Dorian’s squire—did that make him a knight?
Ten minutes later, Faun, Haskel, and I stepped into the formal dining room. I’d barely gotten dressed, wiped sleep from my eyes, and braided my hair. The sun had only just gilded the room’s balcony, and somehow the table had been laid with a full breakfast spread.
Haskel closed the double doors and surveyed the room. “Check the other door,” he said to Faun.
She went about pulling away the tapestry, opening the side door. “Hallway’s empty. I’ve told them to stay out or lose an eye.” She shut the door, and a lock I didn’t know existed clicked into place before she replaced the tapestry.
Haskel stepped to the table, eyeing the food. “Are we sure it’s all safe?”
My gaze locked on a pot of steaming oatmeal. “Safe?”
“Don’t eat anything until I’ve tasted it,” Faun said to me.
“And if I do?”
She crossed to the edge of the table and swiped a finger through a small dish of jam. “You might be the shortest-lived Sylvanwild queen of all time.” She stuck her finger into her mouth and sucked off the jam. “This one’s fine. Care for some blackberry confiture on bread?”
A harsh knock rattled the double doors. “It’s me,” Dorian’s voice grated on the other side.
Haskel opened the door and gestured him in. “I’m eight hundred and five years old and I look less like shit than you.”
Dorian stalked in, his gaze thunderous. Now that he was here, so close, the aching in my chest eased; the longing to be near him increased. Did he feel it, too? If so, he didn’t show it. Cursed magic.
“Show it to me,” Dorian said.
Haskel slipped the parchment from his breast pocket and extended it. “Might want to sit down first, lest the top of your hot head blow off.”
Dorian swiped the invitation, turned, and read. Meanwhile, Faun popped a date into her mouth and chewed.
“The dates are fine,” she said into the thick silence.
Dorian paced toward the balcony, still reading. “Two weeks. Our queen not yet buried…”
Faun poured tea from a steaming pot into a mug. She swirled and sniffed. “Better to be certain.” She upturned the contents of the mug over a pot of canna lilies; all of us watched the steam rise from the orange blossoms. “The first taste always goes to the earth which bore us. A useful Sylvanwild tradition when you’re toasting—or testing a brew.”
She crossed to the table, picked up the teapot. “Not poisoned. Eury?”
I didn’t want dates. I didn’t want tea, either. “Tell me what I’m missing.” My gaze passed over the three of them. “Why are we gathered here?”
Haskel and Faun both turned toward Dorian.
Dorian lowered the invitation. “It’s a ploy to take you out of Sylvanwild. Queen Liora knows you’re vulnerable, weak.”
That stung. Yet it didn’t feel like a dart, just truth.
“It’s an invitation,” I said. “If an invitation in Feyreign is anything like it is in my kingdom, then I’ll just decline.”
Faun snorted. Haskel breathed out through his nose. Dorian tossed the invitation atop the table.
“You can’t decline, my girl.” Haskel’s voice was a gentle rumble. “The Festival of the First Light is the prelude to the Killing Fields.”
Goosebumps rose on my arms—a sense of uncertainty, of edged pressure like a knife. The Killing Fields. TheKillingFields.
I sat down in the high-backed chair at the end of the table, set both hands on the surface like they could keep the world steady. “I’ll take a coffee.”
I had to accept the invitation. Had to accept it like prey must accept their captor’s teeth around their head.
In a week, I would travel to Highmark. It couldn’t be avoided; I had declared myself my own champion in the Killing Fields, and champions must obey the rules of the trials.