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His silence was the only answer I needed. Tared swore under his breath, a string of Alvish curses I hadn’t heard since Edored drunkenly broke his toe at my birthday celebration.
‘Is thereanythingyou remember about Korok’s death?’ I added, holding Agenor’s green-gold gaze. ‘How exactly he died? How you felt when you realised what was happening? Where you went and what you said and—’
‘No.’ He ran a hand through his hair, leaving his dark locks sticking in all directions except their usual immaculate smoothness. ‘I … No. I thought …’ He swallowed and didn’t finish that sentence.
‘You thought you might remember more if you saw this place again,’ I said, new pieces falling into place. ‘So you did notice before. That you didn’t remember.’
‘Just that parts of it were blurry to me,’ he said, his voice rising in what almost sounded like panic– twelve hundred years of restraint evaporating at the thought of his own mind betraying him. ‘Butallof it is a mess, even the parts I do remember – the whole day was a fucking mess. It’s just that this place …’
He inhaled slowly, unsteadily. No one else moved; only Naxi’s dress fluttered ceaselessly in the corner of my sight.
‘You should at the very least remember it now that you’re seeing it again,’ I said.
He muttered a curse. ‘Yes.’
‘So what if shedidbind you after it happened?’ I nodded at the scorched crater. ‘Because that would explain the hole in your memory. She bound you, and this is what she took – the memory of Korok’s death.’
‘But why?’ His deep voice was chafing against its own edges, so close to cracking I could feel it in my guts. ‘Em, if she didn’t bind me for five hundred years, why for the bloody gods’ sakes would she suddenly—’
‘She killed the god you swore to protect,’ Lyn said quietly.
‘What?’
‘And destroyed an entire damn continent,’ I added, throwing her a grateful look. She grimaced. ‘Killed thousands of humans and fae in the process – youdidcare about that, yes? You said you remember trying to get them out. Your life was in danger, too. You must have cared a lot to make the effort nonetheless.’
‘Em.’ His bronze skin had gone grey. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘I’m very serious! It doesn’t make sense, does it, that after all that bloodshed, you’d come home and throw the last of your morals at her feet without ever questioning what she’d done? It doesn’t sound likeyou.’
‘Doesn’t it?’ Tared said sourly.
I ignored him. ‘So what if you did try to confront her afterwards? What if she realised she’d finally lost your unconditional loyalty but that you were too useful to her to die on the spot, so she bound you instead?’
Creon breathed a laugh.Not without precedent.
‘Exactly. So she took all memories of that worst moment, dulled the horror of the rest, stifled all thoughts of insubordination you’d ever had, and declared that solution a success when you carried on just as you had before she blew Korok to pieces?’
The horror in Agenor’s eyes wasn’t horror, exactly. It was a yearning sort of panic – a hope that didn’t dare to believe in itself.
‘I did always find it surprising that the snakes stayed with you,’ Naxi suddenly said, winding blonde curls around her fingers. ‘Did you never wonder? I knew a godsworn nymph who betrayed Zera during the War of the Gods, and her bird familiars tried to pick her eyes out.’
Another memory found its way to the surface of my mind. ‘Theyarequite touchy about people accusing you of treason, aren’t they? The snakes? Coral nearly bit Tared’s head off when he said something about it at the Golden Court.’
‘Coral,’ Tared said, ‘is always on the verge of biting someone’s head off.’ But even he didn’t sound quite convinced anymore.
‘She named me Lord Protector of the empire after that war,’ Agenor said, clinging to those words like they were all that kept him from shattering. ‘I was aware of every single damn thing going on at the court for centuries. Why would she show me that kind of trust if I’d already betrayed her once?’
Lyn brushed a handful of curls from her face. ‘Because she knew she’d broken your mind to the point where it was unlikely you’d ever turn on her again?’
Even now, there was a glimpse of bruised pride in the wide-eyed look he sent her. ‘Gods and demons, Lyn, I’m not—’
Also, Creon signed, jaw suddenly tight as he met my gaze,he wasn’t aware of everything to the extent he thinks he was.
I glanced at Agenor, who had fallen silent. ‘Any examples?’
Ask him when he thinks my father died.
‘Your … Oh, gods.’ His father, who had nearly tortured his eight-year-old son to death, only to find his own end at the Mother’s hands. Not a subject I brought up lightly, and definitely not with three alves and Lord Agenor himself around. ‘Are you sure?’
