I knocked, closed my eyes. No answer. When her voice finally sounded through the door, it was wary, uncertain. “Who is it?”
“It’s Dorian.” When she didn’t answer, I said, “I’d like to speak with you. Just for a minute.”
Bare feet padded over the wood and stopped. “Do I have a choice?”
“Of course,” I rasped. “You’re the queen, Eurydice.”
“And yet you wear my dagger on your chest like a brand. Carys’sveyrekilled her with that dagger. Now it’s on your chest. Why?”
“I—I was shown a vision.”
“A vision?”
I set my forehead against the door. No doubt Faun and Haskel had told her the history of Carys and herveyre.That door between us was a wall. I knew she wouldn’t believe anything I had to say, even if it was to swear I would never kill her.
“Can we at least have this conversation in the same room?”
After seconds, the door opened. A flaxen-haired vision emerged with arms crossed over her chest and an untied nightgown hanging off one shoulder. Her hair was still arrayed in an elaborate plait, her slender neck on display. She’d clearly thrown the gown on, and the backlight from her room illuminated the outline of her form beneath the half-sheer piece of cotton.
I wanted to rip it off her body. I wanted to tuck the fallen shoulder back into place.
“Speak,” she said.
I forced myself to focus on her eyes. “You feel the pull, don’t you?”
Her hand flattened over her sternum. Her brow lowered. “Yes, but I thought it was… something else. What is that?”
“We’re bound, Eurydice. Even if we wanted to be apart…”
She stepped back. Now that she understood the feeling, the pull, she seemed to recoil.“Is this magic?”
“The spiritstag’s.Veyre.The further apart we are—the longer we’re separated—the more we’ll feel it.”
“Why?” She said it like an accusation.
“That, I don’t know. I suppose…”
“So you can keep an eye on me. Keep me from breaking like Carys.”
Maybe. Maybe not. I didn’t want to think about Eury broken. “Or maybe we’re meant to stay close for another reason.”
“Like?”
Haskel hadn’t warned me about this. Nor had Faun. Even the history books hadn’t spoken of a brand. But Eury needed to know why it had taken that shape. “The dagger. I’m meant to help you find it, Eury.”
“But the Killing Fields?—”
“Beforethe Killing Fields.” I stepped closer, as close as she’d let me. “It was the only way Carys bested three queens.”And it’s your only hope, too.
Her chin rose, blue eyes flashing. “So where is this dagger,veyre?”
That word had never sounded more beautiful. Even in her fear, with her chin trembling just a little, her nightgown falling off and her peaked nipples visible at the bottom of my vision, she made me want to drop to my knees and pledge myself to her.
And I felt her fear. She didn’t want to speak her emotion, show her vulnerability. I understood, but I longed to show her she could open herself to me. How? Here in this hallway, where it felt like the whole world watched, I knew that wish was impossible.
“I haven’t got the slightest idea.” The truth tasted like stale pipeweed. “But I’m going to find out.”
She pushed out air through her nose. A glimmer of the old Eury appeared, just for a moment. The one who believed in me, who trusted me to get us out of the Eldermaze, to carry her through the forest at night, to find her at Virellan Falls.