happen.
”
I didn’t have the heart to say that their masks made it fairly clear that nothing
could be done against the blight.
Lucien splashed out of the fountain, but I couldn’t look at him, not with the
head he bore, the blood surely on his hands and clothes. “They’ll get what’s
coming to them soon enough. Hopefully the blight will wreck them, too.”
Tamlin growled at Lucien to take care of the head, and the gravel crunched as
Lucien departed.
I crouched to pick up my paints and brushes, my hands shaking as I fumbled
for a large brush. Tamlin knelt next to me, but his hands closed around mine,
squeezing.
“You’re still safe,” he said again. The Suriel’s command echoed through my
mind. Stay with the High Lord, human. You will be safe.
I nodded.
“It’s court posturing,” he said. “The Night Court is deadly, but this was only
their lord’s idea of a joke. Attacking anyone here—attacking you—would cause
more trouble than it’s worth for him. If the blight truly does harm these lands,
and the Night Court enters our borders, we’ll be ready.”
My knees shook as I rose. Faerie politics, faerie courts … “Their idea of jokes
must have been even more horrible when we were enslaved to you all.” They
must have tortured us whenever they liked—must have done such unspeakable,
awful things to their human pets.
A shadow flickered in his eyes. “Some days, I’m very glad I was still a child
when my father sent his slaves south of the wall. What I witnessed then was bad
enough.”
I didn’t want to imagine. Even now, I still hadn’t looked to see if any hints of
those long-ago humans had been left behind. I did not think five centuries would
be enough to cleanse the stain of the horrors that my people had endured. I
should have let it go—should have, but couldn’t. “Do you remember if they
were happy to leave?”
Tamlin shrugged. “Yes. Yet they had never known freedom, or known the
seasons as you do. They didn’t know what to do in the mortal world. But yes—
most of them were very, very happy to leave.” Each word was more ground out
than the next. “I was happy to see them go, even if my father wasn’t.” Despite
the stillness with which he stood, his claws poked out from above his knuckles.
No wonder he’d been so awkward with me, had no idea what to do with me,
when I’d first arrived. But I said quietly, “You’re not your father, Tamlin. Or
your brothers.” He glanced away, and I added, “You never made me feel like a
prisoner—never made me feel like little more than chattel.”
The shadows that flickered in his eyes as he nodded his thanks told me there
was more—still more that he had yet to tell me about his family, his life before
they’d been killed and this title had been thrust upon him. I wouldn’t ask, not
with the blight pressing down on him—not until he was ready. He’d given me
space and respect; I could offer him no less.
Still, I couldn’t bring myself to paint that day.
