“Keep close to me,” Dorian said without turning his head. As we walked, I had fallen a few steps behind.
I was startled by the break in our silence. “Why?”
“You’ll be killed.”
Anxiety curled in my chest. My eyes shifted over the trees and saw nothing. “By what?”
He didn’t answer. But even if I didn’t know what would kill me, I knew he spoke truth. Something lurked out there. Something I couldn’t quite put eyes on, couldn’t hear, like my senses were too dull.
I moved closer to him.
“Tell me, at least, what became of my kingdom,” I said. “Did you break down all the walls? Is everyone dead?”
Dorian snorted. “You have a high estimation of our ambition. That’s more than fifty thousand people.”
So he knew the population of our kingdom. “Yes, and you destroyed an entire section of our wall in one barrage.”
He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. Finally, without turning, he said, “It was just the one district we attacked. As for your wall, they’re probably already as busy as ants.”
Ants. He’d compared my people toinsects. And yet at least he’d given me an answer; whether it was truthful or not, I had no way of knowing.
I would have to live in the belief the kingdom was otherwise intact. That I might someday return to it and find it more than just rubble.
“You mentioned a stag,” I said.
Dorian’s stride didn’t slow. “The spiritstag.” He sounded disdainful.
A beat. Then, “Am I a sacrifice?”
He let out a one-note scoff. “Humans. Everything is a drama—it’s either grand love or terrible violence, gods or sacrifice.”
My heart sounded in my ears. The downright arrogant gall. I forced my voice to stay level. “You attacked us. You took me from my home.You killed my mother.”
His step caught. He came to a stop, and so did I, a few paces behind. At first I thought he might turn on me. My hand reached for my absent sword. Then for my knife.
But he didn’t turn. In a quieter voice, he said, “What do you mean, your mother?”
“Her house.” I paused, breathing fast. I had to slow down or my voice would crack. “It wascrushed.”
He remained still a beat longer. Two beats, and I wondered if sorrow had crept into his dark heart. Then, his voice so low I could barely make out the words, he said, “A mercy.”
A mercy? A fuckingmercy?
“So you are a monster,” I said, my voice foreign even to me. “Whatever you are, you’re also that.”
He absorbed my words in silence. Sunlight shifted over his shoulders as he breathed, raven hair glinting as the leaves moved. Then, with a small nod, he started walking again. Like he knew. Like he didn’t even care.
I considered not following. Turning and sprinting. Except…Keep close to me.
Eventually I fell into step again. My feelings shifted and circled—fear to anger to grief to bargaining and back around—as we walked.
After half an hour, Dorian slowed. He pointed ahead, through the trees. “The spiritstag will decide your fate.” Was that forlornness in his voice? Or something else, less certain.
I stepped forward, past him. We had arrived… somewhere.
The trees opened up into a clearing, the sun shining unfiltered onto grass; at its center a pond glinted with crystalline perfection. I was drawn to it like all daughters of scorn are drawn to clear water.
Dorian followed me and joined me at the pond’s edge. We were alone here.
