Kuris are kept, and something about not kuris are not kept—and something about me. Maybe I wasn’t listening as well as I should’ve been, but since she was so close to me that she was pressed up against my thigh, I was only really focused on somehow getting out of my own skin.
But if I had paid attention then, looking down at the captives, I might have understood, like I’m starting to now.
The captives, the people guarded by fae, are not all the same. They aren’t kept for the same reasons.
Some arematesof the warriors.
Evate.
It would make sense that those are thekeptones, the ones who look better, healthier, well clothed and fed.
And others are whatever kuris are.
The ones who are tattered, head to toe, weathered in the eyes through to the souls.
Those are the slaves.
Slaves and mates.
Kuris and evates.
I’m neither.
‘Many freckles for one not a kuri.’
That statement confuses me more than it should. I mean, does he think there’s a fucking copyright on freckles or something? I can only have them if I’m whatever a kuri is?
I slide a dark look over my shoulder, shifting my weight onto my side—
And the glacier chill of his stare latches onto me.
My brow thickens.
He always does that. Finds me with his stare before I’ve even decided to look at him, to throw him a scathing glare or an ugly wish.
He always knows when I wish him into a pothole, want him burning alive in the towns we pass through, find him and his white blood utterly disgusting.
He just seems to have a sense for it, all my ill will, but my fear, too, and when I need my inhaler…
If I’m curious, he knows.
If I’m scared, he knows.
If I turn dark and ugly inside, he knows.
And right now, he watches me, lettuce eyes alight in the dimness,watching me figure it out.
My brow unfurrows.
A tightness firms my face and, slightly, I lift my chin. Suspicion steadies me.
Blink if you can hear me.
He doesn’t.
Blink if you’re better than me.
He doesn’t.
