It smelled of a dryad’s rage.
“My mate is not aspectaclefor yourconsumption,” Ornella snarled in fury, and everyone’s attention snapped back to her as she stepped away from Rian. She loomed over the Chancellor who was still ducking from the blast. But she shrank even further away from the dryad when Ornella’s fingers lengthened into deadly claws.
The Chancellor’s fearful eyes flew up to Rian behind the dryad as if hoping he would restrain his furious rider. But he merely brushed marble dust off his vest.
“This is an outrage!” shouted a man from the crowd, and there were murmurs of agreement.
“The outrage is your needling,” Rian spoke up firmly, raising his head to pin Aujaara with an unforgiving stare. “Did you truly think I would not see through such poorly disguised attempts to account for the whereabouts of all my riders? I will save you from further embarrassment and simply tell you that the Wild Hunt is whole and well. My riders and my army are still at my disposal to take control of this city if we deem it necessary.”
There was a horrified silence, and I had the sense that he had never threatened them quite so bluntly before.
A commotion drew our attention as fey screamed and ran from walls of shadows that suddenly began eclipsing all the doorways to block the exits. Then Ciaran appeared, walking outof the darkness that whipped around him like a tempest as he dragged a pleading man behind him.
“This one attempted to flee the moment you arrived,” said the Shadow Walker. He spoke with a deadly softness, but his words were heard by all in the silent room.
“Almost as if he needed to go and report our arrival?” Ornella suggested with a wicked grin.
“What doesthatmean? Rian, we aren’t your enemy!” cried the Chancellor, her voice pitching high in alarm.
She was ignored as Ciaran tossed his prisoner to the floor at my feet and then turned to face the crowd with his arms crossed imposingly over his chest.
The fey on the ground immediately attempted to get up and run from me, but then he tripped over his own feet as they were bound in vines. He made a shriek of terror that was cut off abruptly when his entire body was consumed by the foliage that yanked him to his knees before me. Every time he tried to burn away her vines with his fire, Ornella conjured a torrent of water that pounded over him so hard it nearly crushed him. Until he was too exhausted and out of breath to keep fighting against her.
I stepped toward him, drawn by my curiosity for what secrets he might reveal for my Sight, but Rian cut in front of me to stand menacingly over the bound fey. He did not speak as he extended a hand and allowed a tendril of his inky power to unfurl. It looked like a guillotine blade was hanging over the trembling man’s head.
The crowd had started to whisper in awe of Ornella’s strength and power, but another horrified hush fell over the room at the sight of Rian using his. And from the way they all shifted back, I was sure he had never allowed any of them to see it before. Until that moment, it had been more of a myth than anything else.
“You will answer Nuala’s questions, and you will not attempt to harm her. If you do, I will rip you apart so slowly that these people will be hearing your screams in their nightmares for acentury. Do you understand?”
Rian did not need to speak harshly or with aggression. The calm certainty in his voice was more than enough to make the man nod quickly.
I stepped up to begin interrogating the potential spy, but Chancellor Aujaara seemed to regain her courage.
“You have no authority here to question our subjects!” she tried to object. She stepped forward as if she meant to try and reason with Rian, but she stopped and her nostrils flared as her head whipped toward me. “She is awitch!” she hissed in hateful accusation before she looked at Rian in utter horror. “You keep company with witches?”
I glanced back at Rian in curiosity for how he would react to her accusation, but he seemed unbothered as he met my eyes. There was a softness in his expression that made my heart start to pound harder.
“Her name is Nuala,” he said fondly before his eyes hardened on Aujaara again. “Sheisa witch. And a Seer.”
Chancellor Aujaara hesitated, her face going quite pale as her attention swung back toward me.
“A Seer,” she breathed, that true face of hers whipping back and forth with her internal panic.
“Perhaps you would prefer I questioned you instead of your civilians?” I suggested knowingly, but she did not deign to reply to me. She turned her pleading eyes back toward Rian who ignored her.
“Proceed,” he directed me gently, so I returned my full attention to the captive fey. He whimpered as I reached for him, but he could not move away thanks to Ornella’s vines as I cupped his face. I felt my eyes roll and heard the room echoing with gasps when my eyes went white. The heavy shroud of their pretty facades dimmed further so I could better see and hear their truths buzzing behind feigned expressions and practiced words.
“Your name?” I asked, my voice sounding far away as if mybody were in another realm altogether.
“Jakl,” the fey murmured.Truth.
“Were you born in Mionlach?”
“I was,” he replied.Truth.
“Do you have family in the city?”
“N-no,” he said, but I could see the face of someone dancing through the mist around him. Taunting him.
