"If you tell me that I am Crown Prince Dain Sundamar's beloved soulmate and that we are getting married in three days, I am going to scream and not stop," I said, directing the comment at the painted ceiling.

"Um," she said.

Very slowly, I lowered my gaze to look at her. "Do not say the words 'mate' or 'soulmate.' I'm begging you, here," I said, saying the words with great care. I was not going to start laughing hysterically out of horror. I was not.

"Um," she said again.

"Goddamnit," I sighed, and looked back up at the ceiling.

"You're not getting married in three days," Susan said, using the sort of tone of voice of someone trying to soften the blow and not really having any tools to do so.

"I'm not really sure that four days is all that much better."

Susan walked over and took a seat on the ground next to me. I looked at her sidelong, and she offered a smile that looked like it was trying to be encouraging. I groaned and returned to my contemplation of a deer-man leaping over a bonfire.

"Nobody expects you to marry him at all," she said with a shudder.

That was weird enough that it caught my attention. I dropped my eyes and turned to face her, dropping my legs to the side. I raised my eyebrows; Susan bit her lip and looked down.

"I'm not supposed to... bias you," she said.

"You said you were my helper," I pointed out. "Surely that means giving me the information I need to navigate Faery, including whatever's going on with the crown prince."

She looked like she was contemplating, before a smile broke across her face and she nodded. "Yeah," she said. Susan sounded relieved. "Yeah, okay, that's a good argument. I like it." She looked back up at me and took a deep breath. "Crown Prince Sundamar has a deadly reputation, and he's earned it," she said. "He's cruel, cold, and unpredictable. People have a lot of names for him, but the most common one he earned by razing a city to the ground and killing everyone in it, down to the animals. They call him the Beast of Phazikai. Nobody in their right mind would want to marry him."

"So... what? People expect me to commit suicide or something?" Blood magic was sounding real tempting, given that description of Dain.

"What? No!" Susan said, sounding horrified. "At least half of Stag Court is hoping you'll turn out to be his soulmated nemesis, and succeed at killing the bastard where everyone else has failed."

Record scratch.

"His what now?" I asked. In all the stories I'd ever read, soulmates were supposed to be predestined trueloves, each other's ideal matches. What the hell was a soulmated nemesis?