Chapter 47
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Eurydice
I rode back to the Sylvanwild war camp at a canter.
When I arrived, Dorian—no longer on his horse—came striding toward me before my mare had even come to a stop.
A terrible, enclosing feeling had fallen over me the moment I’d shaken Liora’s hand.
It pinched my chest now, especially as Dorian looked on with those worried eyes.
“What did she say?” He kept his voice low, confidential.
I dismounted. “We’re allying.”
“Against winter and spring?”
I handed him the reins. “Liora and I want the same thing.”
“Which is?”
“The end of all this. The trials, the wheel, the bloodshed.”
He set a hand on my shoulder before I could approach the others. “Liora said that?”
I stopped, facing him. “The dagger doesn’t have to draw blood to make its point, Dorian.”
“She told you not to wield it.”
“The opposite. She wants me to wield it, to draw on the rain.”
His brows drew tight together. “As a show of power.”
“Exactly as you and I had planned.”
His fingers squeezed my shoulder. “And what does Liora gain when the wheel stops turning? You think she wants to share her reign?”
He was right, and yet— “What other choice do I have? I don’t see Maeronyx and Iseris sallying forth to ally.” I felt trapped. Damned if I used the dagger, damned if I didn’t. And who could I trust, really? Caustrix’s voice slid once more into my mind: He’ll betray you. He already has.
Only myself. Above all, I had to trust my own instincts.
“You’re right.” Dorian stepped closer to me. “Wear the blade. Summon the rain. If Liora speaks true, then you won’t need to do anything else.” His gaze held mine. “If she doesn’t, you’ll be glad to have it in hand.”
I nodded. It was the right choice, regardless of his motivations.
Over at the rack, Haskel pretended to be surveying the weapons and not eavesdropping. He turned when I approached, his arms still crossed.
I half-smiled. “Any back-sheaths in my size?”
“Oh, my girl.” He snapped his fingers at Finch, who spun into action; within seconds, Dorian’s squire held up three belts of varying leathers. “Do you think I never noticed how much you love smuggling a dagger?” Haskel asked.
I picked the lightest, thinnest belt and strapped it to my waist. Good. “I need light armor.”
“Someone’s taught you well.” Haskel rumbled in his throat as he examined the rack and picked up a dark leather jerkin, pants, and boots. “What do you think, boy?”
Finch nodded hard, hands clasped behind him and chest out. “They look very fine, ser.”
Haskel grunted and passed them to me. “Try these on in the tent.”
I accepted both and turned. There stood a dour Faun at the tent’s entrance. She barely allowed me to push past her, then she followed me into the interior.
“What happened to you?”
I unclasped my cloak, let it fall in a heap. “A great deal, Faun. None of which I have time to explain now.”
“Why are you dressed that way? Where’s your hair?”
I kicked my boots off and said nothing.
She circled me, studying me with those piercing eyes. “You’re different.” She drew in a sharp, almost accusatory gasp. “You did it. You actually fucking did it.”
She’d seen the dagger’s grip. I unsheathed it from my thigh belt, set it on the small table beside me. I sat on the stool and began pulling off my guard’s pants. “If you’ve got nothing to do but stare open-mouthed, I’d rather you stood outside.”
If I knew anything about my second-in-command, a line like that would wound her pride enough to send her out. Instead, she crouched in front of me.
“I was wrong.” Her voice was quieter. “Wrong about you.”
My hands stilled. I lifted my gaze to her. “On which count?”
“I thought you might be a better queen than Rhiannon. I never believed you were Carys’s heir.”
I dropped the pants on the ground. “Nor did I.”
“They’ll try to kill you out there. Kneeling’s out of the question.”
“The other queens don’t yet know I have it. Only Liora.”
“If Liora knows, they all know.”
“But—”
She tsked. “Do you remember what I told you before your coronation? The thing all three queens agree on? The thing they fight for?”
My hands went still again. I did. Of course I did. “There’s no turning back.”
“No turning back.” Her voice was reverent, a rasp. “They will not allow men to rule. Just as well, they won’t allow one queen to rule forever. With that dagger—”
“I’ll break the wheel,” I said. “I made a vow to a god.”
She scoffed. “While you hold the dagger of ice and spite, you are the wheel.”
The enclosing feeling pressed faster, harder. I stood, pressed past her, and pulled my shirt over my head, facing away. “Leave me.”
Behind me, she said, “You named me your second. Listen to me, I beg you.”
I continued undressing. I didn’t speak.
“Forfeit your crown. Break the dagger. Bury it where no one will ever find it, and live out your life with Dorian.”
