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These new surroundings might not—yet—feel quite so ominous, but the same expectant silence held sway here. It would be foolish to break it now.

It would be even more foolish to let himself reflect on how shockingly easy it felt to communicate without words with his greatest nemesis.

… Or, worse yet, on how treacherously natural it felt to do so.

No. Setting his jaw, Gerard wrenched his malfunctioning thoughts firmly back under control.

He was Queen Lorelei’s prisoner, not her partner … and he would win this challenge purely for the honor of his empire.

With that mission once more in mind, he tilted his head meaningfully. His beautiful—no, wicked, impossible—captor gave a graceful shrug in answer and then started forward, leading the way along the path towards the next stage of their challenge.

10

Long, sharp-thorned brambles trailed through the hedges on each side of the narrow path like clawed and questing fingers. Lorelei gave them an indulgent smile and then dismissed them with a flick of her hand. They curled swiftly out of the way, leaving her to walk freely, all her senses alive to the night around her.

The whisper-soft sounds that followed behind a moment later made her wince, as those same brambles scraped audibly against her human partner. At least the Golden Beacon was no longer half-naked; surely thorns couldn’t damage his skin too badly now that he was fully dressed.

It had been a mingled disappointment and relief when his lost shirt and belt had been replaced by that helpful vendor after their first challenge. Unfortunately, his new top was a silky red tunic that emphasized his absurdly broad shoulders and looked far too soft and touchable for Lorelei’s liking. He should have appeared ridiculous with that vivid, dramatic fae tunic clasped into place over the plain blue woolen trousers of a stodgy Imperial officer. Instead, the snarling silver fox head of his belt buckle accentuated the uncomfortable truth:

High General Gerard de Moireul looked even better when he finally let himself go a little wild.

Sylvana save me! Lorelei bit back a wistful sigh. No seductions allowed.

He might have shown himself to be a better man than she would have admitted a few days ago, but Lorelei only played her games with safe men nowadays. From dreamy opera composers to self-important counts and princes, she traded pleasure with ease but never trusted any of them with anything that mattered.

Gerard de Moireul—far more principled, more intelligent, and more damnably compelling than any of her past lovers—was the epitome of unsafe. Even if he did ever experience a change of heart when it came to his appalling political allegiance, the man would be gods-driven in everything he did. Whenever he finally let down his iron shields, he would commit with ferocious intensity to his chosen partner—and she would end up revealing everything to him.

So Lorelei shifted her focus from the tantalizing challenge close behind her to the lethal challenge surrounding them both. They had escaped the first stage of this trial without setting off the lurking menace that they’d both sensed, but they still hadn’t discovered their ultimate goal. So far, she hadn’t even glimpsed any helpful hints … and as she turned a corner of the winding path, she found herself at a branching fork with both paths leading into pitch darkness.

Of course it had to be a maze. Nothing in this tournament would ever be easy—and apparently, they’d be navigating this part without any light to guide them. Fortunately, Lorelei had always had her own ways of orienting herself in Efaelen.

Tipping her head back, she gazed up at the constellations forming high overhead, where the purple of late twilight had shifted into full black. She’d learned the names of all those stars when she was a child, along with the epic stories of how each of their formations had come to be; by the time she was five, she’d known how to find the ones that would lead her safely home at this time of year.

Unfortunately, as she gazed upwards now with mounting confusion, she realized that everything looked wrong—jumbled up, unfamiliar—and her heart gave a sickening lurch of panic. Was Oberon right about her after all? Had she really spent so many years away that she’d forgotten her first sky?

The cool breeze that rippled through the hedge path seemed to pass directly through her bones, as if she’d gone hollow.

Then Gerard stepped up to join her, and the tingling warmth of his body looming behind her brought her back to herself with a start.

Regardless of any secret failures, she was still on stage—and damn it, she was the infamous Fae Queen of Balravia. A thousand vicious gossips and a hundred songs and plays had already tried and failed to drag her down. She would not fall apart now in front of her partner—prisoner—or their unseen watchers in the stands.

Wouldn’t Oberon love to see me crumple?

Lorelei arranged her face into bright interest as she turned and gestured questioningly between the branching paths. The Golden Beacon was famously, inexorably methodical in all he did—and he had been the first to spot that camouflaged fae portal in the first part of this challenge. In this single, particular context, Lorelei could bear to let him take the lead … at least until she’d sorted out her malfunctioning memories and wasn’t feeling so unforgivably weak anymore.

He looked over her head from one side to another, his shadowed eyes narrowing. No sounds emanated from either direction except the quiet, steady rustling of the breeze through the thick hedges … and the underlying, heavy silence of this challenge’s mysterious guardian, still listening and lying in wait for anyone careless enough to speak aloud.

Still frowning thoughtfully, Gerard took hold of one of the nearest hedge branches—and Lorelei realized with sudden horror what he meant to do.

Biting back a cry, she flung herself forward and wrapped both of her hands around his big fingers where they rested in the branches, poised to rip and break. No greenery here could be harmed without terrible consequences! She shook her head frantically—and he nodded in acceptance, his fingers loosening beneath hers.

Her whole body sagged in relief … until she realized, a moment later, that she was still holding his left hand in both of hers, no longer in the firm grip of a captor but in a near-cuddle, her thumbs stroking thoughtlessly along the lightly haired back of his hand. It felt so strong and so deeply appealing, his warm skin tingling against hers, trying to draw her even closer—

Not your toy, Lorelei! Let the nice man go. With a grimace she couldn’t quite repress, she dropped his hand and hastily stepped backwards, brushing her palms against her gown to wipe away that moment of temptation.

Still, it hadn’t been for naught. He’d had a good idea, when it came down to essentials. All she needed to do, to enact it without any unnecessary risk, was … aha.

She had been clever after all to ferret away those two acorns in her bodice, back in that dark forest! She’d taken them with the vague idea of planting them later—most of those trees had been real, and she wouldn’t mind a twisting dark oak or two to lend atmosphere to her palace gardens—but just now, she had a far more pressing need for bait.