Chapter 5
Air slams back into me.
My breath tears from my lungs as I pitch forward onto all fours.
I brace for a painful impact, but my hands and knees hit something soft, and I open my eyes to find pillowy moss beneath me.
Which… Wait. Did we come out in the forest?
We must have, because the air here is heavy, dense with the scent of earth and greenery.
But when I raise my head, I freeze, my mouth falling open.
This is… It’s…
The sight that greets me is nothing short of impossible. Yet no matter how many times I blink, it doesn’t change.
The walls of a stone castle soar around me, but this castle is unlike any I’ve ever seen.
Massive tree trunks spiral up the walls and arch across the ceiling, their branches laced with veins of flowing pink light.
Glowing green moss traces patterns across the walls, while fireflies drift past like wandering stars.
Everything my eyes touch—the lush floor, the mossy stone, the very air itself—hums with a gentle, organic luminescence, as if the forest hasn’t been carved away to make room for this place.
The forest is this place, grown and shaped, impossibly alive.
“Welcome,” the Shadow says, “to Velindra. The kingdom of the fae.”
I swivel around to find him towering over me. There are no torches here, nothing as sensible as lamps or candles, and in their absence, he somehow looks different. Like he almost makes sense in this place, the glimmer of his skin just one more rivulet in this waterfall of light.
Sharpness prickles beneath my breastbone. My hand lands there and presses, but the feeling doesn’t relent, no matter how hard I push. “I… I…”
His mouth crooks. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
My eyes trail over him. “It… Yes.” I sit back on my heels and take in the space again. We’re inside, but also outside. We’re in a fantasy. We’re in a dream.
Or maybe I’ve died? I hold my hands before me, turning them this way and that, but they look the same as always—just bathed by this spectral green-and-pink glow.
Suddenly, the castle quakes, and I lurch onto the moss again. When I raise my head, Amriel steps from a tear in reality. The moment he passes through, the rip seals itself. The sphere in his hand blinks out, its gears fading into silence.
I gape. Whatever magic I thought the fae possessed, it wasn’t this. Yet I have no doubt that this is how the king’s Shadow found his way into my garden. By using one of these spheres. These…wayfarer’s gyres, or whatever he called them.
Reality boils again—once, twice, a dozen more times—as fae delegates step from the air. Each arrival unhinges my jaw another inch. Just moments ago, we stood in my father’s throne room, and now we’re here, miles and miles and miles away.
My mind swells until it strains at the seams.
Amriel gazes down his cheeks at me, his mouth already settling into its habitual sneer. “Princess. On the floor again, so soon?”
I glower, which only seems to amuse him.
“Well.” He surveys me a moment longer before turning away. “If at some point you remember how to stand on your own two feet, you’re free to join us for dinner. Or not. It makes no difference to me.”
Without another word, he stalks off, yanking at the straps of his armor. Buckles clink. Fabric rustles. Amriel’s delegates scurry to collect the pieces he tosses out in random directions. He saves his vambraces for last, flinging them aside just before disappearing around a vine-draped corner.
I stare after him, hatred hardening in my belly. I don’t care if he’s my mate—whatever that even means—I detest him. I loathe every last thing about him.
“Are you hungry? Or would you rather I show you to your room?”
I drag my attention up to the Shadow. His voice lands more gently here, its growl closer to a purr, but the naked hunger hasn’t left his expression. He stares down like he’s drinking me in, like he’s savoring whatever thought is currently sliding across his mind.
I rise on shaky legs. He warned me not to turn my back on him, so I probably shouldn’t lay sprawled on the floor at his feet, either.
“I’ll take you wherever you want to go,” he says.
I weigh that. “You mean there’s a bedroom for me, somewhere?”
“Yes. Whichever guestroom you want. We have plenty to choose from.”
A beat of silence falls between us. His attention slips, and when I follow it downward, I find him fixated on the rip in my sleeve, where bare skin peeks through. Blood rushes to my cheeks as I tug the fabric up to hide my shoulder.
It isn’t proper for him to look at me like that. For him to have…whatever thoughts he’s currently having.
I angle my face away. “Dinner,” I say hoarsely.
Not because I harbor any desire to share a table with Amriel, or because I have anything resembling an appetite, but because I won’t go anywhere alone with this goblin.
