Ahead of us, the white pillar cut the sky in half. The Killing Fields were real.
The closer we came, the more the trial became a truth. Horses came into relief, massed at the point where Sylvanwild met the fields. Figures stood under the light. They shielded their eyes and turned toward us.
I recognized them. Haskel, Faun, Finch, even Mirek. All my handmaidens, Eleyrie among them.
After so much riding, I didn’t have to stop the horse; it staggered to a halt the moment I eased my thighs. It coughed and coughed into the morning light, and I rubbed my hand against its mane.
Before me sat a small camp, with a rack of armor and another of weapons set out beside a wagon and tent. Bows, swords, shields.
Haskel stood with crossed arms beside the armor rack. “Well I’ll fucking be.” Beside him, Finch regarded me with an open mouth, all formality forgotten.
“You brought the boy?” Dorian’s voice had a rare edge.
As I rode fully into view, Mirek set his hands to his head and pulled at his tufts. “But where’s yourhairgone?”
Faun approached my horse as it came to a stop; she took hold of the bridle. “You never fail to surprise me.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” A league to my left, another cluster of horses and figures had massed. Same to my right. I couldn’t see what lay on the other side of the pillar, but I assumed the Aurelian queen’s camp mirrored ours over the plain. “Seems I’m not late.”
“You’re barely on time.” Haskel lifted a set of leathers from one rack. “What in the stag’s name have you got on?”
The scout’s uniform. It wore me more than I wore it.
Hoofbeats sounded from my right. Three pale horses approaching, three riders. One held the Highmark banner, the dawn hawk’s golden image flapping in the wind. At the fore rode Liora, gleaming in plate.
Above us, scouts’ hawks circled; they’d been watching, waiting for our arrival.
Dorian and I turned our horses toward them. Liora’s glittering armor came into relief under the sun, some kind of plate- and chain mail hybrid. She wore a sleek helmet with a crest. A longsword rode on her hip in its gold-filigreed sheath. The edges of a round shield peeked over her shoulders.
Clearly for show, but also… that fae knew how to wield a sword. Queen Liora the Dawnmaker. Six centuries of light.
The three horses dropped from a canter to a trot, then to a stop twenty paces from us. Her helmet caught the sunlight perfectly, directing the glare into my eyes.
I squinted, couldn’t help but raise a shielding hand.
“The forest queen lives.” Her voice was as musical as the first morning I’d met her. She only had eyes for me. “May I have a word before the trial begins?”
I couldn’t read her, couldn’t predict her. But she had gotten me to the dagger, even if she hadn’t expected me to live through the taking of it.
Dorian’s horse stomped its hoof as he swung himself alongside. “Careful, Eury,” he murmured.
“We keep to our courts’ lands,” I said to her.
She inclined her crested head.
I turned my horse away from the fields, pressed it into a trot down the dividing line between Sylvanwild and Highmark. Liora’s horse followed. Where the two magics met, the land changed. Lush Sylvanwild grass turned pale, shorter. The sun seemed to shine more brightly on her side.
She came alongside me, and we trotted until the two of us were far enough from our parties not to be overheard.
When I pulled my horse to a stop and pivoted it toward her, she did the same.
Her horse stood with a high head. She sat upright, fresh. “You haven’t slept.”
Of course she’d call it out. My tiredness was her edge; naming it made it sharper. “I fail to see how that’s relevant.”
Her lips twitched. “And the dagger?”
I flicked the edge of my cloak aside. The dragon’s tooth came revealed—tight in my grip against my thigh.