Page 12 of Curse of Darkness
“Let them think it.” I’m too fucking tired to care.
“When the prince brought you here the first time, I saw you from a distance. I thought it was your beauty that had caught his eye. I thought him a fool for taking such a risk when there are beautiful females in every city. But he saw more than your face. He saw yourheart. He saw what I see here today.” Theron tilts his face toward me, his expression impenetrable. “I don’t think with my heart, my queen. I don’t take risks I deem unacceptable. I don’t accept jobs where death seems a more likely outcome than reward. I can’t even believe I just acceptedthistask.
“And so I say this: The other queens would think you weak, but it is not weakness you show me. It is not weakness that inspires me to risk my life for a child I don’t even know.”
Theron steps forward. Finn stiffens, but the assassin merely takes my hand and presses a kiss to the ring I wear on my finger. The ring Thiago gave me to close our vows.
“If you are allowed the chance to grow into your rule, then I think you will be the greatest queen of all,” he says before he nods at Finn and turns away from the dais.
He stops right in front of Eris.
She stares through him.
“I asked for the wrong reward,” he finally says. “I should have asked for a single meal with your stern-faced warlord instead of the finest gifts in your treasury.”
Finn tenses at my side—enough to capture my attention.
“But then… I have not beaten her yet.” Theron smiles a little dangerously.
Eris challenged the world many years ago when she said she would only ever give her heart to the male who could beat her in battle. Since then, hundreds of fae lords have come to try their hand at fate.
All have failed.
“Ever,” Eris says coldly, and their eyes meet.
There’s heat in Theron’s face—a promise unspoken.
But my friend remains as merciless as a killing frost.
Theron winks. “You never know.”
“Oh, I know,” Eris replies with the soft malice of a knife drawing across a throat. “You will never beat me, Theron. And I will never yield. You may as well give up this foolishness before it costs you your life.”
The assassin steps back, his arms open as he grins at her. “Clearly you don’t know me. I’ve never met a challenge I can’t surmount. Eventually.”
“The problem is,” Finn mutters at my side, low enough for me alone to hear him, “she’s not just a fucking challenge to be won.”
Eris’s head whips toward him, her brows drawing together as if she didn’t quite hear what he said.
“Rescue the little girl,” she suddenly says, her attention returning to Theron. “And then I will give you a chance. Bring May back here safely, and we will cross swords, the two of us. Then we will see where fate leaves us.”
“Consider it done,” Theron purrs as he backs toward the double doors.
* * *
Surprisingly,it’s in the dungeon where I find some respite from my grief.
Lysander paces beyond the bars, an enormous creature of rippling sinew, fur, and fury. His golden eyes watch me like a caged wolf just waiting for its prey to get close enough for it to snatch.
Banes are monstrous, magic-twisted creatures lost to hunger and rage. My mother cursed him when she found him sniffing around Clydain—where she was keeping May hidden safely away from court so I wouldn’t remember the daughter I gave birth to.
It’s not impossible to break a curse, but this one is proving hard to shift.
We even bargained with Theron for the use of one of his hexbreakers, and while she’s been here three times, Lysander is still caged in fur and sinew. He’s not as angry as he once was. Nor as determined to murder me—another lovely little twist of my mother’s “gift”—but he can’t seem to shatter the bonds that tether him to the beast form.
“How is he?”
“He’s getting better,” Baylor murmurs from where he sits against the wall, polishing a knife with slow, steady strokes. Therasp-rasp-raspgets on my nerves, but I know it gives his hands something to do.
