Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Dorian
The cell was a cell, a square inside the earth—though unlike Sylvanwild’s dungeon, this one was made of stone. It offered a cot and a privy pot and not one window besides the viewing square on the door.
Highmark’s dungeon was so quiet, I almost wished I hadn’t released that one dumb fool. At least then I’d know I still existed in the world.
I paced the cell for a time, my blood still up. I could almost feel Gawain under my fingers; my thumbs could press his eyes so easily into his skull.
Ssen ssa, he’d said. Thyr.
Not her. You.
He’d sent the mirror wraith not to kill Eurydice, but to test me. How well I could protect her. How sharp I’d stayed over the years.
Of course he would be here. Liora was no idiot; an alliance with Maeronyx was worth more than anything. No one was better at sussing out truths and weak points than her prized spymaster.
When noise sounded from elsewhere in the dungeon, I went still. Listening, waiting—
Footsteps materialized, drawing nearer. I approached the cell door.
Half a minute later, an unfamiliar fae’s face appeared. “Step back.” One of the queen’s personal handmaidens, no doubt. Her voice brooked not a word of argument.
I did so. She unlocked it, and the door creaked inward. On the other side stood Queen Liora. She had traded her ballgown for simple fare—a silky robe that gleamed lavender under the crystal light. As though she’d prepared for bed and then thought to visit me down here.
“Touch her, and—” the young handmaiden began.
Liora raised a hand, and silence fell. The ancient queen’s gaze was on me. “Leave us.”
Of course I was no threat to her; I might be able to overpower her if I were feeling insane, but she could blind me in an instant. Any light source was a source of power, and even the low-light crystal here was more than enough.
The handmaiden disappeared from view.
“Taking a tour of your citadel?” I swept a hand out. “The dungeons are most becoming.”
She tilted her head, studying me. “So you are the one Gawain took.”
The instinct rose to throttle her. Liora knew the whole history between me and Gawain; probably Maeronyx had shared it all with her. And then the Black Frost had sent Gawain on his destrier down the North Road ahead of the Festival of the First Light.
Plotting. Always plotting, these queens.
“And now here you are, a veyre.” Liora’s gaze dropped to my chest. “I wonder what the stag saw in you. Do you feel the pull toward her like a painful thing, here in the dungeon?”
I did. I had suppressed the feeling so well, it only resurfaced when Liora mentioned it. Eury was somewhere above me, further away than I ever wanted.
I set a hand to my ribs. Liora’s eyes followed it. “What is it you want of me?” I asked.
Her hand came out. I almost swatted it away, but she was already touching the edge of my doublet where I’d untied it at the neck. She pressed it aside to reveal the stag’s brand.
“So it’s true,” she said. “The stag thinks you and she will bring it power.”
“The stag is a god.” I pushed her hand aside. “What greater power is there?”
She let out a silent one-note scoff; the edge of her mouth curled. “Don’t play like you don’t know the gods’ desires, Historian.” True. “Are you prepared to kill the girl, if she should become like Carys?”
Heat flared in my chest. “She’s nothing of what Carys was.”
“Such a delicate balance”—Liora’s hand lowered to her side—“between the fervency of your adoration for her and seeing her true.”
I said nothing. Fuck her and her twisted perspective of Feyreign and all who lived in it. For one called the Dawnmaker, she was no less capable of mind games.
"I’m sending her to the Kingdom of Storms," Liora said, as though she’d come to a decision. “To retrieve the dagger. And you will go with her.”
I blinked. Of all the outcomes I’d imagined rotting in this cell—execution, exile, an indefinite stay in Highmark’s dungeons—Liora letting me go wasn’t among them.
The stag had been right from the start: She will give her the key. She’d dangled the Festival of the First Light like bait, reeled us in, evaluated us in a thousand different ways—and now, just before the Killing Fields, she was giving us exactly what we’d come for.
Liora wanted the dagger. Every-fucking-body wanted that dagger.
Might as well call it the queenslayer, for the power it granted.
Wherever that dagger was, however Drystan had hidden it, even the Dawnmaker didn’t dare crawl down into that hole.
Better to send the upstart changeling queen and her veyre.
“The sol key,” I said. “It’s real.”
Her expression didn’t change, but something flickered behind her eyes. "Old Haskel couldn’t keep his maw shut, could he?” She smoothed a fold of her robe. “It’s real, but it isn’t for you."
“Eurydice,” I said.
Her chin inclined. “Only a creature of light can hold it. And you and I both know you are far from that, even if you weren’t Unseelie.”
