The drones stepped back as soon as Pheolix fell.
Someone else emerged.
I sensed him hovering in my periphery as I tugged Pheolix’s shirt away from the arrow in his side. Blood leaked from its entry point; the arrowhead was buried deep. Black blood.
I reached for the water in his body, desperate to pull the poison shield weed out of him. But ice crusted over my lips. My fingers shivered in the frost of the drones' eclipse. And blood continued to churn, darker with each breath Pheolix took.
“Go,” he said, shoving me away. “Run, heiress.”
“No,” I snarled, throwing the hood back over my shoulders. I’d come all this way. I’d planned for months. Had fantasized for a year. Had left the only other thing I loved in this world just to find him.
A flash of feathers cut through the stars in my periphery. I sensed Thaan leaning over me to gaze at Pheolix, but I ignored him. Around the arrow, his flesh began to peel and curl like paper eaten by a flame. Pheolix grabbed me by the edges of my cloak, yanking me toward him. Away from Thaan. He grimaced at the motion, his teeth bright even in the dark, and I realized there was no surprise in his eyes.
“You knew,” I whispered.
Pheolix opened his mouth.
Thaan laughed, cold and mocking. “Honestly, Selena. You are like your sister. So predictable. Only one of my drones could lead you in. They were stationed at each exit, waiting for you to come out.”
We’d traveled by night. By dark. We’d watched for signs of life—signs of Naiads. Listened, smelled. We’d walked over rock, leaving no tracks, and the rain had hidden our presence.
I suppose the rain had hidden their presence, too.
“I thought, once I dropped the boulder down, that we might be safe,” Pheolix said.
I wanted to ask why he didn’t tell me, but I realized he had. Leaving the horse, making me run through the mines, dropping that boulder. He’d known I’d walked us into a trap by breaking him out.
I guess I'd known it, too. But I'd come anyway.
Thaan lowered himself into a crouch, staring into my eyes. “What better way to ensure you’d mate with Pheolix than to tell you never to see him again?”
Mate with him? Had Pheolix known that, too?
I dared a quick glance at Pheolix, but shock washed the color from his face.
Do you always do what he expects you to?
“Yes, I planned that.” Thaan’s fingertips joined. He smiled at the necrotic skin that grew at the edges of the arrowhead. “There’s little in your life that I don’t plan, Selena. The boy who defied orders to save you stared across the ship at you the next morning, and you stopped to stare back. Then reports came in the following years. He stayed awake at night, every night for years, talking to a girl. Andyou. You, I sent mission after mission, robbing nobles and royalty of their memories by seducing their minds, waiting to see if you’d fall for one I could use. But you didn’t. So, I brought Pheolix in on a hunch. When you turned around to stare at him the morning I sent you to Venusia, I knew I’d hit my mark.”
The ice in his blue eyes glimmered. “I never imagined it might take you over a year to finally mate with him. To give up thecordaeyou’d always wanted. I thought perhaps sending you on a mission together might lead to it. Setting the king as a target, banishing you to that room with one bed—even I questioned whether my instinct was right.”
“Why not order me to mate with him, then?” I spat.
Thaan leaned in, looming over my face. “Because I could sense Cebrinne was growing restless, and she’s impulsive enough that I don’t trust her. She’s not like you. She’s not loyal. I knew if I lost track of her, I’d lose track of you. And because I do not own you, Selena.” He smiled, his gaze sliding to Pheolix. “But now I do.”
He stood abruptly, and I had to lean into Pheolix to avoid colliding with his head. Pheolix’s body went rigid, hands and arms wrapping around me by reflex, almost as though he knew something I didn’t.
Four Naiads descended upon him, wresting his arms behind his back, and two more dragged me away. Across rocks and pine needles, Pheolix’s breath guttered. His shoulders arched forward, trying to control the agony of shield weed through the slow release of his air, the tension in his muscles.
“Don’t touch her,” Pheolix panted. Wild pain coiled in the planes of his face, but his eyes and mouth twisted with violence, and the scent of sudden fury blasted across the mountain air.
Thaan pointed at him. One of the drones approached.
“Wait!” I gasped out, shoving the Naiads who held me away.
“Get that out of him before he’s worthless to me,” Thaan commanded. The drone struck a boot in Pheolix’s side, ripping the arrow out. Pheolix fell to the ground, and one of the Naiads holding him forced him back up. He wavered on his knees, his hair wind-blown, his skin pale. But his eyes cut to Thaan like steel knives, murder lurking in the twist of his mouth.
Smoke curled from somewhere behind me. One of them had started a fire.
