“Who else could?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She turned her full attention to me. “And why is it called the Kingdom of Storms?”
“The rain. It rains every day.”
“Acid, I hear.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
Her head tilted, eyes glinting. “And why does it rain acid everyday? If the gods built your high walls to protect you, why curse you with a sky that poisons and land that bears nothing?”
That was a question I’d asked once, long ago. My mother—devout to Arxius, the god of the wall—had told me, “The gods don’t control the weather, Eury. Appreciate your blessings as they are.”
When I repeated this to Thalassa, she cackled. “The gods stack stones but don’t rule the sky?”
I shrugged. “I learned not to question it.” Not like Elisabet.
“I imagine you’ve had to do that with a great many things.” Her two white eyes hovered before me—pupilless, iris-less, ghostly. “A great many.”
I emptied my water cup and set it down. “What do you know of our kingdom?”
She tilted her head side to side. “Oh, just rumors. There’s always been bad blood between our realms. Humans and fae just can’t seem to get along.”
That was new to me. A certain defensiveness tightened my chest. “No wonder. A fortnight ago, you crushed our walls and slaughtered us.”
“Did we?” she said lightly. “And why do you suppose that was?”
I turned my palms up. “If I knew, maybe I wouldn’t have to swallow back stomach acid every night.”
She cackled. “You’re funny for a pupa. Clever, too. I see why they took you.”
My fingers curled atop the table. “That’s not why Dorian took me.”
“Oh?”
“I turned toward his sword.” I nodded over my shoulder. “When he was about to kill me.”
“Ah, bravery! The second-most admired trait in the court. He was obligated, then.”
“The second-most?”
“After the harnessing of nature. Our connection to the natural world is our greatest source of power. And of course it’s the woman—who possesses nature’s magic in her womb—who is most attuned to the elements.”
I wanted to know more. I was dying to learn. But my eyes had begun to droop.
Thalassa noticed. She rose from the table, palms pressing down on its surface. “You need sleep. You’ll have my bed tonight.”
“I couldn’t?—”
She tutted. “It’s the Hollowbound Rite. Besides, do you know how long it’s been since someone figured out the riddle?”
“You said never.”
“Ah.” She tapped her temple. “I did say that.”
Not all there. Definitely not all there.
I rose slowly. “I heard the last trial in the Eldermaze was four hundred years ago. Your trial.”
