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“The crawlers.”

His head snapped to me, and he stared. “Are you fucking mad?”

A slow roll of my shoulders as the trap began clicking shut was easily disguised as a shrug.

“That poison is infectious, Raven. Do you not know this? It is why our court keeps its process so hidden. It is the only one of our remedies that can kill even those that have the misfortune of being in the same room.”

I hadn’t known that. I knew that, once the poison began birthing the crawler spiderlings, there was no stopping it, and it would spread through the victim until it was wholly consumed by the spiderlings. I also knew that the weapon needed to be burned and cleansed or the spiderlings would continue to breed even after the victim was devoured. I had not known that even being in the room with a victim could be deadly.

Sorrow and I would have words.

Brittle Spear forged on, seeing my wavering. “Any Fae unlucky enough to be in the same room with a victim for too long could be mistaken for the crawler’s next meal. And on and on and on, the cycle will go. They could consume the whole of Magh Meall if not contained and used by an especially skilled assassin. Only the most elite of my Abhartach know how to use it let alone brew it!”

“So, you have it.”

“Of course I have it, you fucking Étain-cursed donkey. I’m just not fool enough to use it!”

“Not even for her?” I pitched back at him as swift as he had dismissed me.

“I—” He snapped his mouth shut and huffed, mimicking the dragon his line was descended from. When his temper finally came under control, he snapped a nod. “For her. Yes. But you will share her evenly between us. From now until she tires of me.”

A slow, satisfied smile crept into my face as the guards heard him admitting to having access to the very rare poison that had been used in the attempt to kill the King. I almost wished that he had said his blasted court had burned the recipe and no longer held knowledge on how to make it.

“She is not a bargaining chip, Ard Tiarna. I selected you not because I needed this but because I knew you would treat her with care and give her what I could not.” I pushed off the potting table as the guards began streaming in. “Even if I wish I could.”

Brittle Spear’s eyes flicked from the guards to me and then tipped his head, acknowledging he had been played. Almost as if he had expected it.

I don’t see how he couldn’t have guessed this would be the outcome. He had watched me move in secret and shadow for far too long for him to have thought I would let him fuck her without exacting a toll worthy of the gods, especially if he suspected that I cared for her.

Even if he had no way of knowing what she was to me, even if she was nothing more than the untouchable daoire of the Ard Rí, to fuck her, he had to have known that I would have bled him for every drop of his pleasure. After all, the rumors were that I had bled an entire court dry for the sole crime of vexing the bastard on the throne.

I folded my arms as Silvertree and Quick Blade patted Brittle Spear down. He had been wise enough to come to this meeting in nothing but a well-tailored white linen tunic, a bare of breeches and unshod feet. Had he worn anything else, he’d have been handled much differently.

A commotion outside of the greenhouse drew my eye to Heart and her wife, Light, who were wrestling two hidden Fómhar to the ground, their leather-clad knees pressing plate caps into spines as they wielded leverage against the wrists of their query.

“Reinforcements, Brittle Spear? That’s not like you,” I taunted as he was drawn away. “Take the three of them to the accommodations on the second floor.”

Heart cocked her silvery brow to me. “Not the Maw, sir?”

“No. None of them are worthy of the Maw’s caress. And I have everything I need from them anyway. It is solely a matter of the council approving their return to magic.”

She nodded, and the prisoners were drawn away into the dark.

No one would go into the Maw again.

No one except her.

The way she had come alive under my blade had surprised even me. I knew that she held back her passions tightly laced up beneath the guise of aloofness. I had watched her take Daróg’s cock, and the twisting jealousy within me at the sounds she made while she did so had pushed me to make a mistake. A mistake that I was still not sure was the reason he had lost it or if there was something else. Some other reason that he had been drawn into rage.

I had wanted to be connected to her. I had needed to pretend even for a short, deluded moment that she was performing for me, that she was sucking my cock with such deep enjoyment. It was a foolish idea, a foolish slip of focus, and I had let my magic flow through my foot into her.

At first, I had rationalized that I had done it to make it easier for her, to make the violation that she had to perform easier for her to tolerate. If the magic of Dawn, Feidlimid’s own blessing of joy, could ease the trauma, it would have been a mercy, right? In truth, it was selfish. I had needed the balm. I knew that now. Watching my own heart forced to debase herself against her will and knowing she did not enjoy it had been a sick, twisted punishment, I was unable to submit to. Even for her.

I was haunted by the questions. Was that the reason why? Had he felt it? Had he felt my magic flowing through her? Had she acted as a simple conduit between the two of us? The guilt of not knowing why I had nearly lost her after finding her was a stag’s rack wedging beneath my ribs, piercing me as it gored me for my failure.

I hadn’t let myself touch her since. I couldn’t risk the draw of our bond. I couldn’t risk my magic answering her siren call and finding the path of my skin against hers, so easy to use, to break free of my control as it sought its natural place in her. As tempted as I was. As deeply as the ache within me was throbbing like a smashed thumb, sensitive to even the slightest jostling.

“Captain,” Fleetfoot muttered, coming to join me in my brooding lean against the gate that separated the greenhouse from the palace gardens proper.