I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what he was talking about, and I was too busy staring at the sky in stupefied awe: at a dark, velvety night spangled with stars, at spell bolts shooting upward and dragon fire raining down, at strange, unearthly colors bursting overhead like the world’s biggest firework display as the fey threw everything they had at their attacker, and at multicolored sparks falling everywhere, being blown into swirls of unearthly colors by the wind. And, through it all, silver haired fey leaping over burning debris like gazelles—

Arsen pressed in with the knife, causing a trickle of blood to roll down my neck.

And, okay, yeah; that’ll focus your mind.

“Tell me!”

I opened my mouth to tell him to go to hell, but that wasn’t what came out. Instead, a soft groan escaped my lips, an almost sexual sound, which surprised me as much as it seemed to do him. I didn’t understand it, until I saw a pair of eyes in my mental vision—and they were full of stars, too.

“I—it won’t do any good,” I said, staring at Arsen’s face, but talking to the eyes. “My power doesn’t work here.”

“You persist with that lie?” Arsen demanded. “When you’ve already proved the opposite? Now tell me what you meant about the king!”

“I haven’t said anything about the fucking—”

“To your allies!” he snapped, because I guessed he’d been eavesdropping. “You said he’s a monster—”

“He is a monster. He kills demigods, or anyone with a trace of godly blood in their veins, and steals their abilities. That’s him up there,” I nodded at the dragon, because I couldn’t currently point, not that it felt like I would have been able to anyway.

My limbs were heavy all of a sudden, and wanted to stretch languorously over my head, but the restraints wouldn’t let them. The stone shackles held me down, leaving me helpless. And something about that sent a shiver across my skin.

Arsen didn’t seem to notice. He was staring upward as well, with confusion on his face, which changed to anger when he looked back down at me. “You lie.”

“You keep saying that. Is it because you want to believe it?”

“It’s because you are a liar! Else I must believe the king is an abomination—”

“He murders people and eats their souls. What else would you call him?”

“For what cause?” he snarled. “What possible reason—”

“That is what I’ve been trying to find out. Best guess right now? To help him win the war or bring back the gods, although I suppose those are one and the same from his perspect—”