“The food will get cold if you stand there much longer.” Cyara tilted her head to the side. “I have never been much good at using my fire for cooking. You will not like the mess I make of things trying to reheat them.”
“Why are you doing this?” Diana squeaked.
So many ways to answer that question. Cyara decided on the most literal, for the moment. “Because I think you are caught up in a situation that is not your fault. I cannot release you, would not even consider it. But I can give you a decent meal while the rest of them are away.”
And if you talk to me more easily…
Diana took one step, stumbled, clawed her way back to the wall, and started whimpering.
Cyara refilled her wine and prayed to the Ancestors that the Yuletide revelry kept her companions downstairs for the next several hours. She would need every minute.
36
VEYKA
Elayne had arranged for dancing.
Lyrena burst out laughing when the music started and the parade of performers appeared. Apparently, Cyara had shared that particular quip with her.
I did not plan on stabbing anyone at the Yuletide feast. But we were only on the first dinner course.
The stone walls that I’d once judged as austere hung with rich emerald tapestries, all manner of terrestrial shifter depicted in woven gold. They were lovely, but it was clear that the festival of Yule belonged to the flora-gifted terrestrials.
Massive evergreen trees stood in each corner, each of their tops ending a scant inch below the arched stone roof—too perfect to be anything but magic. They were ornamented by glowing red winterberries magically grown to the size of my fist. I could have plucked one off a tree and eaten in like an apple.
I tested the flesh with my thumb, pressing until my fingernail pierced the ruby red skin. I glanced around—by some miracle, no one was watching me. They were all busy watching the dancers, or eating and drinking. I caught the muffled sounds of other pleasures as well.
My stomach tightened.
I sucked the berry juice off of my thumb and pretended not to notice.
I savored the tartness on my tongue. Drank in the elegant movements of the dancers. A handful of the terrestrials who resided at Eilean Gayl were joining in, selecting the handsomest and most beautiful of the performers to partner with.
The priestess and her acolyte arrived without ceremony—exactly as Elayne had said. No ridiculous prophecies or overwrought water magic in sight. Maybe I would take a terrestrial priestess back to Baylaur with me and kick Merlin out on her smug, power-grabbing ass.
This is not the terrestrial court, I reminded myself.
Eilean Gayl was its own microcosm of the terrestrial kingdom. What awaited in Cayltay, the capital situated on the edge of Wolf Bay… I took a deep drink of my wine, wishing it was aural. Elayne skirted around the topic of the capital. But it was not a conversation we could avoid forever. Not even for long. Once I’d dealt with the amorite mines, that was my next stop. I needed to warn the terrestrials of the threat of the succubus, convince them to take precautions… without Arran at my side.
For a second, I could almost feel the scrape of the engraved wall against my fingertips. Scent the blood. A threat, a reminder.
I might not be enough.
I had to be enough. For Arran and for Annwyn.
I drained my wineglass.
37
CYARA
“Slowly. You will make yourself ill,” Cyara warned. She was nibbling at a small square of bitter chocolate that was meant to be dessert.
Probably a good thing, she reflected, as Diana shoved another oversize hunk of bread into her mouth. Watching the woman eat was the opposite of appetizing.
Diana ignored her, fully given over to the frenzy of food. She licked gravy off her fingers, took her next bite before she had even finished chewing the previous one. Cyara had once seen a skoupuma devouring a child who had wandered too far on the outskirts of Baylaur. This was revoltingly similar.
When the woman paused long enough to gulp down some wine, Cyara tossed one of the towels she had folded earlier across the table. “We have been feeding you.”
