37. Cyara

"Slowly. You will make yourself ill," Cyara warned. She was nibbling at a small square of bitter chocolate that was meant to be dessert.

Probably a good thing, she reflected, as Diana shoved another oversize hunk of bread into her mouth. Watching the woman eat was the opposite of appetizing.

Diana ignored her, fully given over to the frenzy of food. She licked gravy off her fingers, took her next bite before she had even finished chewing the previous one. Cyara had once seen a skoupuma devouring a child who had wandered too far on the outskirts of Baylaur. This was revoltingly similar.

When the woman paused long enough to gulp down some wine, Cyara tossed one of the towels she had folded earlier across the table. "We have been feeding you."

Diana blinked several times, her eyes going hazy and then refocusing on Cyara. As if she had forgotten that she had an audience, when it had taken every bit of the last two hours for Cyara to entice her to the table.

She lifted the towel to her lips, licking them thoroughly before wiping away anything she had missed. Her fingers were filthy—she had not bothered with a fork or knife. But she sucked each of them clean rather than use the towel.

"You have never been held prisoner," Diana finally said, smacking her lips.

Cyara shook her head slowly, her braid swishing softly against the simple pale-blue dressing gown she wore.

Across the table, Diana started in on a second round. "Serving yourself. Choosing what to eat because you want it, not because you do not know when food will be offered again… it means something."

The thought had never even entered Cyara's mind. Some might have considered her constrained by a life of service, but she was well-born. She had never wanted for necessities, never had simple choices taken away from her. She dressed how she wanted, ate as she wanted, and had her pick of esteemed positions within the goldstone palace.

She was not foolish enough to think herself immune to the influence of those privileges. But her usefulness to Veyka and the Round Table had been predicated on her ability to observe, to see what others missed and string those observations together into coherent supposition.

Yet when she invited Diana to the table, she had thought only of the impact of removing the shackles. Not of the food and act of eating itself.

Cyara's pride wobbled in time with the twitch of her wings. Maybe she was not as observant as she thought.

Diana's eyes tracked the movement. They tracked everything, darting rapidly around the room in constant search of threats. When she found none, they came back to Cyara. "You are a harpy."

"Yes."

"It's unusual, yes? To be both a shifter and a fire wielder?"

Somehow, she had ended up answering questions, rather than asking them. But she responded, for the goodwill it might win her. "I am not a true shifter. Not like the terrestrials here. The harpy is something different."

Diana seemed to accept that, digging back into her food. A thin line of brown gravy trickled down her chin, gleaming against her deep red-brown skin.

Cyara took a slow, silent breath in. Now or never.

She kept her voice carefully even, no aggression or threat to be found in the perfectly enunciated syllables. "The doors are locked. I am armed, and you are not. If you try to escape, the harpy will bring you back. She will not be kind or gentle about it."

Diana's chewing slowed.

"You are going to ask me questions," she said around a mouthful of food. Her eyes had blown wide, the dark brown turning glassy.

Cyara shook her head. "Do not fall apart."

"I can't help—"

"Do not fall apart," she commanded softly. Or a worse fate awaits you.

Diana closed her mouth and chewed slowly, her eyes still round. But no tears fell, and when she swallowed she did not look away from the force of Cyara's turquoise gaze.

Now or never.

"Percival said you have a gift for prophecies. How were you useful to Gorlois?" Veyka could not say that monster's name, but Cyara could. Diana flinched, pressing back into her chair. But she did not melt into a pile of tears. Nor did she reach for more food.

She did not fight the answer the way that her brother did. "He used me to make the rifts."

Cyara did not give her a pause to think or fall apart. "How?"

Diana was slower to answer this time, but Cyara got the sense that she was trying to decide the best way to explain, rather than avoiding the question. The corner of her wide mouth twitched, a sigh so soft that Cyara almost did not mark it.

"What are prophecies if not the mind traveling to another time and space?" Diana finally said.

Only years of training in the elemental court kept the surprise from Cyara's face. The power of prophecy… some distant vestige of Veyka's void power? Akin to the similarities between water and ice powers among the elementals, perhaps. But the implications of that… Cyara kept her hands loose as they rested on the table, not allowing them to clench into fists.

"He used ancient spells, stolen from the witches generations ago, before they were terminated. Combined with my witch blood and my power for the sight, he was able to travel through the void. Short distances, fixed points. Not like your Queen."

Two questions asked, two answers received. Answers that implied so much… but that in actuality, might not change anything at all. Cyara had to ask one that would.

"Do you bear any ill-will to my Queen?"

Diana met her gaze, eyes still full of unshed tears. In the low candlelight, the brown of her irises was softer, flecked with gold. Such a contrast to her sharp, abrasive brother Percival.

"No," Diana whispered. "All I want is to live in peace."

Cyara would have believed her even if she had not compelled the answer. So she gave a true answer of her own in response. "There will be no peace until we banish the succubus for good."

Diana's lower lip wobbled slightly. "And how will you banish it?"

If Veyka had a plan, she had not yet shared it with Cyara. Beyond writing letters to warn the far reaches of the kingdom, obtaining the amorite and distributing it… she had mentioned journeying to Cayltay. Did that mean she would try to rally the terrestrial armies?

But who would be fighting… the fae against the humans? The lower and less powerful classes who did not get the amorite before it ran out? Who would be left as prey to the succubus… and who would make that decision?

Cyara swallowed the chocolate and wine past the lump in her throat. "Did Gorlois ever mention a way to close the rifts, to control the void so the succubus could not get through?"

Diana looked away, toward where the two sets of shackles waited, set into the stone wall. "That is your fourth question."

"You do not have to answer," Cyara said gently, and meant it.

The human woman's eyes lingered on the shackles. Perhaps remembering a different set, another captor. Bile swirled in Cyara's gut. She was not certain that when the time came, she would be able to close the iron manacles around this young woman's wrists again.

"Gorlois was not concerned with the succubus. His only concern was power. He wanted to open rifts big enough to let entire armies through. To conquer the fae realm, the human realm, and perhaps others we have not yet discovered. The realms are the same, layered on top of each other. He knew the terrain of the human and fae realm. He felt that with the rifts, he would be unstoppable." Diana's voice was as devoid of emotion as Cyara had ever heard it. A kernel of unease skittered up down her spine.

"Is such a thing possible?" Cyara whispered.

Diana turned back to face her, her teeth digging hard into her full lower lips. She released it to say, "Your queen commands the depths of the voids of darkness. What she might do is limited only by her own willingness to try."

"How do you know?"

Cyara watched as Diana's eyes threatened to glaze over again. But she managed to keep her eyes clear, her posture steady as she answered. "I was Gorlois' prisoner for nearly three years. There was no one alive, in this realm or any others, who knew more about the Void Prophecy."

The implication her words held—was it an offer or a threat?

Cyara's hopes and instincts told her the former. But she was not ready to give into them, not quite yet. In either case, what came next was entirely genuine.

"The others will not be back here for hours, yet. While you are unshackled, you might as well enjoy a proper bath."