Page 70 of To Dance with Death

I itch to run my forefinger across his forehead, to coax the few wayward tendrils hanging past his brow back behind his ear. “Why bring me?”

His smile is soft in a way I haven’t yet seen here. “I appreciate the quiet, but I hate solitude.”

“So bring Dahlia.”

He slides a knowing gaze my way. “My jealous little miscreant, you needn’t feel threatened. Can’t you tell how interesting I find you?”

“Your interest is tied to curiosity. I’m a package you want to unwrap. Once you see what’s inside, the mystery loses its appeal.” I pull my hair over my shoulder to squeeze out the water, if only to have something to do with my hands.

“That’s a very narrow-minded way of thinking. A good mystery stands the test of time—even after answers.”

Fates, he sounds like Sundar. “I am not a good mystery, Sire. I am here for a reason, and you are distracting me from it.”

“I thought you might feel safe here,” he says. “We can speak without being overheard—or being watched.”

“Watched,” I repeat. “By the other souls? Or by Moranya?”

“Moranya does not lurk in corners. Is that what you think?”

I shrug, twisting my locks into a knot, only to unravel them again. “She could have eyes and ears everywhere. Or are you her lone watchdog?”

“I am someone she trusts to take care of her souls. Do not misunderstand.”

“Do you think she’s a fair ruler?”

I expect him to bite at me, to warn me not to question her motives, like he did before. Like Maia did. Instead he leans back on his elbows. “I think she does the best she can, all things considered.”

Both our feet still dangle in the water, but I pull mine up to wrap my arms around them. “I’m trying to understand her, but everyone is so cryptic—and that includes you. Why? Why does everyone so willingly adapt to the order of things here when she’s an absent queen? Why do you trust her so implicitly?”

“Her act in creating this realm was a selfless one, and it savedmultitudes of souls from vanishing from existence. We owe her much—faith being the least of it.”

“They say she tricked a Fate and stole his powers to do it. How is that deserving of anything?”

The Unknown Fate. Emilia had speculated about who he might be, why he came to our world in the first place. She seemed to think the two fell in love, but knowing Moranya, her methods of deceit…

“The story is not so simple as that.”

“And how would you know?” Perhaps Moranya has filled his head with lies.

“Because I was more skeptical than anyone.”

“And what? She refuted the tale and exchanged it for a few honeyed words?”

He snatches my chin, turns it toward him. “No,” he breathes. “Only over time, once I had painstakingly gained her trust, did she reveal the truth to me. And now that I know it, it fills me with such sadness that I wish I had never found out. Consider yourself fortunate.”

I search his face, the light spangling through the waterfall’s fringe to flicker across the sharp planes of his jaw. He died many times in his youth, I remember. He had seen her often, perhaps had developed some sort of friendship, and yet he hadn’t seemed overly friendly when he bargained for my life.

“Why is it so tragic a tale?” I whisper, thinking of Emilia’s speculations. “Are you saying she loved the Fate she is said to have killed?”

“It is tragic,” he says, releasing my chin, “that she wasted so much timebelievingin love.”

Frustration crowds my throat. “Can’t you justtellme what happened?”

His glare, once soft, now carves to a point. “The story is not mine to share. But now you will answer something for me, miscreant. I’ve been more than patient.” There’s a finality to his tone I haven’t heard since the isle—one that makes my heart lurch.

“I do not remember you from my court, and yet you were conspiring with those I believed to be my friends. I suggest you start at the beginning.”

I want to tell him so badly, make him understand that not everything is as it seems. But it’s as if there’s a cord around my windpipe, and all that comes out is a cough—as if Moranya’s curse can sense my intent.