Sleep was impossible. I rose from my cot, slipped on my cloak, and stepped outside.
My bare feet touched Highmark grass, and my toes curled. Life, underfoot, to be walked on—so much of it in every direction. Past our camp, the moon silvered the plains like threads of silk.
“They call them the velvet plains,” a voice said from the darkness.
Dorian sat on one of the tree stumps, elbows on knees, eyes on the horizon. “Velvet, because you could lay yourself on the grass and it would feel no different than the finest queen’s dress.”
I hadn’t spoken to him since the meadow. Not in more than one-word sentences. Every time I saw his face, a warning passed through my mind:Queenslayer. He was myveyre, but that didn’t require me to talk to him. Only to endure his nearness—the man who brought the spite out of me. I wanted to kiss him or knuckle him, and everything felt knotted and too much.
I turned back toward the tent.
“Eurydice.” My name on his tongue like a benediction. “Take care where you walk. This is the dawn hawk’s domain, even at night.”
He hadn’t said it, but I understood: Unseelie magic was diminished here. Our connection to the spiritstag grew weak. We would spend a fortnight under the dawn hawk’s eye, and I didn’t even have feralis to protect me.
CHAPTER TEN
Dorian
We were being watched.
It had begun when we’d crossed from Sylvanwild into Highmark—from forest to open plains. I’d never trusted the Seelie, but especially not the summer court. When the sunlight shone on everything, you learned a special kind of subterfuge. A wide smile and a knife held low. Batting eyelashes and steel-toed boots. Hoop dresses and hip daggers.
And on these plains, a keen eye from above.
I couldn’t see their scouts, couldn’t spy their slender-legged Andalusians, but the birds of prey passed overhead on the hour, every hour.
Queen Liora was nervous. She had good reason.
Some time after Eurydice disappeared back through her tent flap, Haskel approached the burnt-out campfire. He dropped onto thestump beside me and pointed at my pipe. “Whisper-bark? You’ve been holding out.”
I passed it to him. “Moon’s almost full.”
He took a draw, lifted his gaze to the sky. “Either great luck or terrible, on the Festival of the First Light. What’s your estimation?”
Terrible. I would almost certainly see Gawain at court; the thought of his scarred face made my fingers itch to retake the pipe. But I said nothing.
Haskel nodded toward the queen’s tent. “She still not speaking to you?”
I gestured for the pipe. He handed it back. When I opened my eyes after a long draw, he nodded.
“Well, she’s within her rights,” he said.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
“When have you ever?” He rubbed his chin. “She’s just like Carys, except?—”
He contemplated the smoke. I didn’t think he’d finish.
“She’s had less time to marinate,” he said, “and a whole lot more anger.”
“What’s that mean?”
“The stag isn’t known for impulse.” His eyes met mine in the silver night. “Her anger isn’t incidental.”
And neither is yours. He didn’t say it, but he didn’t need to. Not long after I’d first met Haskel, he gave me a nickname: Crowmere. Crows remembered; they held grudges for years. Sat on branches, waiting for the right moment—then they pecked out your eyes. A cold anger, a patient spite.
I took a pull off the pipe. “You think Liora’s striders will ride up on us to make a point?”