung at air.
I just wanted one hit. One good hit.
The base of my spine cried out when I was thrown once again onto the earth, and I was done. Done, done, done.
I grabbed at the grass with my fingers as though squeezing it could make him suffer. “And what emotion have you been tapping into for the past hour?”
“Surely you can guess.”
I pushed onto my knees and swiped my muddy hands on my pants. “Disdain.”
He gazed down his dripping nose at me. Dark eyes, cruel eyes. “Deeper. Stronger.”
My racing heart gave a painful thud. I knew the emotion—knew it better than I wanted to. It had moved his hand, had thrust cold metal into the bodies of changelings. I’d seen him wearing that face while the sky shone green behind him, while everyone I knew screamed and ran and died.
All at once, this didn’t feel like an exercise in magic.
My hands clenched; Dorian’s eyes flicked down to the movement and back up. “Name it,” he said.
I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t give him that.
“Name it.” His hand flicked, and the rain buffeted my face. I shut my eyes and hated it and didn’t speak. “You know what you feel, Eury.”
I did. But I refused to give him what he wanted. I’d rather be afraid. I’d rather be anything but what I knew waited inside me.
Wind punched me in the chest, and I was on my back before my eyes had even opened. The tall grass rose around me, and beyond it the gray sky. Rain hit my face, ran into my nostrils, and I hated him.
Kidnapper. Killer for hire. Murderer.
My mother was dead because of him.
I didn’t feel myself move so much as my veins sang with scornful life. Didn’t realize I was on my feet and charging him until I leapt. I wrapped my legs around him as the two of us went down.
If I’d had a knife, it would be in my hand. Hell, if I had a chair leg I’d be swinging it.
Here she was, the creature inside me.
I wasn’t a queen or even a changeling. Not fae, not human, not woman. I was just Eury of the streets. Eury of the mud. Eury the cheek-biter. She didn’t care how big her opponent was, or how many, or her odds—
She only fought. Fought and won.
I straddled him, raised my shaking fist. I would dash his face in. I would pummel him until he was no longer Dorian but the same pulp of man who’d dared to bring it out of me.
He was the boy who’d shoved my face into the mud while he sat atop me.
He was Theo’s bully, thinking because Theo was small and I was a girl he could go on punching Theo in the belly whenever he saw that red hair.
He was the four guard in the bunkhouse, each of them holding one limb like those limbs belonged to them.
Fuck that. Fuck them.
I would show them, and keep showing them, what it felt like to be small.
And yet…
I stared down at Dorian and couldn’t make my arm move.
A drop of rain had hit his forehead… and steam rose from it. That unmissable scent entered my nose—and the instinct to find cover. Acid. Rain in the acid, and acid in the rain.
Acid rain had fallen on Dorian’s face.
I’d done it. I’d called on magic. But this time I’d touched it not with fear for my life, but the opposite. And this feeling was far easier to access than fear.
Vaelen’s bleeding sky, hatred felt good. It felt like power. It felt just like that night, except the grass had been soft bedding and I’d been the one looking up at him from the cage of his arms.
He stared up at me, jaw waiting. He’d take the blow my hand shook to deliver. He wouldn’t fight, wouldn’t blink away. And though one part of me longed to destroy him, another part of me was aware of every part of me touching him. My thighs, my ass, my—
I rolled off him and onto my back in the grass. Above me, the clouds had taken on a familiar green hue. The wet sting on my face felt like home, felt like victory.
“Spite,” I whispered. “The feeling is spite.”