It was Dorian fighting the wraith.
I nearly lostmy footing on the stairs. The violence of the misstep threw my heart into a gallop. I turned, my hand going to the tree’s wall as I descended. Fast, faster—anything short of tumbling headlong down. The sounds of that scythe still rang in my head, but not from the fight I’d just witnessed.
No, it was that night in the southern district. Watching my people cut down, hearing their screams and that godforsaken screeching.
And Dorian, he was a part of it all. Hesanctionedit.
Somehow, my mind had fractured when it came to him. Maybe it was necessary, a protective measure, but I had somehow lost track of the agony.
He wassparringwith one of those things.
These fae, this court—it was fucked. They were in league with hell itself.
“Eurydice,” a voice called from behind me, echoing down the stairs. Dorian.
I kept going. I didn’t know quite where; I only knew I had to get to the bottom of this staircase and away from him. My eyes blurred, and the staircase swam. I was trapped here with the murderers of my mother, in this terrible place. A prisoner. And now they were offering me up in their violent ritual, a sacrifice.
A hand caught my shoulder, stopping me entirely. “Irin’s breath, Eury,” Dorian said from behind me.
He was so fast. So much faster than me.
My lungs scraped, my vision still blurry as my brain caught up. I swallowed, and my voice was a rasp. “Only my mother and Theo can call me that.”
A pause. Then, “Who’s Theo?”
Like a match, that simmering rage I’d been carrying in my gut flared. I turned and found him looming on the step above me. Sweat slicked his tanned brow, and his chest rose and fell quick.
“He was on the wall that night. My best friend. He’s?—”
Dorian’s eyebrows raised, his eyes traveling between mine, and a moment of clarity came over him.
“I understand.”
I hadn’t expected that. A barb or sharp word, but not that.
We stared at one another as a cloud drifted across the moon. Silver washed over us, then shadow, our fast breathing marking the moment.
“That thing up there,” I said, finally. “That’s what lurks in the forest.”
He let out a slow breath. “Yes. But it won’t follow us in here.”
My chest uncinched a fraction. “Tell me what this court is. ‘Sylvanwild’—is that another word for the pit you summon those creatures from?”
His lips parted without sound. I wondered if he was thinking of the night of the battle, too. “I can’t begin to explain to you what you saw. There’s somuch?—”
My jaw hardened. “Do your best.”
“They live alongside us,” he said, his words rapid. “You never have to fear them. Not while you’re here in the citadel.”
But if I step outside the citadel…
“And what were you doing out there?”
“I train by night.”
The cloud thinned, moonlight sketching his face in shades of gray. Even in this light, I saw earnestness there. He had not wanted me to see this, had not wanted me to be reminded of what I’d endured.
Maybe his heart wasn’t entirely black.