This mate of mine. Now that we’ve left Aethrolia, there’s no telling what he’ll do.
“Dinner,” he repeats, so slowly that I can’t tell if his tone masks disappointment or not. “Right. It’s this way.”
He spins on his heel, and I cast one last glance around before hurrying to follow. I have the feeling that if I get lost in this place, I’ll never find my way out.
The goblin leads me out of the grand hall, into leafy corridors that twist and turn as if they grew that way, rather than being built.
Vines stretch along the walls, heavy with blossoms that glow purple and blue and pink.
Various fae drift past, mostly in their humanoid forms, but a few in their goblin bodies, as well.
Some smile. Others don’t. Everyone whispers as I pass by.
I keep my gaze fixed on the Shadow’s back. After dinner, I’ll isolate myself in my room, seek Ishanna’s counsel. Because I trust my goddess to guide me through this. To right this horrible wrong.
We continue until we pass a window, where I can’t help but pause to glance out.
I drift toward the opening, my brow creased as I try to make sense of what I’m seeing.
This castle, if it can even be called that, already has me disoriented, but out beyond the window, the world falls away, as if this place perches on a mountain pinnacle.
Lavender skies arch in all directions, shot through with early stars.
This window is paneless, the stony aperture opening onto nothing, and I lean out to study the grounds below. Only…
My stomach dips. There are no grounds. The foundations of this place plunge into an abyss, the castle curving around a chasm like a serpent coiling around an egg.
A lone island arises from the center of that darkness, barely large enough to support the oversized hourglass resting on top.
Silver filigree twines along the hourglass’s struts while its convex curves gleam in the starlight.
I survey the thing, my throat going dry.
Is this what Amriel meant by the hourglass in his “courtyard”?
The emptiness below resembles no courtyard I’ve ever seen, but the hourglass does look magical.
The sand within defies gravity, somehow gathered in the top half while the bottom half remains empty.
The whole thing must be as tall as I am, and the island it rests on can only be accessed by a thin land bridge barely wide enough for one person.
The bridge leads to a cliff that faces over the treetops of what I can only presume is the Wildwood.
Only I’ve never seen the Wildwood from this angle.
From here, I’m looking down on it, the forest unfurling like a carpet below.
“This is where your journey will end,” the Shadow says beside me, “if you make it through the Wildwood.”
I swallow hard. The bridge looks impossibly narrow—one misstep, and I’ll plunge into that darkness. “And then I’m supposed to destroy that thing? That hourglass? If I break that, it’ll break Amriel’s curse?”
The Shadow makes a sound that’s half apology, half confirmation. “Yes.”
“How, though? I just…smash it?”
“Yes. But you have to get to it in time. The hourglass can only be broken when its sand is flowing. And the sand will only fall once you’ve entered the forest.”
That takes me aback. “You mean I’ll have a time limit?”
“Yes,” he says tightly. “You will.”
A headache germinates in my temples. This day keeps going from bad to worse, but I have to believe these awful events fit Ishanna’s plan somehow. If only I pray hard enough, if I prove myself devoted, she’ll protect me.
“And what’s out there, exactly?” I cage my bottom lip with my teeth, my gaze sweeping over the sinister foliage of the Wildwood. I don’t presume to have any idea what those shadows conceal. “In the forest?”
The Shadow grunts. “Many things. The Wildwood is a maze. A labyrinth. A very dangerous one.”
“Oh,” I murmur faintly. “Right. Of course.”
I stare down, the forest swelling to fill my vision. Nausea blooms in my belly, and I pivot to find the Shadow watching me, misery splashed across his features.
“Why didn’t you listen to me?” he says. “I told you not to let him Claim you. I told you not to let him send you out there.”
My jaw tightens. He can’t be serious, can he? “No. What you did was give me an impossible choice. It was either this, or…what? Become your possession? Your plaything?”
“Yes,” he says, without the slightest hesitation. “But I would’ve been good to you, Princess. I would’ve protected you. Belonged to you. I would’ve made you feel things you’ve never felt before.”
“Things?” I give him a narrow look. “What things?”
“I could still show you. If you want.”
That wrings a full-body shudder from me. “Goddess, no. Forget I said anything. I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with this idea, anyway. You don’t even know me.”
“I don’t have to. You’re my mate. That goes deeper than any knowing.”