Kingdom of Ash
Manon finished with her boots and lay back on her bedroll, sliding the blanket over her as she stared up at the tent’s low ceiling. “Did they teach you these things in your glass castle?”
“Yes.” Before he’d shattered that castle into shards and dust.
Manon turned on her side, propping her head with a hand, her white hair spilling from its braid to frame her face. “You can’t use that magic of yours to simply … compel them, can you?”
Dorian huffed a laugh. “Not that I know of.”
“Maeve wormed her way into Prince Rowan’s mind to convince him to take a false mate.”
“I don’t even know what Maeve’s power is,” Dorian said, cringing. What the Fae Queen had done to Rowan, what she was now doing to the Queen of Terrasen … “And I’m not entirely certain I want to start experimenting on potential allies.”
Manon sighed through her nose. “My training did not include these things.”
He wasn’t surprised. “You want my honest opinion?” Her golden eyes pinned him to the spot as she gave a curt nod. “Find the thing they need, and use it to your advantage. What would prompt them to rally behind you, to see you as their Crochan Queen? Fighting in battle tonight won some degree of trust, but not immediate acceptance. Perhaps Glennis might know.”
“I’d have to risk asking her.”
“You don’t trust her.”
“Why should I?”
“She’s your great-grandmother. And didn’t order you executed on sight.”
“My grandmother didn’t until the end, either.” No emotion passed over her face, but her fingers dug into her scalp at her words.
So Dorian said, “Aelin needed Captain Rolfe and his people shaken out of centuries of hiding in order to rally the Mycenian fleet. She learned they would only return to Terrasen when a sea dragon reappeared at last, one of their long-lost allies on the waves. So she engineered it to happen: provoked a small Valg fleet to attack Skull’s Bay while it lay mostly defenseless, and then used the battle to showcase the sea dragon that arrived to aid them, summoned from air and magic.”
“The shifter,” Manon said. Dorian nodded. “And the Mycenians bought it?”
“Absolutely,” Dorian drawled. “Aelin learned what the Mycenians needed in order to be convinced to join her cause. What sort of thing might the Crochans require to do the same?”
Manon lay back onto her bedroll, as graceful as a dancer. She toyed with the end of her braid, the red strip there. “I’ll ask Ghislaine in the morning.”
“I don’t think Ghislaine is going to know.”
Those gold eyes slid to his. “You truly believe I should ask Glennis?”
“I do. And I think she will help you.”
“Why bother?”
He wondered if the Thirteen could ever see it—that hint of self-loathing that sometimes flickered across her face. “Her mother willingly abandoned her city, her people, her queen in their last hours so she might preserve the royal bloodline. Your bloodline. I think she told you that story tonight so you might realize she will do the same as well.”
“Why not say it outright, then?”
“Because, in case you didn’t notice, you’re not exactly a popular person in this camp, despite your ploy with the Ironteeth. Glennis knows how to play the game. You just need to catch up with her. Find out why they’re even here, then plan your next move.”
Her mouth tightened, then relaxed. “Your tutors taught you well, princeling.”
“Being raised by a demon-infested tyrant did have its benefits, it seems.” His words rang flat, even as an edge sharpened inside him.
Her gaze drifted to his throat, to the pale line across it. He could almost feel her stare like a phantom touch.
“You still hate him.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Am I not supposed to?”
Her moon-white hair gleamed in the dim light. “You told me he was human. Deep down, he’d remained human, and tried to protect you as best he could. Yet you hate him.”
“You’ll forgive me if I find his methods of protecting me to be unpalatable.”
“But it was the demon, not the man, who killed your healer.”
Dorian clenched his jaw. “It makes no difference.”
“Doesn’t it?” Manon frowned. “Most can barely withstand a few months of Valg infestation. You barely withstood it.” He tried not to flinch at the blunt words. “Yet he held on for decades.”
He held her stare. “If you’re trying to cast my father as some sort of noble hero, you’re wasting your breath.” He debated ending it there, but he asked, “If someone told you that your grandmother was secretly good, that she hadn’t wanted to murder your parents and so many others, that she’d been forced to make you kill your own sister, would you find it so easy to believe? To forgive her?”
Manon glanced down at her abdomen—at the scar hidden beneath her leathers. He braced himself for the answer. But she only said, “I’m tired of talking.”
Good. So was he.
“Is there something you’d rather do instead, witchling?” His voice turned rough, and he knew she could hear his heartbeat as it began hammering.
Her only answer was to slide over him, strands of her hair falling around them in a curtain. “I said I don’t want to talk,” she breathed, and lowered her mouth to his neck. Dragged her teeth over it, right through that white line where the collar had been.
Dorian groaned softly, and shifted his hips, grinding himself into her. Her breath became jagged in answer, and he ran a hand down her side.
“Shut me up, then,” he said, a hand drifting southward to cup her backside as she nipped at his neck, his jaw. No hint of those iron teeth, but the promise of them lingered, an exquisite sword over his head.
Only with her did he not need to explain. Only with her did he not need to be a king, or anything but what he was. Only with her would there be no judgment for what he’d done, who he’d failed, what he might still have to do.
Just this—pleasure and utter oblivion.
Manon’s hand found his belt buckle, and Dorian reached for hers, and neither spoke for some time after that.
The release she found that night—twice—couldn’t entirely dull the edge when morning broke, gray and bleak, and Manon approached Glennis’s larger tent.
She’d left the king sleeping, bundled in the blankets they’d shared, though she hadn’t allowed him to hold her. She’d simply turned onto her side, putting her back to him, and closed her eyes. He hadn’t seemed to care, sated and drowsy after she’d ridden him until they’d both found their pleasure, and had been quickly asleep. Had stayed asleep, while Manon had contemplated how, exactly, she was to have this meeting.
Perhaps she should have brought Dorian. He certainly knew how to play these games. To think like a king.
He’d killed that spider like a blue-blooded witch, though. Not an ounce of mercy.
It shouldn’t have thrilled her the way it did.
But Manon knew her pride would never recover, and she’d never again be able to call herself a witch, if she let him do this task for her.