“Of course.”
“Are we going to eat?” Avoiding eye contact, she pulled the dome off her tray. She wasn’t sure what had just happened, but it stung like hell.
Neatly arranged on a plate lay a roast chicken and a watercress salad. Most awkward non-date in the history of non-dates. Why had he asked her here?
I’ll just eat in silence. She picked up her knife and fork, cutting into the chicken.
Bael pulled the dome off his tray, and steam curled into the air. “The next trial is a race. You will need training.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m good at running.”
“We won’t be running. We’ll be riding bats. You will need to learn how to fly one.”
“Great. And you’re going to train me?”
“Yes.”
She swallowed a bite of her salad. “Why, exactly, are you so eager to help a hound of Emerazel?”
“I told Nyxobas I would protect you.”
“That was before he threw me into the melee,” she pointed out.
He took a deep breath. “I don’t know why I want to help you.” He frowned. “I suppose it’s an unfair disadvantage that you’re not native to the Shadow Realm. Like I said, you deserve a fair chance.”
She cut into her chicken. “So you’re just big on fairness?”
His gaze roamed down her body, then up again. “If someone is offering you help to save your life, you’d do best not to question it.”
“Fair enough.” She sipped her champagne. “I’d just like to note your inconsistencies.”
“Noted.”
“Is that all you wanted to talk to me about? I mean, that and how we’re not going to be lovers?” Whoops. That sounded bitter.
“I wanted to talk to you about Cera,” he said.
Oh. So that’s why I’m here. “You already told me. The oneiroi are not my friends.” She obviously wasn’t going to change his mind. No point in arguing.
“It’s more than that.” He reached into his pocket, pulling out the obsidian knife. “This weapon. It could have cost Cera her life if anyone had learned where it had come from. Her desire to protect you puts her in danger.”
Guilt pressed on her chest. “I hadn’t thought of that.” She frowned. “Really though, if you’d given me the katana before the melee, it wouldn’t have been an issue.”
His jaw tightened. “That was a last-minute decision.”
She swallowed a bite of chicken. “So a part of you thought, ‘maybe I’ll just kill the hound.’”
His eyes pierced her. “A part of me thought a quick death at my hands would serve you best.”
“What made you change your mind?”
He shrugged. “What if I’d been wrong? What if you’re stronger than I’d thought? I don’t know you. You don’t even know you. You deserved a chance.” He speared his chicken.
She took a swig of her champagne. “Thank you for the chance.”
Her mind flooded again with a vision of the gore-strewn crater. Anger simmered, and the sting of Bael’s rejection only worsened her mood. “I just—I don’t understand this world. It’s savage. Nyxobas is savage. He’ll kill an oneiroi just for having a rock-knife. He forces his subjects to slaughter each other to prove themselves. Father and son hate each other. No one is actually happy here.”
Dark magic whorled off his body, angrily slashing the air. “As if your goddess is any better.”
Ursula slammed a hand on the table. “How many times do I have to tell you? She is not my goddess. I don’t remember what F.U. did.”
“That’s right.” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “She’s F.U.’s goddess.”
“Exactly.”
“And F.U. was perfectly innocent, I’m sure. A pure follower of Emerazel, who knew how to wield a sword like the most savage assassin. Who Nyxobas has chosen as his champion. Who can’t seem to control her fire, and who felt the need to wipe her memories clean to wash away the horror of what she’d done. A coward’s way out.”
His words slid through her bones, and an image of a burning house rose in her mind. What had she done? “You don’t know that F.U. was a monster.”
His powerful magic slashed the air around him. “When you threw the dagger at Nyxobas, what exactly was going through your head?”
She shook her head. I don’t want to get into that.
Bael leaned in closer, his eyes piercing. “I can see that you’re hiding something. Tell me what you were thinking?”
Tears moistened her eyes. She swallowed hard. “The voice said, kill the king.”
He leaned back. “And yet, you’re not a savage at all. Not like the shadow demons.”
“I don’t know where the voice came from.”
“Easy to be blameless when you have no memories though, isn’t it? When you divorce yourself so thoroughly from your former life that you think of yourself as two people. You’re not a killer... F.U. is. How convenient for you.”