“Sounds like I need to find you a new guard. A female one.”
“What’s the matter? Afraid I’ll fall in love with him?”
Yes. “Love him all you want,” I said instead. “The dog’s a waffling eunuch.”
“Stop lying.”
“It’s not a lie. I can show you if you want.” I reached for my belt as if I’d actually be willing to show her what hid beneath.
She smacked me. “Rían!”
She squealed when I caught her like a spider in the web of my arms, holding her close, wishing this damned glamour and our clothes were gone. “Violent Aveen. My favorite.”
Was this normal? The wanting. The craving. The insatiable desire to be around someone even if it was just to sit quietly by the sea and watch the waves crest in their endless task of meeting and receding from the shore. I liked to think it wasn’t. There was something whimsical about the idea of just the two of us experiencing this level of affection. Not that I had much experience.
Aveen nodded her chin toward the line of trees rising along Tearmann’s eastern border. “Is that the Forest over there?”
“A forest, yes. But nottheForest. There’s a river separating the two.” A river as black as the Queen’s soul. “Why? Are you planning on running away from me?” My chest pinched at the thought until she shook her head, tickling my chin despite the glamour.
“Good. Because I’m not beyond actually holding you hostage.” I wasn’t above becoming a monster to keep her safe.
“Has the Queen ever agreed to let a human cross?”
She sounded too curious. And in Tearmann, curiosity only led to one thing: Death. “Why?” I practically shouted, the pinching in my chest twisting into something ugly. Something difficult to control.
“Calm down, it’s just a question.”
“Dammit, Aveen. I thought we were past this.” I thought she was content here. Maybe even happy.
“I was only asking out of curiosity.”
“You’re curious, are you? Well, then allow me to appease yourcuriosity. Yes, the Queen has let humans in to Tearmann. As a matter of fact, she let your sister through, accepting Tadhg’s life as payment for her ‘death tax.’ There have been humans who want to get into Tearmann so badly that they bring another human to offer as a sacrifice. Do you know what else she’s done? She’s let people cross back and forth, then changed her feckin’ mind so that those people could never cross the Forest again.” There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it, but I was convinced the Queen’s decisions were made based on inflicting maximum damage.
Aveen reached for me. “Rían—”
I shrugged her off, needing her to understand the sort of psychopath who ruled that cursed stretch of land. “And then those people were foolish and thought they could break the feckin’ rules, and they ended up getting killed for it. So, no, Aveen, it’s not just a ‘question.’ Not to me.”
I’d lost my first love and my heart to the Forest. If I lost my soulmate . . . I wasn’t sure I would survive.
“Who was she?” Aveen whispered.
Could I tell her? How could I not? I sighed, feeling the weight ofhername on my tongue. “Her name was Leesha.” And she was as good and kind as Aveen. And look what loving her had cost us both.
“And the Queen . . . She killed her?”
“Wanted me to do it, actually. To put my duty to my people over my useless emotions. ‘Your human broke the rules and must suffer the consequences.’” For years, the Queen’s mocking voice had haunted not only my dreams but every waking thought, a shadow as relentless as those waves. “When I refused, she did it for me.”
“Your vengeance,” Aveen murmured.
My useless, pointless vengeance.
“You have the dagger now,” she went on, lacing our fingers together.Not our fingers. Hers and Ruairi’s. “Why don’t you just kill her?”
“If a true immortal cuts another using that cursed blade, the curse will claim them both.” A failsafe from those ancient witches who had forged the dagger centuries earlier. True immortals were powerful enough as it was.
“A human can use it,” she guessed.
“All it takes is a single cut for the curse to steal our life force. But since no human can enter the Forest without her permission . . .” I shrugged. “You see the problem.” In this game, there were no winners.