I did not want to open my eyes. My hand found the place at mychest where the wrathful tightness throbbed—fainter now, less painful. If I lost it, then I would go back to the old me, the girl who understood nothing, who faltered and wondered. Who was powerless.
A bird cried overhead, the noise shrill and jarring and foreign.
My eyes opened, blurring. Across the pond, the grove was empty. Everything was as it had been, except for one thing.
I knew the spiritstag’s decision.
I got one foot under me, my feet touching the grass for balance. I rose and rubbed the back of my hand over my cheeks. I gave a last look at the grove, at the water and the fish, before I turned away.
I had not died here, but perhaps Dorian would wish I had.
“You, with me, in the trials?”Dorian stood with crossed arms amidst the trees outside the grove. His jaw worked as he studied me with those hazel eyes. “The stag wouldn’t say such a thing.”
He was right: it was ridiculous to put a human in their trials. Why me? And yet in the grove, I had felt the spiritstag’s feelings. They had poured through me, mingling with my own. The stag had sensed something in me, perhaps something I couldn’t even sense in myself.
And that last feeling had been the one I was left with—the offer, the choice. Now, here, I still burned with that desire. Even my tears cooled on my hot cheeks.
Maybe the venom in Dorian’s gaze helped. Maybe I didn’t mind it.
“Ask it yourself.” I pointed toward the break in the trees. “I’ll wait.”
Dorian stepped toward me, looming. “It said youwould bemypartner?”
My eyes wanted to dart through the forest, as though some answer sat on a branch or inside a squirrel’s hole. As long as I didn’t have to meet his hard, murderous eyes. But that was the small Eurydice. And I was already beginning to understand this man, at least in one respect:
With him, smallness got you nowhere.
I snapped my eyes up to him, lifted my chin. “Unfortunately for me.”
Daring, Eury. Let’s see if it pays off.
His knuckles whitened. We stood like that for seconds, eyes on each other, and for a moment we were not here in this forest but back in the southern district, surrounded by death. Not even a slender thread of empathy existed between us.
Then he let out a sharp breath and turned away. His shoulders angled like he might step off, but he stayed rooted, fists tight at his sides.
He’d averted his eyes first. A small win.
“What are the Sylvanwild trials?” I said, low.
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.” He ran a hand over his face. “We’re already dead.”
“What are they?” I said, louder.
His head half-turned, that hard jaw ticking. “Tests. Of strength.”
Strength.Any bud of pride I’d carried in my chest wilted.
“To what end?” My voice came out quieter.
“Fucking pomp and dominance.” He turned away. “Queens and diadems and whose boot rests on whose neck.”
He didn’t sound angry at me. I knew that tone—disdain—because I’d felt it before. Sometimes, on acid-drenched days, I hated my whole kingdom. Hated the walls. Hated the spires. Hated the rain. Hated the glimpses of that tucked-away castle where they ate pork and bathed in clean water every day.
For the first time, I understood that Sylvanwild existed in a hierarchy. Perhaps one as strict as my own.
Dorian started through the forest back the way we had come.
I could turn in the other direction, run through this forest until I found that gate he’d brought me through. I might be able to escape. I might even make it. More likely I’d get lost. Most likely I’d be killed by whatever lurked in these trees. Last night I’d nearly died to an arrow shot from one, but Dorian had pulled me aside with less than a second to spare.
