“We’ll train,” he said. “Of course we’ll train because we’ve no other choice. On the morrow, when the sun comes up. Be ready this time with more than just your bedclothes and your fruit-cutting knife.”
Cold, sharp, taunting.
He reminded me of the regiment commander. He reminded me of every man with a harsh tongue and burdens he believed he alone carried. Men like that never seemed to see the real burden—keeping themselves apart, like a statue baking alone under the sun.
Maybe fae and humans weren’t so unalike.
“I’ll be ready,” I said.
One petal clung to his fingertips. He let out a thoughtful noise from his throat, and he rubbed his fingers together, watching as it fell in a spiral to the grass, then he started past me back toward the citadel.
“Dorian.”
He paused.
“Why did you bring me out to the gardens in the first place?”
“I brought you here,” he said over his shoulder, “so that no one could see you cry.”
Little did Dorian know,I couldn’t cry.
I lingered on the bench for some time after he left, but even alone amongst this nature I could not allow myself to cry. When the sun slanted low through the trees, I returned to the citadel. But the doors were shut, and I couldn’t open them no matter how I set my palm to their surface.
Finally, a man’s rasp came from behind me. “They do not respond to pettifey.”
I glanced back, and my eyes lifted. There stood the largest of last night’s jeering men. His hair was red and wild, beard thick enough to double the size of his head. For all that, he had striking green eyes. He was the one who’d been seated with his pregnant wife earlier today.
Alone, he seemed at once more and less terrifying.
“Here,” he said, and I stepped aside. His enormous hand went over the center of the leftmost door, and the energy around us seemed to change. The doors opened to the empty throne room. “Go in, girl.”
I hesitated, staring into the cavern of the tree.
“Or you could run,” he said. “Might make it all the way to the gates. But then, well…”
I met his eyes. “Then what?”
“You wouldn’t be opening those either, now would you?”
“I could climb over.”
He eyed me, then burst into a laugh. The sound warmed me, despite myself. “Are the small ones all so tenacious?”
“I don’t know what you mean?—”
“The small ones of your kind. Humans.”
“I suppose you weren’t there when my kingdom was attacked, then.”
He ran a hand down his beard. “So that’s why you tried to kill Dorian this morning.”
“How would you know that?”
“And that’s why you wear hate on your face.” He stroked once more at his beard. “Well, use that. You’ll need whatever advantage you can get in the trials.” He stepped past me into the empty throne room.
“Wait,” I said. “You’re in the trials too. Aren’t you?”
He paused, his back to me. “Of course.”
