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“Yes. I know.” Solok gripped my chin painfully between his fingers and held me there while he took his time perusing me.
I wished I’d never come outside.
I wished losing my virginity was the worst thing that would have happened tonight. As fiercely as I’d guarded that gift, I would give my innocence up a hundred times over to go back to my dreary life serving the Ravenshades.
“How old are you?” Solok turned predatory. “Eighteen?”
“I…I don’t know.” I whispered. “No one ever kept track.”
“Did they rape you? Are you still a virgin?”
Gods, was he serious? The sounds of tissue rending and bones cracking filled the air around us and he wanted to know…that?
“Tell me, Anaria.”
He was serious.“No. They didn’t rape me.” I hunched my shoulders in, hiding my nakedness, trying to ignore the male feasting on Estienne, whose vacant eyes stared at the night sky while his neck was chewed through.
“Good, then my trip was not entirely wasted.” Solok held out an elegant hand. “Let us go to the castle and finish this, before we are on our way.”
I was in shock. I had to be, because my numb brain latched onto that outstretched palm like a lifeline. I slid my hand into his, the cold press of his flesh against mine hardly registering against the chaos reigning around us.
Perhaps I was already dead and this was the Great Beyond. Perhaps I’d been the first to die and some soldier was using me to slake his insatiable hunger.
Perhaps I was a wraith and Solok my guide to whatever afterlife awaited me.
We walked until the sounds of rending flesh blessedly faded away, replaced by the festive music from the party, loud enough no one could hear the attack. I limped on my broken foot; Solok glided with a courtly grace I might have admired if I wasn’t scared witless.
“You are wondering why I am taking you to the castle. Part of the Scything ritual is to leave a survivor behind, so we must choose someone to continue the legacy and preserve the false sense of safety the ward provides to these…people.” His lifted lip revealed deadly fangs.
“Wait…it doesn’t?” The question burst out of me, before I weighed the wisdom of speaking. “The wall doesn’t provide safety?”
“Not at all, little thief.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?’ I murmured. He’d called Berenger and the others mongrels, which I’d thought odd, only to discover…that was precisely what they were.
“Think of it as a pet name.” Solok murmured. “To answer your question, the wall keeps the Descendants from passing into Caladrius, by shredding the flesh from their bones. But nothing stops the Fae from crossing over, any time we wish.”
The wall was a lie, then.
Nothing kept us safe from these monsters, nothing at all.
I sluggishly processed this while we climbed the staircase that led to the castle, where light blazed from every window, illuminating the flash of bright silk and jewelry as the throng danced and laughed, oblivious to the slaughter below.
Solok tugged me forward onto one of the terraces, Descendants and hangers on turning to track our slow, ambling approach, mouths falling open, glasses shattering to the ground.
I used my free arm to cover my breasts and lifted my chin, intent on facing these horrid people with a shred of dignity. I wanted to yank out of Solok’s grasp, but there was a twisted security in how tightly he gripped my bare arm.
In knowing he could kill any of them, with a flick of his finger.
We walked straight into the castle and approached the ballroom, where he eradicated the protective ward the duke had paid a year’s fortune for. With a wave of his hand.
The one meant to keep people like me out.
The music stopped when everyone glimpsed a strange male in their midst. I glanced to the doorway behind us, my dirty footprints marring the pristine floor, the chandeliers casting a too-bright glow over the breathless crowd.
I was acutely aware I was naked. Covered in blood and dirt.
And holding the hand of the Fae King’s general.
