He snorted. “Spotted by whom? Those children who can’t see past their hands? Or perhaps your regiment commander?”
A jag of heat rushed through me. Was my regiment commander evenaliveafter what Dorian and the wraiths had done that night? “Say we ascend the wall. There’s guard along the whole perimeter.”
He removed a second pouch from his belt, opened it, and stared inside. “Yes, the same children who can’t see past their hands and sit with dangling legs. Like sneaking past blind arthritic dogs.”
Bastard. Irreverent, foul?—
I came to stand over him, but he didn’t look up. I crouched beside him. “How many times did you sneak over that wall?”
He pulled a knife from his belt, unfolded it and held it up to the soft light. “I didn’t count.”
“And you killed changelings. Killed them in their beds?”
He paused. Lowered the knife. “You want to talk about killing. Let’s do that. How was it you killed Rhiannon, again?”
“She wasgrown. Over a hundred years old. She forced me into that fight.”
“You slit her throat, as I recall.”
“She would have become a wraith.”
“And those changelings would have become?—”
My eyebrows rose. “Become what? Farmers? Weavers? Guard?”
His eyes narrowed on me. “You’re painfully naïve, even now.”
“And you’re a willing murderer. Guess which of the two I’d rather be?”
He flicked the knife shut. “We’re both willing murderers, Eurydice. Someday perhaps you’ll acknowledge that.”
“And someday perhaps you’ll show an ounce of remorse for the children you killed.”
His face bore a hardness that almost made me stand down. Almost. “You think because I don’t demonstrate remorse to you that I don’t feel it?”
“In that throne room, you said you relished it.”
“Ido.”
My fingers clenched. “You can’t have both, Dorian.”
“Says you.”
I stood. “I’ll never understand you.”
He set the knife back into his belt. “Because you don’t understand yourself.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You can’t accept all the parts of yourself, Eurydice. You push them down so deep, you almost forget they exist until you’re desperate for them.”
My hands shook. With what, I didn’t know—anger? Fear? Thrill? “You’re referring to what happened between us in the meadow.”
“Doesn’t matter if I am.” He leaned back against the cave wall. “Icould tell you a thousand truths and you would only accept the ones you’re ready to.”
“How about the truth of who you really were, before you fucked me?”
His throat moved, and he met my eyes. For once, I’d pierced him. “I couldn’t. I told you?—”