Kai gives her that look that says he expects better. When she doesn’t answer immediately he turns to me expectedly. “Well?”
“Enchanter information is classified,” I say with a sigh. “Especially anything to do with alchemy. They’d have to put in two years at the Spire before they could find anything out, much less get access.”
Kai nods in approval and I hate how the little acknowledgement sends a wave of warmth through me.
“Even once we had access, trying to remove you from the Spire would have would be an exercise in suicide,” Kyrian says, picking up the explanation. He crouches a few feet away from me, bringing himself closer to my eye level. Closer but not too close. Giving me my space. “The initial field trials were still too far from the border. We intended to make our move during the final field exercise, where we’d be stationed more strategically.”
“So you were going to play out the year as cadet until -”
“—You are asking the wrong questions, Ainsley,” Kai says, cutting me off.
“What’s the right damn question? Should I be fretting over the betrothal instead of worrying about the kidnapping?”
“I thought I was supposed to be doing the talking,” Kyrian tells him, not that Kai pays him any mind.
“You should be asking why the bloody hell we wanted you to begin with. Why Theron wants to sever your hands. Why does the whole fae army want you—you specifically- executed in the most brutal way possible.”
“Because... because I’m an Ainsley,” I say, the words sounding flat to my own ears. “I’m the daughter of your enemy’s general. And an alchemist… I make auric steel. The only weapon that gives humans a fighting chance against your immortal selves. Why wouldn’t you want me dead?”
“If I wanted you dead, I’d have killed you. So why didn’t I? Why didn’t any of us?”
I swallow because just a few days ago the answer would have been so very different. It would have been one born of forbidden kisses, and refuge in the night. Of promises made and stupidly believed. I pull myself together before my face can give away my naïveté. “Because… I’m a prize?” I guess. “I’m worth more -”
“—you are both our greatest fear and our greatest hope, Chaos,” Kyrian says quietly. “The auric alloy you make, it doesn’t do what you think it does.”
“I think it hurts you.” I raise my chin. “Am I wrong?”
“No,” says Kai. “And also yes. That is to say, auric steel does hurt someone like me just the way you’d expect.” His fingers drift to the locket around his throat, toying absently with the familiar, worn charm like he’s anchoring himself. It's a habit of his I’ve seen many times but something about it feels different now. “But to the shifters and draken—it does something much much worse.”
“When the auric alloy spreads through a shifter or draken’s blood, it locks away everything but their minds,” Kyrian says gently. “It shuts their muscles down completely—no voluntary movement, no twitching, nothing. If the dose is high enough or the poisoned weapon isn’t removed expeditiously, the victims become trapped in their own flesh. Unable to move, or speak. If they are lucky, they retain control of their eye lids. When they learn to communicate that way, they usually beg to die.”
Nausea grips my throat and I suddenly don’t want Kyrian to continue. But he does, and the words are no longer said kindly.
“It’s like being buried alive inside your own body. Paralyzed but fully awake, fully aware, screaming silently and endlessly for help that never comes.”
“No.” I shake my head, willing his words to be untrue. I’ve studied, created and refined auric alloy every day since my magicemerged. I know it, inside and out. It’s a weapon, yes, but a fair one. Merciful even, since it doesn't kill outright but just neutralizes the magic that renders the fae immortal. But this…
“You are lying,” I tell Kyrian. That's the only explanation I can piece together, sitting here in front of two males who've turned deception into their weapon of choice, sharpening the lies’ edges specifically for me. “Lying and making claims with no evidence to back them up.”
“How do you figure that?” asks Kai.
"The draken.” I nod, finding a loose thread in Kai’s argument and tugging at it. “You are speaking as if you know what they are thinking and feeling, which you can’t know. That’s a false argument construct, one meant to appeal to emotion with no factual backing. A low blow, even for you.”
Kai snorts, his too pretty face tightening with contempt. "Ah yes. One of my favorite bits of Spire's vile fiction. Draken are beasts of burden. Celestial horses with scales."
“Fiction? Why would the Spire lie about that? What reason could they possibly have to deceive us?"
"That’s a question for your mother," Kai says. "But I'll wager it has something to do with making it easier for you to justify capturing and tormenting beings you don't have a prayer of defeating on your own."
"That's—not true.” I cross my arms and seize the momentum away from Kai. “Speaking of untrue things, is Grayson your real name?”
“What?” He blinks. “No, of course not. I’m Prince Kai of Slait. I’d rather thought that part was cleared up by now.”
“And you?” I jab a finger in Kyrian’s direction.
“Sorel was my mother’s name. What I told ye the day we took shelter in the abandoned fort, it was the truth. Sorel was an exotic dancer who’d caught my father’s eye when visiting court. She died when I was five. When my father decided to raise mealongside his full-blooded children, it didn’t sit well with most of them. Or with his wife for that matter.”
“You left out the part about your father being the fae king of Flurry!”
