It was all ruthlessly pragmatic. So very Sylvanwild. And it worked: in the outer districts, people died quietly, without fanfare or interest. I wondered now if that was because of the fae.
Still, it was hard to believe humans had ever dominated the fae. Not after what I’d seen in Feyreign. “How could sunlit iron have been so powerful?”
His palm swiped overtop the book. “It cut through magic. All of it.”
My eyebrows rose. What a power to possess.
“So the legends go, anyway,” Dorian said.
“And Carys got rid of the iron,” I said. “She crippled the humans’ best weapon. So why did the practice of changelings continue?”
His hand dropped to the page. “You remember she was called the Courtbreaker?”
I nodded once.
“Changelings are different.” His eyes traveled over me. “They aren’t like a Feyreign-born fae. When they come into their magic, they sometimes tend toward more power.”
Warmth—and tightness—filled my chest. “Why?”
“I could speculate all night.” He tapped his desk. “The point is, the courts gather them up every hundred years.”
Every hundred years. “That’s the cadence of the trials.”
Dorian nodded.
“You said thecourts. Were they there that night, the other courts?”
“They’d done what they needed to do in the years before—quietly.” Dorian scoffed, sat back. “It’s meant to be quiet. Rhiannon broke that precedent.”
They had done what they needed to do. Which meant… “You’re saying there were other changelings in the districts. And they were taken.”
“One at a time, carefully.”
I stood, stared down at him. “Why?”
Dorian’s eyes lifted, held mine. Waiting.
He thought I already had the answer. It had something to do with the trials, a tendency toward more power, childhood spent in the Kingdom of Storms.
Yes, I did have the answer. It was obvious.
“We’re useful,” I bit out. “Like a hoe or a quill.”
“More like a blade.” Dorian’s jaw worked over something invisible inside his mouth. “Particularly when it comes to the trials.”
“Why the trials? Why not just train them?”
“Look at what happened in the second trial.” One eyebrow curved. “You think you could have thrown the Wild Huntswoman off her horse without that desperation?”
No. Absolutely not.
“Memento mori,” he murmured.
“What?”
“It’s from the language they spoke in your kingdom, long ago.” He paused. “It means ‘remember death.’ It’s what Carys lived by.”
Memento mori.Remember death.
