I don’t answer. I’m already walking, crossing the hall towardVessen’s table. The crowd parts for me.
Vessen sees me coming, and rises to his feet. “Lady Alleria.” He gives me a half-bow. “I’m so pleased to see you safely?—”
“What would you do?”
He blinks. “About what, my lady?”
“If someone gutted you while you were unarmed, if someone locked a collar around your throat and forced bone through your skull until you couldn’t hold your head straight.” I barely recognize my voice as my own, it’s so soft and cold. “If someone released you into a forest you couldn’t escape, then drove a spear through your stomach when you were cornered and bleeding.” My head tilts slightly. “Wouldyousqueal like a pig, Lord Vessen?”
The hall has gone silent, every eye upon us.
Vessen’s mouth opens and closes, but nothing comes out.
“Would you piss your pants? Would you cry? Or would you scream?”
I don’t wait for his answer, whirling around so fast, the skirt of my gown flares out. I walk out of the hall. No one stops me.
I walk as fast as I can, my heart pounding like a drum in my ears, putting as much distance as I can between myself and all those eyes. My hands are shaking. I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry or both.
I make it to my chambers before the tears come.
They hit me all at once. Great, heaving sobs that wrack my entire body. I slide down the wall and sit there on the floor, my face buried in my hands, crying harder than I’ve cried since I was a child … since my mother died.
I don’t know how long I stay like that. Long enough for the tears to run dry and my breathing to slow.
There’s a soft knock at the door. “Alleria?”
Long enough for Nella to finish her duties at the meal andcome and find me, I guess.
She slips inside, closing the door behind her. When she sees me on the floor, she doesn’t say anything. She just slides down the wall beside me, and takes my hand. We sit there in silence for a while, the fire crackling in the hearth and the sun starting its downward journey outside the window.
“I heard you made quite the scene,” she says finally.
“I know.”
“The cook said Lord Vessen looked like he was going to be sick.”
“Good.”
She squeezes my fingers. “Do you want to tell me what really happened out there?”
I could tell her. I so desperately want to tell someone. Nella has kept every secret I’ve ever shared with her. But I don’t know how she’d react to this one.
How do I explain what I saw in those cages? How do I describe the way he looked at me in that clearing? How do I make her understand that everything we’ve been taught about the fae is wrong?
“Not yet.” I shake my head. “I can’t. Not yet.”
“When you’re ready.” Her voice is soft. “I’ll be here to listen.”
She helps me up from the floor and into my nightclothes, then throws back the sheets of the bed.
“Try and get some sleep.” She blows out the lamps, and I’m alone with only the light of the fire and the thoughts I can’t escape keeping me company.
I stare at the canopy above my bed. I don’t need to see it to know it’s embroidered with hunting scenes. Dogs chasing deer. Hawks diving for rabbits. Men on horsebacks with spears raised. I’ve slept under these images my entire life and never really focused on them before. Now all I can see is the terror inthe deer’s eyes. The rabbit’s desperate flight … and the way the hunters smile as they close in.
I turn my face away, and watch the fire instead.
Sleep comes slowly. I fight it off as long as I can, afraid of what might wait for me on the other side, but exhaustion wins eventually, and my eyes slide shut.
