“Because you’re scowling again.”
“I have other things on my mind.”
“Like what?”
“Like moving my clan to the winter camp when there’s a sickness infecting creatures across our land.”
“The dryad.” She pursed her brow. “So hewassick. I sensed it. And his eyes had black threads spreading from the pupil. His skin, there was a dark webbing crawling underneath as well. Is it the Parviana plague?”
I’d heard of this disease that had begun with the moon fae and had spread far and wide. The wraith king’s wife was on a mission to cure all of those who’d been infected. But what had taken root in that dryad stag wasn’t this light fae virus that stole one’s magick.
“No,” I told her. “That sickness isn’t what is spreading here in the north.”
“You’ve seen it before then?”
“Not long ago, there was an attack by a small pack of Meer-wolves. These hounds were maddened, in a rage to kill. That is not normal for Meer-wolves. They never attack our kind blindly. Only in self-defense do they kill fae kind.”
She stepped forward, bringing her sweet scent closer. I stiffened again, not liking my reaction to her at all.
“There was a strange madness in his eyes. And his words,” she added.
“What did he say to you?” I hadn’t heard what he’d said.
When I’d sensed her in danger, my sole intent was to tear the threat to pieces. And so I had.
“I believe he intended to…eat me.”
“Dryads do not eat meat of any kind,” was all I could say. “Especially another fae creature.”
“I know,” she agreed. “That’s why it shocked me.”
While I wanted to pretend she must be wrong, I believed her. This wasn’t the first creature that had been infected with this kind of dark madness.
“There have been strange whispers that come from those living in the mountains.”
“Do you know the cause?”
“No.” That was what troubled me the most. “So what is this gift you have that you refused to confess to the council?”
Her posture straightened, her chin taking on a defensive tilt. I couldn’t help but smile. “I have already said I do not wish to tell. That includes to you.”
“If you are a part of this clan, then I am now your lord. You are beholden to tell me.”
She didn’t respond, clamping her jaw tight.
“You do not like to speak of your magick,” I teased.
“I do not.”
“You were trying to use it on the dryad, weren’t you?”
Her gaze snapped up to mine. She seemed about to pretend that she hadn’t tried, to lie to me. But then she answered, “It didn’t work on him. Not for long.”
“Dryads are god-touched,” I informed her. “They are able to resist fae magick more than others. They are also not entirely like us, their minds more linked with the earth and nature than the fae world.”
“I am aware,” she stated with some superiority. “But I wasn’t going to simply lay down and die.”
“Of course not. I was there. I didn’t let you die.”
