“It’s delicious.”
“Glad to see you’re enjoying it.”
We fall into a silence that makes me even more uncomfortable than I am when he speaks, so I decide to start setting myself up for earning his trust. I simply need to get close enough to grab the key. Problem is I have no idea where he’s hiding it.
“So, Conary, how did you become the king’s right-hand man?”
“I’ve known King Taranus since we were boys.”
“You knew Rafferty, then?”
A muscle in his jaw twitches. “I did. He and I were close friends until their sister was killed. After that, he was never the same. I adored their sister. While she was not my true mate, we’d grown—close. And then she was gone.”
“Oh, I am so sorry.”
He shrugs. “It was a long time ago, and we’d never become anything but friends.”
“What of your mate?”
He glances down at me. “My mate?”
“You said Rafferty’s sister was not your true mate. Did you ever find out who was?”
Something flickers over his gaze, and had I not already known the destiny of his true mate, I might have missed it.
“She was killed not long before Niahm. We obviously never completed our pairing, which left me free to love whoever I wish without the risk.”
What’s even worse than his callous words is the fact that I can see he feels nothing for the woman who was lost.
“Pairing?” I force myself to ask since I’m not supposed to know about it. Alluding that I know anything about anything in this world is a mistake I plan not to make. There’s no way I want to give him any reason to question my motives.
“Our kind mates very rarely because having a mate is a weakness we wish to avoid. When the pairing is complete, you are tied to the other person. If they die, you, too, succumb to death.”
“That’s sad. And kind of romantic.”
“Tragic is what it is,” he replies instantly. “Rafferty was mated, though.”
“He was?” I stiffen. I don’t know why, but the fact that he didn’t say anything bothers me. It’s not like we’re overly close, but everyone here has a damned agenda. Is it possible he hid her from me to shield me from his?
“Yes. She was beautiful…ethereal, even. But along with that beauty was a need that he was unable to sate. She stepped out on him, sleeping with many others—shifters from your world as it happened.”
Ouch.“What happened to her? Is that what killed him?” I add, remembering Taranus’s lie about Rafferty’s death.
“No, it’s not what killed him. He was in my position at the time, serving the royal family that held the castle prior to Taranus’s appointing. To save him, they sent her into the Veil still alive. She’s trapped there now, destined to live alone in a state of decay that continues to repeat itself.”
I’m horrified. While I don’t condone what Conary is saying she did to Rafferty, condemning her to a life of rotting away alone? That’s barbaric. “That’s horrible.”
“That was the family. They were savages, and Rafferty was their henchman.”
Even as he says the words, I have to swallow down my returned anger. The blatant lies—they’re exhausting. And all of this was coming from a man who murdered his own mate. “The rebels don’t seem to think so. I wonder why that is?”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “It’s easy to manipulate the weak-minded. The rebels have craved to be free of laws, of a ruler. Rafferty gives them that.”
“Gave them,” I correct. When he glances down at me, I add, “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
The very brief twitch of his eye is nearly unnoticeable before he’s nodding. “Yes, though his movement is still very much a threat as you saw yesterday.”
I don’t bother to add anything to that particular comment—mainly because revisiting seeing a man die brutally in front of me is not something I feel like doing. “It’s nice that you get to work alongside your close friend—Taranus. That you support him in his bid to be king.”