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“My private chambers.”

“Why are your chambers in what I can only assume is the palace dungeon?”

“Because at one time, I was this dungeon’s most esteemed resident.”

“You were imprisoned here?”

“Yes, the iron on the door was originally placed there as the bars of my prison. When the Ard Rí, in all his twisted magnanimousness decided I had been punished enough, I was granted this room as my living quarters.”

“He gave you all this?” I asked, letting my eyes dart around the room again taking in every sumptuous detail that I could.

“No,” he hissed and began wrapping his hand in linen. “When he gave me these quarters, it was bare stone and an iron gate for a door. Over the years, I have brought things in, rescued other things from being destroyed, crafted things. Carved the lights into the ceiling. I had nothing, and he still thinks I have nothing down here. And I would let him believe that.”

I let things trickle in as he spoke, noting the details of each piece. Nothing seemed to match, seemed too old, or seemed in a state of disrepair. Yet the cohesion of the pieces was still complete. It all fit together in a way that was wholly unexplainable yet right at the same time. His room reflected him in more ways than he could have realized, all the roughness of the warrior and the smooth polish of the courtier.

“Why did you trick me into fucking Ard Tiarna Brittle Spear? Or was that even really the Fómhar Prince?” I wriggled around on the bed, trying to get comfortable while he tended to his hand.

The movement snapped his gaze to me, and his eyes narrowed before they found my face again. “If you are not yet satisfied, my lady, I can pull on another pair of gloves and see to it.” The seductive curl of his lips made my heart thump against my throat, but he carried on as if it were no serious threat. “It was, in fact, Ard Tiarna Brittle Spear. He was cursed during the war. What you saw, while an illusion, was, in fact, his natural born appearance. He can change it at will, but that was his natural mien before the curse. He did, however, lie to you. He is not the Bandrui’s twin brother. A distant cousin, yes, but not her twin. Her twin was slain in the war.”

He sighed as if the greatest weight pressed down on him and crushed him beneath its mass. “Many died in the war. And she would not tell you herself for she is too gracious to admit it but Brittle Spear wearing a close enough approximation to her brother’s face is a balm on an open and festering wound that will never heal. He has most likely spoken to her—that much was most likely true. I told you once, all Fae are liars. He is no different.”

“You’re avoiding my question,” I snapped as he tucked the tail of the bandage into the palm of his hand and began wrapping his fingers.

“So, I am.” He inhaled slowly and then exhaled just as slowly. “It has become clear to me that you were in fact not responsible nor connected to the attempted assassination—though before you sleep this evening, you will tell me the full story of what you witnessed—that does not exonerate you. That means the only way the palace allows you to walk free from the Maw is if another is implicated in the assassination attempt. No Fae would allow any human to roam free with the suspicion of being able to humble an Ard Rí in his own chambers. The fact you still live vexes many as it is. They would have you slain before the court, and all the humans to set an example to ensure that none get the idea that this could be accomplished. None of them want the humans to believe that they could fell even the lowest of us, let alone the Ard Rí master of the greatest stable magic horde known to the land.”

He spoke while his hand wound the bandage, the circles of linen mimicking the circle of his logic.

“And so I sought out Ard Tiarna Brittle Spear, a Fae that was known to be fomenting unrest among some of his nobles. It might have merely been wine-soaked gambling hall rattling, but my guards have heard numerous times of his antics. I tempted him with the flesh of the one human no other Fae can touch.” His eyes lifted and caught mine. The spires of evergreen looked like spikes of jagged emerald shards as I watched him explain the ruthlessness. “I knew that he was a whore monger, a slut in the worst sort of way. A slut that had no ethics nor morals. I whispered in his ear about how the only way to part your thighs was to act the chivalrous courtier and treat you as a precious princess, one above depravity and debauchery . . . even while you rode his cock and showed him exactly why you drive the Ard Rí to madness in his desire for you. And he agreed, foolish as it was, to oath-swear a boon for me to call upon. He thought that he would dissuade me from collecting upon it by adding the stipulation that I collect it from his own lips with a kiss.”

“He thought you were celibate?”

The irritation stoking within me simmered slow and hot.

“He knew better. Rumors about me are one of the court’s favorite pastimes. I am the beast under the bed of every Fae. But this rumor is so pervasive that he must have convinced himself of it, too.”

“Is he your former lover?” I narrowed my eyes, not allowing the slight barb of jealousy to play across my face.

“No, but he does know my former companion.”

This was the first time he looked up from the winding of his bandage as if to see if I would ask further.

I didn’t care who he used to fuck.

“Is that what you did to me? Played the soft chivalrous courtier to part my thighs and make me act the whore for you?”

He snorted a laugh and leaned back, watching me. “That’s what you take away from that? Not curious who my former companion is? Or how Brittle Spear would know of them?”

“I frankly don’t give two shits who you used to fucking plow. If they had such poor taste, that’s their problem.”

“Not even curious what the boon was?” He clucked condemnation in the back of his throat and set the pot of salve and bandages aside. The blade of his mood unsheathed itself and brandished the edge once more. “If you must know, little bug, no. I have and always will be exactly who I am when I am with you. I had tried to keep my more . . . unsavory habits from you to begin with. I wanted you to see me as less of a beast than the rest of the court did. I wanted you to see me as I truly am, not just the Hammer of the Dawn. You had been through so much already I did not wish to slice more from you.”

“I didn’t ask for your pity.”

“And yet I gave it nonetheless!” He rose, his temper getting the best of him, stalking me down in long-legged strides until his face was but inches from me. “And I would do it, and all the rest again. Over and over again. And when you see Brittle Spear’s head perched atop the Ard Rí’s throne, give it a kiss for me, Sóna.”

“Wh-What did you do?”

“I said I’d let you fuck any Fae you wanted. I didn’t say I’d let them live to tell the tale. And Brittle Spear will not be the first.” A demon took up residence in the feral curl of his bloodthirsty smile. “The boon was for him to be in a specific place at a specific time. He is bound by magic now to appear there. And when he arrives, he will be caught with a specific and very rare spider venom that only a choice few from his fetid court would have access to. The very same venom that you witnessed in action. A few others will attest to seeing him skulking around the orchards where the brood mothers can be found.”