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A demon.
Of course he would be a demon. She had known before any of the testing. Before he ever picked up a sword.
He was hers. Of course he was a demon.
He sat across the table, attentive despite appearances. Slouched in his chair, his ankle propped against his knee, arms crossed. He was the picture of teenaged dismissal but his eyes were sharp when they met hers.
“Cyneth,” she reprimanded.
“Mother,” he replied, his tone an exact mimicry of hers.
The scientist glanced between them, nerves scraping his patience raw. “Highnesses, I can wait outside if—“
“When will it be?” Cyneth asked, sitting forward abruptly, his eyes pinning the man in place. Emeline called it his Marcelle stare.
“Uh— t— tomorrow, highnesses.” His eyes darted between them again, nerves giving way to something closer to fear. “If that is… acceptable.”
Cyneth studied him for a moment longer, letting him squirm just long enough that the man would never forget the discomfort, before he nodded sharply and waved a hand in actual dismissal. “Fine.”
“I will… see to the preparations?” Sweat had beaded on his temple under Cyneth’s scrutiny.
Marcelle raised a brow. “Are you asking us or telling us?”
From the corner of her eye she spotted Cyneth’s grin. Not all hunts happened in the forest, she reflected, forcing her own face not to budge.
The sweat intensified. “Telling?”
Cyneth sighed. “This is physically painful. You are dismissed.” He waited until the door was closed to grin openly. “Like flushing rabbits. I thought he was going to pee himself when he had to speak to you directly.”
She realized she was smiling back and schooled her face to blankness. He had that effect on her too often. He made her forget what was coming.
It was likely his eyes would be different by this time tomorrow. The windows of the soul. She wondered if it would feel like looking at a stranger or if his essential self would stare out at her still?
Maybe it would feel like seeing his truest self. Like peeling away the layers of his human disguise. Looking at Cyneth often felt like staring into a mirror. What would it feel like once the reflection changed?
He tossed his head to shift a few escaped strands of hair out of his eyes. It was always escaping. Too glossy for even the strongest hair tie to contain.
When had she last combed his hair? Braided it for him? When had she last touched him at all?
“So,” he said, settling back in his chair to sling a leg over the arm. He thought it annoyed her. He wasn’t wrong, but he was wrong about why. “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” she agreed, back ramrod straight. “You seem ready.”
He shrugged, met her eyes easily enough. “Not like I have a choice.”
And that ached to hear. Not because he blamed her but because he didn’t. His eyes were clear and as unguarded as he ever allowed himself to be.
She could never decide if it was a mercy or a cruelty that Cyneth always understood what was required of him. Of them. Perhaps both. Perhaps all the mercy between them was cruelty in disguise.
He arched a brow. “Are you ready?” he asked, grey eyes sharp as his axe. Too much. He always saw too much and she had never been prouder of anyone than she was in this moment as he ferreted out her weakness.
His instincts were good. He was strong. His defenses were different than hers but that didn’t have to be the weakness she feared it could become. Every day he proved himself just as clever and driven as she had always known he could be.
She wondered if he would ever use those skills against her.
If he would ever forgive her for what she was already doing.
He loved her, she knew that. But would he still when this was all over? Would he be alive to find out? Would she?
Time seemed to slow as she looked at him — really looked at him. Into him. Sometimes when they stared at each other like this she could still feel it, the red thread binding them irrevocably. Tethered. Leashed as surely as any dog. The tug of it high under her ribs. It felt like death. Like love.
They had never spoken of it but she thought he felt it, too. This bond between them. This pull. The knowledge that they were always destined for one another. Locked together in this hell.
She should never have let herself love him.
She could never have kept it at bay. And if she was honest, she hadn’t bothered to try. Fate had bound them together but she had taken him into her heart. And she didn’t regret it no matter how much pain it would cause them one day.
For a moment she let herself love him as her son. Not the future commander of her armies. Not a piece on a board in a game he had only just begun to play. Her boy. Her victim. Her greatest mistake.
She loved him with everything in her.
“I must always be ready,” she replied, reaching out to brush away a loose strand of his hair. Just as soft as she remembered. Marcelle’s heart ached in her chest.
Being a Queen only offered the illusion of choice.