“Do you see how irritating nicknames are?” she asked with mock sweetness.
“I am pleased to see you so recovered from your ordeal in the Peace Gate,sweetling,” he countered.
I pressed two fingers to my temple. I had a new appreciation for Koryn’s annoyance with Syleris and me.
“Where is the dragon?” Syleris asked. He crossed his arms over his chest. It was casual—or trying to be. Interesting, that I was beginning to see the slight difference.
“Finding her supper. Do not change the subject,” Koryn sniped. “You can see someone’s darkest desires, the pieces of themselves they do not want anyone to see. What does the fae king want?”
I spun to face him. “You can do what?”
Syleris lifted the corners of his sumptuous mouth. “Worry not, halfling. I have already seen your dark heart. The raven is the bird of death. You were as meant for me as she was.”
Before I could respond to that, he turned to Koryn. “The fae king will stop at nothing to acquire the power he desires. He wants absolute dominion over this continent. That is all I can tell you.”
Koryn and I exchanged a look that Syleris surely saw. There was a double meaning to that last sentence. All he could tell us because it was all he knew… or because there was some other restraint that prevented him from telling the complete truth?
Syleris was playing games. Still.
Koryn made a sound of annoyance in her throat. It was almost a hiss. She sounded eerily like her familiar. “We cannot stay away from the Unknown Gate for long. If we do not destroy the talisman before we lift the curse, Maura will have an advantage over the fae forever. She is just as dangerous as the king. We are running out of time.”
She was right. We had to find the talisman and destroy it. Then we had to get back to the Unknown Gate. The last test—the one set by the god standing between us now.
“The Winter Tithe is only a few days away,” I said.
Koryn recoiled, her entire demeanor changing. Her worried frown transformed into disgust, her lips pressing outward, pupils contracting with outrage. “The fae celebrate the Winter Tithe?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “Though not in the same way the humans do.”
I’d avoided the event successfully every year by hiding away with my mother in her room in the base of the tower. But not this year.
“The entire court is expected to attend,” I said. That would include Koryn and me.
She hated the idea. She was decent at hiding her expressions most of the time, but she did not bother to hide the disgust on her face. Only the fae would have the audacity to subvert a human holiday created in response to the very curse they’d brought down on this continent and make it their own. But it was a chance.
Koryn’s fingernails were at work again, this time shredding the coverlet instead of the bedpost. “Which makes it the ideal opportunity to search for the king’s treasury for the talisman,” she admitted. “Fine. We have no choice.”
CHAPTER 41
KORYN
Between sharinga bed with Garrick again, Isanara flying in and out of Balar Shan in her perpetual quest for food to fuel her next growth spurt, and Syleris making silent demands, I was desperate for a moment to myself. For the months between my ouster from my coven and entering the first temple, I’d been alone. Lonely. Before that, I’d shared a cave in the coven lands with four sister witches. And still, I’d been alone. Lonely.
Now I was never alone.
I wasn’t lonely, either. Which was… beautiful. And terrifying.
But when I opened the door to the bedroom, it was, by some miracle from one of the gods who didn’t spend his time whispering into my ear, empty.
I nearly collapsed on the bed out of gratitude. To whom? It did not matter. I was finally, blessedly, if only momentarily, alone.
The bed was a good option. I could spread my arms and legs out in every direction. Without Garrick or Isanara to press against me, I could sink into deep meditation. Shut out all of the noise and sensation, just like Tomin had taught me. It was so tempting.
The chair by the fire called to me, too. It still smelled of cinnamon and wine from the weeks that Garrick had spent sleeping in it. I cringed. It was comfortable, but not that comfortable.
But neither stood a chance once I spotted the gown.
It hung on the outside of the wardrobe, the layered panels of the skirt shimmering in the flickering firelight from the hearth. It was velvet, like almost every other gown that I’d worn since arriving in Balar Shan. But it was different, somehow. I drifted across the room, transfixed. As I moved, the colors shifted. The lavender velvet was embroidered with an undulating pattern of emerald and turquoise that seemed to move when it caught the light.
