Chapter 60
CHAPTER SIXTY
Eurydice
I stood naked on the balcony under a softly rising sun.
Tree by tree caught light, and the birds came to life.
Here in the autumn court, I’d begun to understand we were always in early autumn—that space between summer and deep fall when the leaves were still at their greenest and the air didn’t bite.
My fingers tightened on the rail. All of this my domain, truly now; for the first time, I felt like its queen.
“That’s a sight to wake to,” came a rumble behind me. Then arms around my exposed chest and Dorian’s warm body pressed against the back of mine. “Imagine a servant catching sight of you.”
I leaned back. “And if they did?”
“It would be the talk of the scullery.” His head came to rest atop mine. “But they wouldn’t dare say a word in the presence of the Courtbreaker.”
His heart beat behind me, a slow, persistent thrum. Once upon a time I would have felt terribly exposed by a man like this, in more ways than one. Now I was thrilled he’d come to me. I wanted this every dawn, his presence stilling my mind.
I turned toward him, within the cradle of his arms. “But would they speak of their queen’s nakedness in the presence of their king?”
The serenity on his face shifted to scrutiny; his eyes lowered to me. Then, a lip-curling smile. “Depends on his stature and fearsomeness. Would he be a bright-eyed noble from Highmark?”
I stuck my finger toward my open mouth and mimed a gag.
His smile grew. “Perhaps a dark lord from Noctere.”
“I prefer a little wit.”
He tilted his head. “I’m shocked the queen would even consider a king. Why risk your power now that you’ve finally consolidated it?”
I reached up, stroked a lock of his hair. “Perhaps the queen has other reasons.”
He leaned his head into my hand, kissed my wrist. Soft, deliberate, right over the vein where my blood ran closest to the surface. “She could easily take a consort.”
My fingers curled into his hair before I could stop them. “Not a befitting title for what he is to her.”
His smile faded. “You sound serious.”
“Because I am.”
“Eury, you’re not one who marries. I knew that about you from the time we were in the Eldermaze. And I accepted it.”
I tugged at a piece of his dark hair, curled it around my finger. “Am I not allowed to grow? To change?”
His eyes traveled between mine, all hint of humor gone. “You have another reason besides love.”
With one look, he knew me. I dropped my hand to his arm, pressed myself closer to him, set my face against his chest. Meeting eyes felt like a greater challenge than offering him my hand in marriage.
He stroked my head. “What is it?”
Lies came easier than truth, especially lies to yourself. The truth had to be dredged up, and it came misshapen and spiky. But Dorian was the only one I could share my whole heart with.
“I’m afraid,” I whispered.
“What do you fear? The other courts will take time to recover, and we will have a spy—”
“They aren’t why I desire you as king, Dorian.” I lifted my face, finally met eyes. Speak truth. “Sometimes, I fear I’ll never leave that dark place.”
He didn’t seem to know what I meant at first. So many dark places, outside and inside us. Then his brows lowered, as though he’d seen past my pupils into the landscape of my mind.
“You’ve left it, Eury. You never need return.”
“And yet this morning, just before I opened my eyes, I heard his low laugh rumbling in my head. He lives there, but he lives here, too. Do you understand?” Three times, and then—
His finger touched the corner of my mouth. He leaned down and kissed my lips with a gentleness that felt almost mournful. He understood. Perhaps he lived with it, too, even if he didn’t say it. Both of us had gone down to that dark place and were changed by it.
When I’d first met Dorian, he’d told me a rhyme about the Courtbreaker:
Four courts keep the world in line—
One for blood, and one for shine,
One for thorn, and one for sky…
But if the Courtbreaker wakes—
one must kneel, and one must die.
When I’d first heard it—and even when I took Liora’s head—I thought I understood the rhyme. Now, in the days since, I’d begun to wonder if the one who knelt and the one who died were the same person.
When our lips parted, he kept his face close to mine, forehead to forehead. “You could break it, you know.” Quiet, almost conspiratorial.
I went stiff. “Break what?”
“The tooth.”
I leaned back, stared up at him. “You think that would end it?”
“I’m not certain.”
My chest tightened. The idea raced through me like fire, lighting up my veins. “I’m only the Courtbreaker so long as I hold it.” Could I even touch the power I’d wielded on the Killing Fields without it?
“But no one need know you don’t hold it. You’ve shown yourself before queens and gods, Eury.”
I let go of him, turned back toward the balcony rail and the canopy below. It lay in full sunshine now, as did we. Breaking the tooth felt as impossible as snapping my own finger. I needed it, like I needed him. “In exchange for the tooth, I promised him something.”
“And what’s that?”
I lifted my gaze. “To bring down the sky on the Kingdom of Storms. To destroy it.”
Silence. The silence of a terrible truth. Had I planned to keep my promise to Caustrix, even when I made it? I couldn’t say.
“So you see, I can’t break it.” My hands gripped the railing. “For many reasons. Some of them less noble than others.”
Now might be the moment for him to turn, to leave. To go forever away. I wouldn’t blame him.
He stepped up beside me, touched the railing, stared out with me. “Nothing could ever compel me to leave your side, Eurydice. I’m yours, always. Dagger or none, clothed or not. Consort, king, or no title at all. Whatever you need, I’ll give it.”
I knew he spoke true. He had proven himself again and again.
Our court would be a court of steadiness, and he would be its king.
To my right, Highmark lay bright and wide under relentless sun—without a ruler, no doubt mourning its queen. But another would soon rise golden under sunlight, this one to a new world of heaving courts and uncertain rule.
Beyond my sight, far across Feyreign, the spring court tended to its shame. Iseris might have whimpered under the rain, but embarrassment made for potent anger.
To my left, the border with the winter court sat shrouded in white. There, it had begun again to snow. Most days it snowed, and sometimes a blizzard came.
I slid my hand across the railing, set my fingers over his. “She will come, won’t she?”
“Yes.” He didn’t hesitate; his fingers wrapped around mine. “But in Feyreign, a scheme might grow for a year or a hundred before it fruits. She has all the time she needs.”