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Arran kept the grassy manacles in place for several minutes, until even the fetid stink of the creature’s poison faded away.
“What is it?” he asked.
I raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t they drill you on beasts of the elemental kingdom before sending you here?” I certainly knew all about what lurked in the Shadow Wood. But then, his training had been practical while mine, closeted in the water gardens, was mostly theoretical.
He glared at me.
“A skoupuma. The fangs are coated in poison. If it enters your body, you’ll need a skilled fae healer faster than you’ll be able to find one,” I said, looking closer at the beast now that it was free of its emerald cage. “They do not usually come this close to the palace. I have never encountered one.”
Arran shot me a disapproving look—how often had I been among these trees at night, to know such things?
I ignored the question in his eyes.
Which was a mistake, because he asked a more difficult one instead.
"Why did you not defend yourself?"
I forced a wry smile to my face and held up my blade, quite literally dripping with the creature's blood.
He eyed it grimly, but did not flinch. "Not with that. With your magic."
Too close, too close, my insides screamed. "Magic has a cost," I parroted, as I must have a thousand times in my short life.
He shook his head in disbelief—and blatant disapproval. "Surely your life… or mine… warrants the cost. Or do you truly hate me so much? That you would leave me upon the mercy of that thing?"
"I do not hate you." The words sprang so quickly from my chest I had no chance to stop them, to weigh their worth in this fraught game we'd been playing for days. Weeks, now. Years, if the Ancestors were to be believed.
He shook his head again, dismissing me with a look of derision.
Part of me yearned to tell him.
How could that be? I’d spent my entire life guarding this secret, closeted away in the water gardens by my mother, to protect the realm. The same reasons that poured from Arran’s lips at every turn—peace, security, safety.
Why should I want to tell him?
To share the weight, my bruised heart answered. With Arthur gone, it was mine alone.
I could not keep it a secret forever, could not keep it from him when we were destined to spend eternity together. But until our joining… until then…
Until then, I had to protect myself. I had to stay alive long enough to avenge Arthur.
He could hate me. I could stand it. Had I not borne those same looks from my mother since my awakening?
Willing ice into my veins, I lifted my arms and sheathed the blades down my back. A drop of that dark, revolting green blood fell onto my cheek, dripping from the steel. I felt his eyes note it, though he was pretending to ignore me now. But I did not flinch.
“We must return to the palace before we are missed,” I said, stepping around him. I heard his predatory steps behind me, stalking me through the forest like the hunter that he was. But I did not glance back over my shoulder. And I did not wipe away the blood until I was alone in my chambers once again.
26
VEYKA
My mouth was sticky with the chocolates my nursemaid snuck in. My mother disapproved of sweets, her comments about my soft tummy ringing in my ears long after she floated away from the water gardens.
The water gardens. My first memories were of crashing waterfalls, ebbing rings of ripples, and terror.
Suddenly it wasn’t chocolate in my mouth, on my fingers. It turned white and milky before my eyes. I wasn’t a child. No, I was. A child still, even if they insisted I was not.
My nursemaid was screaming—Ana. She was horrified. They were always horrified at first, before they became complacent. What escape was there? That was the Queen of the Elemental Fae looking on, her water magic increasing the crash of the waterfalls into a roar loud enough to cover my screams.
