A pause. Then an intake of air. Those dark eyes stared at me, the soft lips parted, and?—
“They’re fucking abominations.Monsters.” He spat the words like fat seeds, one after another. “And none should live.”
“And why were you the one I sent, Dorian?”
A muscle in his jaw feathered. “Because I volunteered. I begged to go.”
“And why would I send you?”
His gaze stayed past me. He stared into a distance I couldn’t see, even if I looked over my shoulder. “Because I kill changelings.”
I studied Dorian,waited for him to meet my eyes. What did I want to see there—empathy?Compassion? Nothing would change what he’d just said, but I still wanted it.
But his eyes had gone unfocused. He wouldn’t look at me.
I had been right about my instincts:
Dorian had intended to kill me that night. He’d intended to kill me because he hated changelings. To him,weweremonsters. Hehadkilled us—more than one of us. How many? I didn’t want to know. I desperately wanted to know.
This fae had slept with me.Been inside me. And he hadn’t told me.
And now he wouldn’t even meet my eyes.
Rhiannon let out a chirp of a laugh. It was the first time I’d seen real delight from her. “So it seems Dorian did not tell you his truest feelings about your kind. I bet you asked, didn’t you? I bet you asked him questions when he had your clothes off, when you were already wet between the thighs for him.And he would not answer. Didn’t tell you he’s a changeling killer. Far more effective at that than trawling through history books. Though we all have our indulgences.”
I no longer saw Rhiannon or Dorian. I only vaguely heard her words. My head moved up and down in an approximation of a nod.
In this, she had won. She had won, and I had lost.
Rhiannon leaned forward, placing her chin on her hand. “He has a nice cock, doesn’t he?”
My throat felt parched. My face lowered.
I deserved this. I deserved this for opening myself to him. For letting him know me, and thinking I knew him.
Never again.
You’re a daughter of scorn, Isa the nurse had told me that night I’d had my nose broken by four men.Never trust a man, especially not outside these walls.
But something Dorian had said twice now also came to mind:When your queen gives an order, you obey.He’d said it with glassy eyes, a hollow voice.
The confessionals. Those went both ways. She could force her subjects to speak—but also to be silent.
Thatwas why Dorian had not told me his truth. That was why he spoke it now. He wasforced.
Even so—even if he were bound to silence—did it matter?
He still murdered changelings. He still loved it.
He still hated my kind.
“But why would I send someone to kill a changeling?” Rhiannon went on. “That, my sweet, is a question for you to turn over for yourself. In the meantime, you’ve passed the first two trials. One remains. Just one before you may represent our court, a champion among champions.”
I closed my eyes. Her voice was like the brambles of the Eldermaze, sharp and unyielding. I had to push past it, to press aside any vulnerability or hope, to be the Eurydice I had been before all of this bullshit.
There was something I still didn’t understand—the question Rhiannon herself had posed.
Why would she send someone to kill me?
