One thing I knew about Maeronyx: she didn’t serve. Didn’t open doors, didn’t pour, didn’t kneel. She was a consummate queen, and reserved herself for necessity or intrigue.
She stepped out of the carriage in a black veil to her chin, holding her bow and quiver in hand like another queen might carry a clutch. Liora’s voice rang through the courtyard, Faerish words of greeting. A queen must always meet another queen upon their arrival.
Maeronyx started forward—and paused.
Her face lifted, the black veil shifting. High, higher, until her chin nearly faced the sky. And she seemed to see me through the lace.
My grip tightened on the stone. Every fae who’d ever held a bow knew the stories about Maeronyx. Haskel had once told me the tale of when he’d accompanied Rhiannon to Noctere not long after Rhiannon’s crowning, and Maeronyx had treated the autumn queen to an execution. Haskel couldn’t tell me why the man had to die, but in the winter court the reason never mattered much.
Maeronyx preferred to do the executing when she could. She’d given this man a head start, the way the winter court did. A sporting chance. He made it three hundred paces into the snowfield before she’d drawn. One arrow. She hadn’t rushed it, hadn’t even seemed to aim. Not the way Haskel had taught me, with breath and focus and the careful architecture of stance. She’d just lifted the bow and released, the way you’d brush hair from your face.
The deserter dropped and the snow around his head turned black.
Rhiannon’s hunger had never shone clearer on her face. “Teach me.”
The winter queen had lowered the bow without looking at the body. “You’ll never shoot like me. But I can teach you to shoot like someone worth killing.”
She stood in the courtyard now, and I on the highest battlement. Four hundred paces, maybe more. It didn’t matter. If she’d had a bow in her hands, I wouldn’t have trusted the distance. Some archers you could outrange… Maeronyx you could only outwall.
I stepped back, heart thudding. I retreated toward the stair and the citadel’s tight walls.
I felt small as I descended the steps. The world so large, riddled with malice, and the Black Frost always, always there.
I came into the guest chambers to Mirek arranging jewelry atop the vanity. Small pieces, large, all of them glittering decadence.
He glanced back. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Where’s Eury?”
Eury’s door opened and she came out wiping her hair with a towel. Her cheeks were pink, her body still faintly damp under her loose shirt and pants, nipples peaked, and I was arrested. I couldn’t move if I’d wanted to.
She lowered the towel. Her wide-open eyes shuttered. “What is it, Dorian?”
“Maeronyx.” I found my voice again. “She’s arrived.”
Mirek clapped his hands. “Shealwaysdonsa statement piece.” He lifted an emerald-drop necklace. “This one, or?—”
“Too gaudy.” Faun’s sharp footsteps preceded her face appearing in Eury’s doorway. She held up the invitation between twofingers. “Hope you like tea.”
We could never say everything we wanted to in these chambers. Not without Liora knowing. The fact ground at me, especially now.
I came forward and plucked the invitation from Faun’s hand. Half the reason I’d come to stand this close was to lessen the ache of the string between Eury and me—to feel the relief of being near her.
The invitation was simple, unadorned. Tomorrow morning, an hour past the sun’s rise.
I passed the invitation to Eury. “I look forward to accompanying the queen to this celebrated event.”
Her eyebrow rose, eyes flashing. “What an honor it will be to have myveyrein attendance.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Eurydice
The solar doorsrose before me, gilded and sun-warmed.
I had let Eleyrie braid my hair that morning, a single plait coiled at the base of my skull and pinned with a gold clasp no larger than my thumbnail. The pale yellow dress Mirek had chosen fell straight from a fitted bodice, high-necked and modest, the silk so fine it moved like water when I walked. No hoops, no layers—just a thin gold belt at my waist that could, if needed, hide the knife currently pressed against my hip.
I looked like a Highmark lady. I felt like a mud princess playing dress-up.