Chapter Twelve
I can’t sleep.
Every time I close my eyes, I find myself falling into a deep, dark hole I can’t get out of. A baby cries on the other side of the wall and I scratch at the rock, desperate to rescue the child. But the water that lines the bottom of the hole starts rising, and soon it’s sweeping over my head, and I choke and cough and splutter and then it’s too late….
I wake with a gasp, the scream trapped in my throat.
Just a nightmare. Just another nightmare…. But the sound of a baby crying seems to echo almost on the verge of hearing.
I turn my thoughts toward the Mother of Night. Stop it! If these dreams are yours, then I hope you choke on them!
But there’s no response.
There never is, and I’m not sure whether it’s because she doesn’t hear me—or because she’s silently laughing to herself.
Thiago stirs, but I stroke a hand over his bare shoulder and then ease from the bed. It’s not the first time this has happened, and while he’ll usually wrap me in his arms until the nightmare fades, tonight I want to be alone. Dressing swiftly, I slip onto the balcony and bow my head, trying to stop my heart from racing.
It felt so real.
It always does, but tonight I can practically feel the grit under my fingernails.
A shadow moves out of the corner of my eye, and I nearly leap out of my skin until I realize who it is.
“Bad dreams?” Eris asks, leaning against the watchtower at the end of the balcony.
I rest my hands on the battlements and sigh. “Every night it’s the same nightmare. I need to find the crown.”
“You have nine months,” she says.
Nine months. I wish she knew what kind of precognitive tremor those words send down my spine. I’m not pregnant, and we’ve been so careful, but still….
“We’ve had three,” I point out, walking toward her so the sound of our voices won’t wake Thiago, “and we’re no closer to getting our hands on it. Walk the battlements with me?”
She follows as I head for the stairs that lead down onto the ramparts.
Eris slowly rubs her thumb over the sharp blade of her knife, almost unconsciously. “I could return to the Morai. I’ve never been. They’ll have to answer my questions.”
What? “You hauled me out of their cave after we set fire to it. I’m fairly certain answering your questions isn’t going to be their first priority if they see you. Besides, their cave is too close to Blaedwyn’s territories, and I’m not entirely certain who’s in charge there with the Erlking on the loose.”
“He owes you two favors.”
And I promised I would never call them in. “Thiago doesn’t want me to capture any more of his attention.”
The Erlking is one of the most dangerous Old Ones. He leads the Wild Hunt, and whilst I’ve heard no mention of it howling free since I set him loose, the golden antler tattoos on my hand aren’t there of my own volition.
“I could… subdue the Morai,” she finally says. “I could make them tell me where the crown is.”
Devourer, they’d called her as they flinched away from her.
But I saw the look in her eyes, and as much as Eris walls herself away from the world with an uncaring shrug and the curl of a lip, it hurt her in some way to see them shudder before her.
How would it feel to be the one thing the monsters are afraid of?
“We have nine months,” I say instead. “If we can’t find any trace of the crown before then, then we may have to look at such alternatives. Making any headway with the Prince of Ravens?”
“Corvin?”
“I saw the way he looked at you. And he asked you to dance.”
“I declined.”
“He’s handsome.”
“Trust me. He’s not interested in me.” A winter’s night holds more warmth than her voice right now. “None of them are truly interested in me.”
“Do I want to know?”
She looks down her nose at me. “Do I want to ask what sort of power you were channeling at the Queensmoot?”
I freeze.
Eris looks out over the castle. “I’m not a fool, Vi. The others were distracted by your mother’s assault, but I’m the weapon at Thiago’s right hand. I’m supposed to be his shield. I’ve spent centuries training to recognize threats. And the only time I’ve ever felt the hairs rise on my arms the way they did at the Queensmoot was when we went to Mistmere and you made that bargain with the Mother of Night. Are you going to tell the others?”
“I….”
All of a sudden, I can’t breathe.
“I won’t tell them,” she says curtly. “It’s your secret, not mine. Because I don’t think that was the Mother of Night’s power. You were channeling the ley lines, and there’s only one creature I know who is supposed to have the power to do that.”
The leanabh an dàn.
Somehow, I start breathing again. In my mother’s court, a secret such as this could be catastrophic. But… “If word of this got out….”
“As I said, it’s your secret.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.” Eris takes a deep breath, looking troubled. “None of us will turn away from you, Vi. I know you find it hard to trust, but we’re family.”
“That’s a word that holds a different meaning for me.”
She looks at me for a long moment. “They were going to kill me.”
“Who?”
“When I was younger,” she says, resting her hands on the parapet and looking over the bailey, “I was not… wholly in control of myself. I would try to contain the creature inside me, but sometimes I’d scent blood or hear an injured animal calling out, and it was enough to force me to the killing edge.” Her face locks down. “I’ll spare you the details, but by the time the hunters finally caught me, the entire Seelie Alliance sat in judgement over me. They wanted my head. It was safer. Kinder,
