She blinked at him, as if surprised.
“What?” he asked.
She angled her head. “It has been a long, long time since I conversed with someone who knows me for what I am. And with someone whose mind remained wholly their own.”
“Even Aelin?”
A muscle in her slim jaw feathered. “Even Aelin of the Wildfire. I could not infiltrate her mind entirely, but little things … those, I could convince her to see.”
“Why did you capture and torture her?” Such a simple way of describing what had happened in Eyllwe and after it.
“Because she would never agree to work with me. And she would never have protected me from Erawan or the Valg.”
“You’re strong—why not protect yourself? Use those spiders to your advantage?”
“Because our kind only fears certain gifts. Mine, alas, are not those things.” She toyed with a strand of her black hair. “I usually keep another Fae female with me. One who has powers that work against the Valg. Different from those Aelin Galathynius possesses.” That she didn’t specify what those powers were told Dorian not to waste his breath in asking her. “She swore the blood oath to me long ago, and has rarely left my side since. But I did not dare bring her to Morath. To have her here would not have convinced Erawan that I came in good faith.” She twirled the strand of hair around a finger. “So you see, I am as defenseless against Erawan as you.”
Dorian highly doubted that, but he rose to his feet at last, aiming for the table where water and food had been laid out. A fine spread, for a demon king’s castle in the dead of winter. He poured himself a glass of water and gulped down the contents. “Is this Erawan’s true form?”
“In a manner of speaking. We are not like the human and Fae, where your souls are invisible, unseen. Our souls have a shape to them. We have bodies that we can fashion around them—adorn them, like jewelry. The form you see on Erawan was always his preferred decoration.”
“What do your souls look like beneath?”
“You would find them displeasing.”
He suppressed a shudder.
“I suppose that makes us shape-shifters, too,” Maeve mused as Dorian aimed for the chair beside hers. He’d spent his nights sleeping on the floor before the fire, one eye watching the queen dozing in the canopied bed behind him. But she had made no move to harm him. Not one.
“Do you feel Valg, or Fae?”
“I am what I am.” For a heartbeat, he could almost glimpse the weight of her eons of existence in her eyes.
“But who do you wish to be?” A careful question.
“Not like Erawan. Or his brothers. I never have.”
“That’s not exactly an answer.”
“Do you know who and what you wish to be?” A challenge—and genuine question.
“I’m figuring it out,” he said. Strange. So strange, to have this conversation. Sparing them both for the time being, Dorian rubbed at his face. “The key is in his tower. I’m sure of it.”
Maeve’s mouth tightened.
Dorian said, “There is no way in—not with the guards. And I’ve flown the exterior enough to know there are no windows, no cracks for me to even creep through.” He held her otherworldly stare. Did not shrink from it. “We need to get in. If only to confirm that it’s there.” She’d once held the keys—she knew what they felt like. That she had come so close then …
“And I suppose you expect me to do that?”
He crossed his arms. “I can think of no one else that Erawan would admit inside.”
Maeve’s solitary blink was her only sign of surprise. “To seduce and betray a king—one of the oldest tricks in the book, as you humans say.”
“Can Erawan be seduced by anyone?”
He could have sworn disgust flitted over her pale face before she said, “He can.”
They did not waste time. Did not wait.
And even Dorian found himself unable to look away as Maeve flicked a hand at herself and her purple gown melted away, replaced by a sheer, flowing black dress. Little more than a robe. Golden thread had been woven through it, artfully concealing the parts of her that only the one who removed the garment would see, and when she turned from the mirror, her face was grave.
“You will not like what you are about to witness.” Then she slung her cloak around her, hiding that lush body and sinful gown, and swept out the door.
He shifted into a slithering insect, swift and flexible, and trailed her, lingering at her heels as Maeve wound through the halls. To the base of that tower.
He tucked into a crack in the black wall as Maeve said to the Valg posted outside, “You know who I am. What I am. Tell him I have come.”
He could have sworn Maeve’s hands trembled slightly.
But one of the guards—whom Dorian had never once seen so much as blink—turned to the door, knocked once, and strode inside.
He emerged moments later, resumed his post, and said nothing.
Maeve waited. Then strolling footsteps sounded from the tower interior.
And when the door opened again, the putrid wind and swirling darkness within threatened to send him running. Erawan, still clad in his clothes despite the late hour, lifted his brows. “We have a meeting tomorrow, sister.”
Maeve took a step closer. “I did not come to discuss war.”
Erawan stilled. And then said to the guards, “Leave us.”
CHAPTER 74
As one, the guards outside Erawan’s tower walked away.
Alone, the Valg king blocking the doorway to his tower, Maeve said, “Does that mean I am welcome?” She loosened her grip on her cloak, the front folds falling open to reveal the sheer gown.
Erawan’s golden eyes surveyed every inch. Then her face. “Though you may not believe so, you are my brother’s wife.”
Dorian blinked at that. At the honor of the demon within the male body.
“I do not have to be,” Maeve murmured, and Dorian knew, then, why she had warned him before they’d left.
A shake of her head, and her thick black hair turned golden. Her moon-white skin darkened slightly, to a sun-kissed tan. The angular face rounded slightly, dark eyes lightening to turquoise and gold. “We could play like this, if you’d prefer.”
Even the voice belonged to Aelin.
Erawan’s eyes flared, his chest rising in an uneven breath.
“Would that appeal to you?” Maeve gave a half-smile that Dorian had only seen on the Queen of Terrasen’s face.
Disgust and horror roiled through him. He knew—knew there was no true lust in Erawan’s eyes for Aelin. No true desire beyond the claiming, the pain.
Maeve’s glamour changed again. Golden hair paled to white, turquoise eyes burning to gold.
Icy rage, pure and undiluted, tore through Dorian as Manon now stood before the Valg king. “Or maybe this form, beautiful beyond all reckoning.” She peered down at herself, smiling. “Was she your intended queen when this war was over, the Wing Leader? Or merely a prize breeding mare?”
Erawan’s nostrils flared, and Dorian focused upon his breathing, on the stones beneath him, anything to keep his magic from erupting at the desire—true desire—that tightened Erawan’s face.
But if it got Maeve inside that tower—
Erawan blinked, and that desire winked out. “You are my brother’s wife,” he said. “No matter whose skin you wear. Should you need release, I’ll send someone to your chambers.”
With that, he shut the door. And did not emerge again.
Maeve brought Dorian to her meeting the next morning.
In her cloak pocket, as a field mouse, Dorian kept still and listened.
“After all that fuss last night,” Erawan was saying, “you turned away what I sent you.”