“Wildmother.” He slid his hands up and down my arms. “Come on.” He helped me out of the chair and onto the blankets. In the darkness, he moved above me, stripping our clothes off until we were naked. It didn’t feel remotely intimate; it felt necessary. Until…
He lay down behind me and wrapped his body around me, then threw half the blanket over the two of us. Warm—almost unbearably hot—skin touched mine from neck to ankle, and I gasped.
I had forgotten how good he felt against me.
His warmth seeped into me quick. His arm came around me in a tight hold, his soft voice warm over my ear. “We’re going to get back to Feyreign, Eury. You just need a few days.”
No—I didn’t have a few days. The trial would begin in a few days.
And there was something else. Caustrix, that fucker—his words still snaked through my mind.He’ll betray you. He already has.
Queenslayer.
Maybe Caustrix was wrong. But maybe he was right. I trusted Dorian… but what if Caustrix spoke true?
Dorian hated changelings.Hatedus. Had killed us. He would have killed me that first night if I hadn’t turned toward his sword.
Something had happened while I was trapped in my own mind down under the earth. Dorian had spent days with that dragon, andeven if I asked him now what had happened, I didn’t fully believe he’d tell me true.
The longer I stayed here alone with him, the more vulnerable I became. I needed to get back to the rest of my court.
Before me, faint smoke rose from the dagger where I’d laid it on the side table. My shivering had already stopped, and fatigue sent threads through me. I wanted to stay awake, but sleep pulled at my eyes. “What happens if I miss the trial?”
“Eury, not now.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s considered forfeiture.”
“What doesthatmean?”
“A champion who doesn’t present herself by the time the sun sits atop the white pillar in the Killing Fields essentially forfeits her queen’s crown. It’s considered weakness.”
And nothing was more disdained in Feyreign than weakness. Then, too, there was motive. “So that was why Liora sent me.”
Dorian sighed. “Yes.”
I half-glanced back. “You knew?”
“She wins either way. You come back with the dagger andgame fucking on, or you forfeit your crown.”
I laid my head back down. Across from me, the blue smoke was drugging. “Do you think she ever meant to ally?”
“I think it’s one possibility. A good queen always has more than one winning card in hand.”
A truth I was just now beginning to truly understand. Either way… we had to leave tomorrow. We had to get past those gates.
There had to be a way.Had to.
I turned the problem over as I lapsed into sleep. Thinking, thinking, even in my tortured, feverish dreams. This was my kingdom—my home. I knew its pulse, its rhythm, the veins and arteries and how they flowed.
And most of all, I knew its hierarchies. Who knelt, who bowed, who lowered their eyes, and who raised them.
By the time I woke in the morning, I knew. I knew how to get us through the gates.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Dorian