It was the only answer.
That night,hours later, Dorian pulled me from the pond. He tried to carry me back to the citadel, but I refused.
I walked. Well, hobbled.
Water dripped off my sodden, torn linens into the ground. Dorian stayed close to my side, almost but not touching me.
As we neared the citadel, fae appeared. They lined the bridge and the garden paths from the spiritstag’s grove to the throne room. They stared, and while I would normally have felt self-conscious, I was too exhausted.
The whole of the Sylvanwild Court could have turned out, but all I wanted was a bed.
When I came into the throne room, a handmaiden’s face appeared in front of me. “My queen, please. This way.”
Queen.The word struck me like a serving plate to the head. She was referring tome.
I didn’t have words; it was enough to follow her, step by gods-awful step, up the grand staircase. At the landing, she tried to leadme in a different direction from where my quarters were, her soft hand on mine.
I shook my head.
“But my queen…”
“Leave her,” Dorian snapped.
The handmaiden stilled and watched as I stumbled toward my own quarters. Dorian strode ahead and opened the door for me.
I came into the doorway and sighed at the sight of my bed. My hands went to the doorframe.
Dorian went to help me, and I jerked away. I couldn’t trust him, but I didn’t have the energy to send him away. He stepped back, and I struggled toward the bed. I pulled off my wet linens as I went, staggering out of the pants and shirt with only one good arm and leg.
I looked a wreck. I didn’t care.
Finally, I climbed into the bed. I rolled the blanket over me, and I slept. I slept so long, I lost all sense of time. I dreamed a thousand dreams, all of them rolling through me like my brain could not make sense of the world without these fractals of memory.
The southern district. Green streaks through the sky. The rain falling and a king’s throat open before me. The high hedge of the Eldermaze and the night sky above. The clouds rolling over the meadow. The cave and the waterfall beating in front of it. Dorian’s face in profile, staring out of the alcove. Theo grinning at me atop the wall. My mother’s fingers stroking down my arm. Rhiannon’s eyes, round and onyx.
The dagger in my hand, almost too cold to touch. Wisps of ice trailing from it. Power threading out.
The dagger. The dagger. The dagger.
Fate lines and promises.
“She’s waking,” a voice said.
My eyes opened. The lavender glow of the crystals lit the whorls of the great tree above. I was in my quarters, in my bed. And beside me stood Faun. It was her voice I’d heard.
Faun’s was one of the only faces I wanted to see.
She stared down at me, her eyes narrowing as they surveyed my face.
I stared back. “Well”—my voice was pitchy—“how do I look?”
“Like shit.”
A beat of silence. Then I burst into a hoarse cackle that made every part of me hurt.
Something moved at the end of my bed. My gaze shifted onto Dorian, who looked at me like I might break if he moved another step.
He looked like shit, too, his dark hair bedraggled, hollows sunk deep beneath his eyes. His mouth was a tight line.
