Eurydice
On one ofmy early nights in Sylvanwild, Dorian had given me a children’s book full of drawings—a long history of Feyreign’s trials. One of those drawings had frightened me so badly I’d had to shut the book, lock the sight away.
Now I remembered it. Now I saw it again.
Two fae, standing before a darkness so large, so vast, they stood bent-backed like insects in the night. Before them loomed an unseen menace.
I had prayed we wouldn’t face that trial. Because I knew—knewon that night—those two fae were long dead.
Under the earth, my braid whipped past my head, tugged straight toward the darkness. My cloak blew with it, cupping my body.
Then,silence.
Deep, long, until the wind threw my braid back, and my cloak pulled so hard the clasp pressed into my neck.
The smell on the wind was an astringent wall, so powerful my eyes stung. I had smelled this a thousand days and nights of my life, but not likethis. Like being dunked in a vat of acid, the liquid sent straight up my nostrils.
The child inside me was terrified. Maybe I could still run. Maybe I could still escape.
But to what? To a life in this acid-drenched Kingdom of Shit? Or perhaps to a quick death on the Killing Fields, three queens taking turns stabbing me gently until every drop of my blood joined the rest atop the grass and stayed there, fresh and red for an eternity.
No. Neither of those worked for me.
The only future I would accept was the one the spiritstag had offered to me in the grove. It had shed its light on me and given me words I didn’t know I could live by.
Power is not granted. It is taken. So take it.
And a dream, a vision: a throne with a blue-smoke dagger on its seat. The grip of the dagger waiting to be held.
By me. By me.
I stepped through the doorway and onto smooth, unhewn stone. My boot nearly slid before I put weight on it. This was beyond the passage, beyond whatever man had made. The sound of my boot touching the ground echoed, a small tap that went on and on before it resounded back at me.
A cavern.
I took one careful step, then another. Dorian made no noise behind me, but I knew he followed. Once we’d gone through that door and into the catacombs, something had changed between us. Or maybe the better phrase wasslotted into place.
Not queenslayer. Protector.
My only aim was the next step forward, then the next. If I could put all my courage into one step, that was all I needed. Forward into darkness, step by?—
The breathing stopped.
I froze, the key held aloft, showing me nothing but my own hand and miniature cone of light.
Silence reigned, so deep my blood sounded loud in my ears.Thud, thud, thud; my heart felt ready to give.
Light appeared from the darkness. Ice-blue, like a pale sky etched through with cracks, and ovalline. At its center, a vertical black slit.
An eye.
The slit expanded, the pupil growing horizontal, shrinking the blue. Wider, wider.
Then it shifted.
Focused.
Saw me.