“Has Caindra come to visit?” Genuine excitement laces Lucretia’s voice.
“It has a name?”
“She does. And she has seen much.”
“Did she come through the Nulling?”
“Caindra has been here for many years.”
Not an answer. Gesine alluded to the dragon’s long life the other day, when she was talking of seers’ visions. “Since the last time the nymphs were here.”
Lucretia smiles. “I wondered when she would return.”
Is that supposed to be a yes? “Return from where?”
“From hiding.”
Getting answers out of the sylx is like pulling teeth. “And where does a thing like that hide for thousands of years where no one ever sees her?” Even if it was deep in the rift, she’d have to come out to eat every so often. Radomir, who has lived within these mountains for centuries, has never seen her.
“They have seen her. They just didn’t realize it.”
“Why does it seem like you’re avoiding answers rather than giving them?”
“Some things are better left unsaid, Your Highness.”
My frustration flares. I didn’t stay in Ulysede to deal with this. “No, they’re not!”
In the next breath, Lucretia is gone.
Vanished.
“Fuck,” I hiss, my curse hollow in the empty vault. She doesn’t like being shouted at. Noted. But how long before she comes back? I don’t have time for this. Loose stones scrape beneath the boots I hastily threw on as I stroll around the ominous statues, studying each in turn. “Hello?”
Nothing.
I sigh. “Lucretia, I’m sor—”
“Who is the blond mortal?”
I startle at the sylx’s voice suddenly in my ear. “What?”
She reappears beside me, her breath washing over my face like a puff of ice-cold air on a bitter January day. “The blond mortal who lies with your warrior servant?”
It takes me a moment to clue in. “You mean, Eden?”
“Eden,” Lucretia repeats, continuing on with her serpentine walk as if she was never gone. “A lovely name for a sweet girl. I wouldn’t think she was the warrior’s type. She seems quite smitten. Though I can see why, the way he moves inside her.” Her creepy eyes blaze with heat.
Wait. “Did you just go into Jarek’s room and watch them?”
Her responding grin doesn’t show a hint of shame. “You are right, he is occupied.”
A shudder skitters along my spine. If she can float around Ulysede unseen … “Who else have you been spying on?”
“My masters wish to understand Ulysede’s occupants.”
“From their bedrooms?” My anger flares a second time. She must have been in my room tonight, calling me here. My ward didn’t keep her out. That’s a concern. But has she been in there before?
Has she spied on Zander and me?
I’m pretty sure I know the answer to that. But forget what she’s seen; what has she heard of our conversations? Of how much we don’t trust the nymphs and don’t want to release them.
I take deep, calming breaths as Lucretia weaves the statues. If I yell at her, she might vanish again. “Caindra was outside the gates last night, and she didn’t kill us.”
“I presumed not, given you are still alive.”
“You’re a pervert and a smart-ass,” I mutter. “Is she on our side?”
“She does not choose sides.”
“Will she fight for us?”
“If she feels like it.”
I shake my head in frustration. “But you said I could use the creatures from the Nulling to help me fight this war.”
“Caindra is not a creature from the Nulling.”
“Fine. How do I get her to feel like fighting for us?”
“That is for you to discover. I do not have a view into her mind or control over her will.” Lucretia’s fingertips skate over the hand of the daintiest, childlike nymph statue. “You are not looking at this the right way, Your Highness. Islor will be free of the blood curse. Everyone will have a common enemy. The two elven halves and your spell wielders will have no choice but to unite. It will be as it once was.”
“We’re just trading one war for another.”
“As I’ve said, their kind cannot seem to escape that path.”
“And the nymphs? What will they do?”
She tips her head back to admire the gargoyle statue. “They will exist as they always have, as a check and balance. Only now, they have a Daughter of Many and a Queen for All. Never before have they had that.”