It was a riddle.
Fuck.
“Eury, I think this is one of the hollows,” Dorian said. “A riddle’s the key to entry.”
I hadn’t even solved Theo’s last riddle.I am you, but I am not you.Theo had loved them—he’d solve them before he finished reading them. And now he was dead. And the only way into this so-called refuge was by solving one.
Before I could bury my face in my hands, a low, guttural moan echoed nearby.
Dorian was already on his feet, his sword sliding free in the same motion. I hadn’t realized how dark it had gotten until I tore my gaze from the hedge.
The sky was purple. The first stars had begun to burn through.
“Fae?” I whispered.
He shook his head once. “No. Stay here.”
I grabbed his forearm before he could vanish. Our eyes met. I couldn’t let him go alone.
He leaned close, voice low in my ear. “You can’t help with this. Figure out the riddle.”
And then he was gone, slipping into the dark like smoke. I didn’t even see which path he took, only felt the absence when he disappeared.
I backed toward the hedge, heart thundering. A thud echoed somewhere ahead, followed by a drag across bramble. My eyes scanned the shadows, but there was nothing.
Not fae. Not human.
Figure out the riddle, Eury.
I am begotten through my opposite.
Even on my best day, even when I wasn’t hungry or tired, I’d spend an hour puzzling a riddle out. Usually I’d curse enough that Theo would laugh and hand me the answer. But this wasn’t my best day.
It was likely to be my last.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to ignore my heart’s birdlikethrashing in my chest. Trying to silence the buzz of panic rising in my ears. I was alone now. Alone and?—
A grunt. A yell.
Dorian.
My eyes flew open. Night had fallen completely. I couldn’t see him, but I heard scrabbling and the clash of something solid striking something else.
“Eury!” His voice came from nowhere—and everywhere. “The word. The word!”
His cry ended in a roar and a returning growl.
Vaelen’s bleeding fucking sky. What was the word?
I am begotten through my opposite. Through my opposite.
Calm, Eury. Calm. Just think. You know this.Did I know it? I had to know it. Theo would know it. Why was I so godsdamn useless? Dorian was off fighting through his fear, and I was?—
Fear.
Dorian was afraid, but he was fighting anyway. He was doing the opposite of what he felt.
That was it.
