“You shouldn’t have gone alone.”
His look said everything he didn’t: he wasn’t any less safe alone than he was with me. Mostly true. But also not.
“Did you see anything?”
“There’s something three right turns ahead you’ll want to see.”
I nodded, then turned toward my makeshift dew collector. On the flat of my sword, droplets gleamed in the early light. I knelt beside it and lifted the blade with care. “Hand me your canteen.”
Dorian extended it, already uncorked. I tilted the sword slowly, letting the water glide down the groove and into the mouth of the canteen, drop by drop.
When I looked up, his gaze met mine. There was something in it—soft, faintly amused.
“That right there is half a day’s water for you,” he said.
I rose and grabbed my cloak. “It’s more than that.”
“Three quarters, if you’re not greedy.”
I swung the cloak around my shoulders and clasped it. I replaced my weapons at my hips and over my shoulder. “Depends on whether today’s another sprint for our lives.”
“Shouldn’t be,” he said, unhooking his cloak from the thorns. As the hedge revealed itself, my stomach cinched tight. In this small, curtained space, I’d almost forgotten we were trapped in this hell.
“But you never know,” he said. “So drink now while you can.”
He handed me the canteen. I drank, then passed it back. “You drink, too.”
He made to tuck it away, and I didn’t speak. I just stared, my mouth a hard line.
At last, he relented. He tilted his head back and poured the water down in a gleaming arc.
He made a face and corked the canteen. “Tastes like hedge and dirt.”
I exhaled quick through my nose. He’d never know it tasted twice as good as the best well water in the southern district. “Let’s go.”
Three right turns later, we found what Dorian had scouted.
A male fae sat slumped against the hedge, throat torn out, his blood still wet under the sun. He’d died upright, propped like a forgotten statue. I recognized him as the red-haired fae who hadn’t given me his name.
“Stars and shadows,” I breathed. “And the partner?”
“Haven’t found her. But he’s dead, so she’s dead.”
Of course. That was the nature of the trials—if one half of a pair died, the other died with them. Which meant, at best, only twenty-two of us remained.
“What do you think it was killed him?” I asked.
Dorian crouched by the body. “He was strong. Good with a mace.Excellent ear—no one could ever sneak up on him. Not since we were children.”
That stopped me. Not the words, but the weight in them. For the first time, it struck me just how much a part of this court Dorian was. This corpse had once been a boy beside him. They had grown up together. He had probably grown up with all these fae.
They were, all of them, probably this young. Just grown.
“He was a fucking asshole,” Dorian said. “But no fae in these trials would’ve killed him.”
“Why?”
He looked up, sunlight flashing in his eyes. “Because it wouldn’t have been worth the trouble. He’d be hell to bring down.”
