Dread choked my throat. I was not prepared to be a legend.
His hand found the small of my back. He leaned in to me, murmuring in my ear. I kept a smile on my face, knowing we were both performing for the crowd. “You have faced worse than mortals pleased to see you. They want to see themselves as survivors, like you. Just be the girl from Stonehaven who raised that shovel and didn’t run.”
His lips, soft and dry, brushed over my temple. The kiss shocked me less than him still telling that story as if it meant something to him.
From the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of smiling faces. The crowd thought this was a love story.
Theyneededthis to be a love story. Dragon shifters and mortals, united. Power in mortal hands. Fear and I were shaping puppets with our hands, trying to cast a larger shadow over the kingdom to show how the world could be remade.
I could kiss him and pretend for their sake. I smiled up at Fear, looping my arm around his waist, and his gaze as he looked down at me softened. He kissed my temple again—affectionate to their eyes, approving to mine.
Lidi, oblivious and delighted, scampered ahead to greet some children who were racing out of the trees. She dragged them over with obvious pride, and Fear shook hands solemnly with several little boys and girls.
Corbyn showed Fear and me to the tent we should share—a too-close canvas ceiling, one bed, of course—then pulled us away. I glanced back over my shoulder at Lidi, already running off, and at my mother, who had a watchful eye on Tay.
He took us down the main thoroughfare of the camp, if “thoroughfare” was the word for a path beaten into the earth by feet.
We passed a man sitting outside one of the shelters, gaunt, his back against a post. His eyes tracked us as we went.
He had no mouth.
I looked and then looked away and then looked back.
Corbyn clocked my attention. “A Fae lord’s punishment.”
“Who was it?” Fear asked with deceptive casualness.
Corbyn gave him a warning look. “If you’re successful, he’s a dead man anyway. You cannot afford distractions.”
I glanced back at the man. He was still watching us, but some dreadful spark of hope had entered his gaze.
Fear rested his hand lightly on my back again, urging me forward and comforting me in one smooth motion.
Corbyn’s quarters were a two-room tent, the front room his office: a table, maps, mismatched chairs. A smokeless fire glowed purple in the grate.
“Tell me what you’ve brought me.” He looked at Fear, then at me. “Specifically the parts I’m not going to like.”
“Two Nightwalkers who’ve been working against the queen from inside her household.” Fear settled into one of the chairs with the ease of a man who treated every room as if he’d chosen it. “Trustworthy. I vow it.”
Corbyn’s gaze moved to me. “And your brother?”
“He is enchanted by the queen, but he’s not dangerous.”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet,” I agreed, because I wasn’t going to lie to him about this. “And we can fix it.I willfix it.”
“You know what you’ve brought into this camp,” he said. “We’ve been warded and hidden from the queen for years. If now she finds us?—”
“She won’t.” Fear sounded certain as always.
Corbyn kept his eyes on me. It was as if Fear did not exist to him now. “If she does, these people will pay the cost of your misjudgment.”
The canvas walls were thin. Outside, someone coughed. Further away, overlapping voices gave way to laughter.
He looked at Fear. “We’ll talk about the Nightwalkers later. Alone.”
“Of course,” Fear said pleasantly, but Corbyn didn’t look persuaded by the pleasantness.