“Drystan hid Carys’s dagger with the humans? Are you certain all the wine hasn’t addled your ancient brain?”
“Not with. Beneath.” Her blue eyes glittered in the low light. “The catacombs.”
All humor slipped from my face. “There are no catacombs.”
“It’s a wonder you ever got away with calling yourself Rhiannon’s historian.” Her lip curled, teeth gleaming. “She was right. All you Unseelie men are just brutes with blades.”
“Where are the catacombs, then?”
“The sewers, of course.” She sniffed. “I bet you knew your way around those.”
I did know my way around those; I’d snuck down there often. “But…”
“You wouldn’t have seen the way,” she said. “The entrance is only visible with light.”
And beyond the entrance… “Haskel spoke of a dragon.”
Liora leaned back. Just a degree, but in a cell this small, one degree told me all I needed to know. “I suppose you’ll have to find out.”
She didn’t want us to know for certain. Who would go down a path if they knew a dragon waited at its end?
“Why come to me?” I swept out a hand. “Why dirty yourself in the dungeon?”
“Because I needed to see you alone.” Her gaze flicked up and down me. “On my dance floor, you were a beast. All instinct, no thought. I needed to know if that’s all you are—or if something useful remains beneath.”
“And what have you determined?”
"That you haven’t asked me a single question about Gawain since I walked in." She pressed a solaire-warmed finger into my cheek, and I flinched. “A man consumed by rage would have started there. Demanded answers. Threatened me, perhaps.”
I clenched my jaw. Even here, down in the dark, she could burn a hole through my face with one willful fingertip.
“You want to know if I can set him aside,” I said.
"I want to know if you can set everything aside." She took a step closer in the low light. "Rage. Pride. History. Because where you’re going, veyre, none of those will serve you. And if you can’t…” She shrugged, a delicate rise and fall of her shoulders.
“Then I’m sending Eurydice to her death, and I’d rather not waste a promising queen. ”
She wanted to keep Eury alive. Or at least wanted me to think so.
I didn’t move, didn’t drop my gaze. "What’s down there, Dawnmaker?"
Liora smiled—if you could call it that. A small, pitying thing.
“The darkness, veyre.” She lowered her hand and stepped back toward the cell door. “Best make your peace with it.”
Deep in the night, soft footsteps echoed down the dungeon corridor.
I didn’t rise from my seat on the stone floor. I’d been awake all night, pacing until my legs gave out. The blood on my face had dried to a stiff mask. I hadn’t touched the filthy water in the bucket.
When Eury’s face appeared behind the iron bars of the viewing square, my chest tightened in a way I couldn’t afford.
I rose and crossed to the door. She stood in her leathers, holding a tray of food—meat, bread, a goblet of mead, a pastry. From her guest quarters, no doubt. She’d brought me breakfast like I was a stray she’d taken pity on.
“Eat, drink,” she said. "Or at least clean the blood from your face."
I ran a hand through my hair. Dried flakes rained down to the floor. “The water in that bucket is dirtier than I am.”
“Is that true, or just your opinion of Highmark?”
My heart eased just a little. Even now, even here, she had that sharpness. “How did you get down here, anyway?”
“The guard opened the door for me.”
I let out a laugh. “After you set a blade to his neck?”
"You forget, Dorian." She tilted her head, blue eyes cool. "I’m not on Liora’s bad list.”
My lip twitched. Fair enough.
Eury disappeared from view, and a moment later the slot opened by my feet.
She pushed the tray through, and I dropped to my knees.
I grabbed at the goblet so fast it sloshed and drained the whole thing without pause.
The mead was sweet, too sweet, but my throat was parched and my pride wouldn’t let me show gratitude.
I set the goblet back on the tray and rose to find Eury already standing.
Her hair was braided tight. She’d clasped a cloak at her neck. She looked as ready for travel as I’d ever seen her.
I clasped the bars. "Liora’s already told you, then.”
Before she could answer, footsteps sounded. Heels, tapping on stone. Not the scuffling of prisoners—the sound of feet free of confinement.
Eury stepped back toward the wall until her spine pressed against it. “And I’ve already agreed.”
So it was time.
The summer queen came around the corner, flanked by two handmaidens. Her blue dress was simple, form-fitting, kissing the stone at her feet. Her hair had been braided at either side of her head, pulled into a half-ponytail.
She arrived at my cell, took in the whole scene in a second, and clasped her hands together. Her eyes flicked down to the empty goblet, then up to me. I could almost touch her disdain for me, pinch it in the air between us.
I tied my doublet’s neck. “When do we leave?”