Haskel ran a hand over his jaw as he chewed. “She’s hard. Like all of Carys’s line, she rules all four courts in her heart.” Haskel tossed the apple’s core into a bin, then wiped his hands. “That’s what happens when you’re the forgotten daughter.”
I glanced over at him. “The forgotten daughter?”
“The youngest of five. A hundred years ago she killed all her siblings to take the crown,” Mirek said quietly. “Four girls in line ahead of her.”
A hundred years. Rhiannon wasold.
“All of them with more power.” Haskel’s voice was the quietest I’d heard it now. “She took them all out in one night while they were sleeping.”
I stared between the two of them. “She killedfourolder sisters?” That seemed impossible. Inhuman. Monstrous beyond even these fae.
“Only way to do it.” Mirek placed a needle between his lips as he worked.
“And her parents?” I asked.
Haskel grunted. “Fae are known to die of withered hearts from time to time. They passed not long after Rhiannon was crowned.”
A strange silence fell over us. Now I understood why Rhiannon stood alone. Why she’d gotten rid of the former queen’s advisors. Why she didn’t trust. Why she was ruthless and hedonistic.
To her, life was short, brutal, and grasping.
And she had lived a hundred years with what she’d done.
Haskel stood. “Enough of history and the blasted courts. I’d much rather talk weapons." He crossed the room and hefted a small quiver. When he approached me on the dais, he extended it to me. “Yours.”
I accepted it, holding it above Mirek’s arms circling my chest with the twine. “It’s smaller than the one I wear now.”
“A hip quiver. Shorter arrows.” He crossed the room again, this time returning with an almost white-bark bow. “Short bow. Lighter than the feather fletching.”
I took the bow in my other hand. It was that light.
“You’re not a long shot,” Haskel said. “Short’s your best chance for a hit. Thin leathers and a good, light cloak will keep you agile. You’ve got no magic, so your armor and your weapons and your mind”—he tapped his temple—“are it.”
Past Mirek, Haskel’s blue eyes had taken on a softness. He reminded me of my almost-father on days when he’d decided he loved me and my mother. When the world felt gentler, even with the acid rain.
“I’m pretty good with a short sword, too,” I said.
A faint smile touched his lips. “We’ll get you that for the other hip.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
After the nextmorning’s training at the stables and the range, I found the new leathers folded on my bed. When I put them on, they were as Mirek had promised: fine dark leather the color of chocolate, thinner, perfectly fitted. At my insistence he’d let me keep the old guard’s belt, but he’d modified the two sides for the hip quiver and a short sword’s sheath.
On the chest in front of the bed lay my weapons. The bow, the quiver with white-fletched arrows, and a short sword three-quarters the length of my thigh. The grip was just right for my hand, the blade smooth and well-edged and light.
I wore the leathers to Dorian’s chambers. He’d left the door ajar, and I found him reading at his desk.
His eyes lifted to me, traversing all the way up to my face. His eyebrows rose, maybe without his knowing. “You got Mirek to tailor for you?”
Apparently Mirek’s style was obvious. “Haskel’s doing.”
“Haskel and his silver tongue.” He paused, eyes drifting lower before shifting off my body to what lay before him. “Sit. We’ll talk strategy.”
Had he been admiring me? Eury the pettifey?
No. Just Mirek’s work.
I sat in the chair opposite him. “How can we discuss strategy if we don’t know which trials we’ll face?”
