Page 73 of Lady of Darkness

“Was Eliné her mother?” Sorin asked.

“Did you know Eliné?” she countered.

“Cassius said her mother’s name was Eliné Monrhoe. I knew Queen Eliné Semiria,” Sorin replied. “Were they one and the same?”

“Her mother or the woman who bore those names?”

“Fuck, Nuri. The riddles need to cease.”

“I cannot reveal what I know,” Nuri bit back.

“Convenient,” Sorin retorted.

“No, you do not understand. Icannotreveal what I know,” Nuri said, as if he were stupid.

His gaze flew to hers. “You have a Mark? You made a bargain with someone?”

Nuri met his stare. She reached up and pulled back the neck of her tunic revealing a Mark inked upon the back of her shoulder. Three horizontal dark lines were indeed inked upon her skin. A Mark of secrecy that would only lift when the secret was revealed by the one who held it.

“I have been trying to give you as many clues as I can, but you’re incredibly dense for a Fae of the Fire Court,” Nuri sniped, pulling her tunic back into place.

Sorin’s eyes narrowed on her. “Tell me what you can.”

“Tell me what you know and maybe it will loosen my tongue a bit.”

Sorin sighed. “I know she is Fae and insanely powerful. She has gifts of both Anala and Anahita. The only others who have more than one gift are the Fae Queens. Queen Eliné disappeared from the Black Halls and our lands twenty years ago. Scarlett is nineteen. I know that Lord Tyndell knows she is Fae.” Nuri’s gaze had been fixed on Scarlett, but at those last words they flew to him.

“How? How does he know that?”

“There are wards around his estate that alert him when anything other than a mortal enters the grounds.”

Her eyes widened. “Just Fae? Or…”

“I do not know.” Sorin shook his head. “Cassius said anything not mortal, so I would assume that means more than just Fae. Whether or not he can tell what is crossing, I do not know.”

“So he may not necessarily know she is Fae, just that she is immortal?” Nuri asked. Sorin could practically see her mind working overtime to process this information with everything else she knew. He knew the power of a bargain Mark and that there was nothing she could do to break it, but fuck if it wasn’t incredibly inconvenient right now.

“I suppose so,” he answered slowly. “Your turn. Tell me anything youcantell me.”

Nuri shook her head. “I don’t know everything. I don’t know how she got here. I don’t know where her power comes from.”

“Do you know her father?” Sorin asked.

“No. I do not know who her father is.”

“Why did you panic when I said Lord Tyndell knows she is Fae?”

“Gods, you are dense,” she sighed. “You do know that your kind are not welcome here, don’t you?”

“I know that mortals fear the Fae, yes.”

Nuri smirked. “That’s cute. Fear the Fae. Mortalsloathethe Fae, General. Every suffering, every evil, every bad thing that happens is because of the Fae.” Sorin clenched his jaw at the implication. “My sisters and I were trained extensively on how to catch, torture, and kill Fae.Weare the ones who are hired to deal with them because of what we are, and their deaths are not swift nor painless.”

“Hired by the Assassin Lord?”

“By him. By the kings of this land. By the armies, the generals, the Lords. Only the Assassin Lord knows what we are though.”

“Her tonic,” Sorin said, changing the subject. “It drugs her.”

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