“Have you.” The elder fae stroked his beard. “Speaking of death.”
“I saw everything.” Dorian’s throat bobbed as though trying to swallow back the strain of his words. “Everything.” That was an indictment if I’d ever heard one.
“A pity”—Haskel’s gaze drifted beyond Dorian—“for one as young as you.”
“Necessary,” Dorian growled. “You weren’t about to tell me, were you?”
I stepped between the two of them. “Tell him what?”
Dorian’s lip rose, revealing teeth. “You witnessed the death of Queen Carys.”
Witnessed?But Carys had died four hundred years ago, and Haskel?—
Haskel was eight hundred years old. He’d just told me.
He’d already beenancientby the time Carys died. He was of the Sylvanwild Court. He hadlived underCarys’s reign.
All that history in one fae. The rise and fall of queens. And yet he’d stood next to me in this firelight as though he were chatting with his granddaughter.
Every death. He remembered them all—even hers. The Courtbreaker’s.
“Well.” Haskel’s hand never stopped stroking. “Perhaps elsewhere was the right choice.”
CHAPTER SIX
Dorian
The citadel gardensbore an ominousness under this shrouded moonlight. Insects chirped, frogs croaked, and the breeze carried a bite. Haskel sat on a bench, bent-backed, his hands clasped before him. Eury stood beside him, brows drawn, beautiful and uncertain in her black fur of mourning.
And I—I stood away. I couldn’t sit beside him as I once would have, couldn’t set my hand on his shoulder. He’d been my mentor; deep down I’d thought of him as my father. But he’d lied, held this secret even when the spiritstag branded me.
He wouldn’t have told me the truth even if I’d asked. Not until I came with proof.
“I knew as soon as the stag set his blasted horns to your chest,” Haskel rumbled into the night. “Knew you’d go out to those fields.”
Anger pressed into my throat. “Then why didn’t you tell me then? Why make me see all that?”
“How else would you understand the power, but to see it?” His face lifted, soft eyes finding mine. “Did you see its terrible, glorious nature?”
A current of water and shadow, snapping end to end. Beheading, dismembering. Terrible—and glorious, yes. Part of me could acknowledge that. But mostly terrible. A sight I never wanted to see again.
I nodded once.
Eury covered her body with her arms, wrapping tight. “Tell me.”
I didn’t want to relive it, but I could deny her nothing. “Carys broke the courts’ power. Feralis, noxveil… she wielded both at once.”
Under the moon, her blue eyes went round as coins. “How?”
“The bloody tooth.” Haskel rubbed his fingers together. “Ice, spite, a dragon’s scorn.”
“Dragon?” Eury and I said together.
Haskel sat upright and set his hands on his thighs. His accusatory gaze found me. “You wonder why I didn’t tell you. And yet the moment I speak of a dragon, you two light to the idea like you’ve been offered a god’s blessing. Cursed, awful beasts. They belong nowhere good.”
Was this the Haskel I’d known for years? A different man sat before me. Wrathful, quick to bite.
“Dragons are only legend,” I said, slow. “You yourself told me that.”