Page 67 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire
He shakes his head slowly. “Don’t ask me that. You know I cannot lie—”
“Why, Neirin?” I stalk closer.
“—and you won’t like the truth—”
“Just tell me why!”
“Because he’s my brother!” Neirin’s admission explodes from his chest. “He had the hawk that flew away. I tried to go with it when I realized.”
I pause, my hand flexing at my side, painfully aware of the blade hanging in my grasp. “Realized what?”
His mouth opens and closes, struggling for words, for the truth. Neirin would lie now if he could, and it’s so plain to both of us that it’s embarrassing.
“That nothing will change as long as he is king.”
“You’ll use the favor to take his crown.” I advance toward him, shoulders squared. “Did I ever have a chance to ask for immortality? Did my sister? And how were you able to lie to me?”
“I wasn’t lying,” Neirin takes a step back. “Our pact binds you to my court; it’s my right to use your favor. I will ask for the crown,and once I am king I will give you whatever you desire. Eternal life, wealth, adventure—you would be generously compensated.”
“Is that what you told Beth as well? That, if she stayed with you, she’d get a prize?”
Neirin snorts. “I never promised Beth anything, and by the time I wanted her gone, it was too late. Now I’ve been stuck with herfartoo long, and there’s nothing nice behind her face. Don’t I deserve a bit of empathy for that?”
“You’re horrible.” I step closer. “Is the king irresponsible?”
Neirin blinks at me, his face laid bare by blank panic. “No.”
“Is he mercenary?”
“No.”
“Is he cruel?” I close the canyon between us.
His jaw tightens. “Not to most people.”
The implication sits heavy in the tiny gap left between our chests. Neirin doesn’t care about this land or the people in it. He doesn’t care about much outside of his own static life and the boredom that’s consumed him whole. He’s restless, pacing the floor of his fine cage, trying to claw his way out.
“You don’t like how he tied you to this place,” I say. “But you were happy to trap me here to keep you company.”
Neirin’s eyes track behind me, to the walls of his own prison, which he’s filled with sycophants and empty distractions, and a dull hum fills my ears, then quickly vanishes. My hand shoots back and passes through the barrier.
I could run. He wants me to think that he’s better than his brother.
Neirin made me his weapon and turned me on people who are more like me than he’ll ever be. And I was foolish enough to be surprised: as if I didn’t see how he’d used Beth and then cast her aside, or how he let Mabyn bear my punishment forhistrick and laughed all the while.
I thought I was smarter than the other girls that came before, but I’m not.
“They were disposable to you,” I say, voice thick with the threat of tears. “I—I’m disposable, my sister, too.”
“No, you’re not.” He steps closer, and I stagger back as his hand reaches out.
I shake my head, a mirthless laugh on my lips. “Oh, well done. You’ve talked to one peasant for a few days and decided I’m a real person. Does your brother deserve whatever you have planned for him?”
Neirin tugs at his hair, as if the answer sits at the roots. Lying is a gift I did not appreciate enough, not until this moment. He throws his hands up again and surges toward me.
“Damn you. You know the answer, Habren!” he yells. “No, he is a fine king to all bar me, and it’s been many years, and I can’t let that go. I am sobored! It’s festered.” He hammers a fist against his chest. “The years of being walked over, of bowing and scraping to prove I deserve the glorified cottage to which he bound me so I could be no threat to him, of never being able to stray too far, and of nothing changing, nothing getting better, ever. One cannot live when things are always the same—youof all people understand that.”
His appeal sours on my tongue. I twitch and frown at him, just barely biting back furious tears.