A scoff rose, burst out of me before I could stop it. I twisted toward her. “Break my vow. Let the trials continue. Condone the killing of human babies in the name of changelings. Let young fae be slaughtered every hundred years in the name of a bureaucratic handover.”
Her eyes were wide. Soft, vulnerable, not like I’d ever seen them. “Yes.”
“When I can stop it. When I finally have the power to stop it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She seemed to vibrate in place. “Because the alternative is worse.”
Anger rose in me, fast and hot. Snapping, willful. Briefly, I imagined the Faun who’d attacked me at Virellan Falls. The Faun who’d tried to kill me with her rapier. The Faun who’d stabbed me in the shoulder. My enemy. Ruthless, unyielding.
But I couldn’t reconcile her with the Faun who stood before me. Fingers curled, eyes round as a doll’s, eyebrows high. She was truly, truly afraid.
She believed it. She believed the alternative was worse.
I stepped to her, grasped one of her hands, then the other. Her fingers were cold. “Do you know the difference between me and all the queens who have come before?”
“No,” she whispered. “And I don’t think you do, either.”
“None of them had you. None had Dorian. With you at my side, I’m safe. I’m tethered.”
As I stood before her, her hands in mine, I felt that. I couldn’t hear Caustrix’s words in my head; I only felt the swelling of softness in my chest for Faun, for Dorian, for Haskel, Mirek, Eleyrie, even Finch.
“Will you always speak true to me, Faun?”
A minuscule nod. “It’s the only thing I can do.”
I squeezed her hands. “Then trust me to use the dagger this once. To end the trials, to break the wheel. Afterward, I’ll never wield it again.”
A small light entered her eyes. “Do you swear?”
“I swear it. It’ll stay locked away—Dorian will see to that.”
She studied me, maybe seeking truth in my eyes. She must have found it, because she nodded and let go of my hands. She unsheathed a short sword from where it hung at her hip. She gripped the sword with one hand and laid the flat of it over her other palm, then extended it toward me.
“I’ll hold you to that vow.”
I stepped out of the tent with the dagger sheathed at my back and the short sword at my hip. Faun followed me out. Haskel and Mirek rose from their stools, and the handmaidens all turned toward me.
Dorian stood at the edge of the Killing Fields, illuminated by sunlight. He’d armored and now wore a bastard sword at his side. He straightened when he saw me, hands clasping behind him.
As I approached, he said, “They’re ready.”
He turned toward the Fields. Far beyond, at the three points of the circle, they stood waiting.
Liora to my right. Maeronyx to my left. Iseris straight on, beyond the pillar—though I could not see her to know for certain. But I did see the brightcolt, its white wings flapping as it presided over the trial.
Each god watched, waited. Behind me, I knew the spiritstag stood at the edge of the forest. Liora’s dawn hawk circled in the sky far above her head. And Maeronyx’s black maw sat atop a boulder on its haunches.
I stepped up to the Fields. A great span of dewy, nauseating red covered the grass just inches from my boot’s toe. One step farther and the trial would begin.
Dorian’s hand fell on my shoulder and I flinched, almost threw him off before I recognized his touch. “You’ll feel the power when you step into the Fields.” His fingers were warm through the leather. Comforting, solid. “Be careful with your use of it.”
I turned to him; here we were, again, as I stood on the blade’s edge of life and death. “Dorian.”
His dark eyes seemed to hold me. I wanted him to wrap me in his arms. “Eury.”
“Even if I fall out there—”
“You won’t.”
“But if I do…”
“I’m with you.” His voice was fierce. “My life is yours. Always.”
I stepped forward, slipped my arm around his neck, and pulled his head down toward mine. Our foreheads met, and the veyre magic between us finally eased. I sucked in air as his arms came around my waist.
No matter the magic, this was real. This feeling between us was undeniably, inescapably real. It had preceded all the bullshit; I’d felt it the first night in the Eldermaze, when he’d wrapped himself around me.
His breath came fast as our heads pressed together, his voice soft, almost breaking. “Come back. In whatever way you’re able—whether that means winning or bending the knee—come back to me.”
No one had ever said that to me. For now, Caustrix’s voice had gone quiet, and we were just Eury and Dorian.
My eyes stung. I nodded.
He stepped back. One step, two, back and back without turning away, until he stood with Haskel.
I turned toward the Fields. Wiped at my eyes until they were clear. Slowed my breathing.
Above me, the sun nearly sat atop the pillar. Almost there, moment by moment rising, rising.
I set my hand on the grip of my sword. Saw a ghost of myself stepping out, summoning the storm, and then doing whatever the fuck I had to do to get Maeronyx and Iseris into it—even if that meant kicking their bony fae asses across the line. The act wasn’t foreign to a daughter of the Dip.