Chapter 7 #2
“All this suffering has made him angry,” the Shadow rumbles.
“It’s made him mean. And lately, these past few years, it’s made him despair.
We’ve had to wait so long for you, Princess.
Two centuries without our mate, and with every failed Claiming, another piece of Amriel died.
After that last one, twenty-five years ago, when you still weren’t there, he wanted to end it. He asked me to do it for him.”
That lands heavily, enough that I step backward. Thankfully, the Shadow is so absorbed in his study of the pool that he doesn’t notice.
“It took every ounce of persuasion I had,” he continues, “but I convinced him to try again. Just one more twenty-five-year wait. One last Claiming. No one else knows it, but if you hadn’t been there this time…
” He trails off, his claws flexing at his sides.
“I would’ve had a very difficult decision to make. ”
“Would you have done it?” I whisper. “Would you have killed him, like he wanted?”
He regards the pool in silence. The shimmering water throws squiggles of light across his face, accentuating the purple patterns along his temples and cheeks. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
I digest that. “But why’d he ask you again tonight? Shouldn’t he have hope now? If I can break the curse?”
The Shadow grimaces, then tries to mask it by turning his head.
But I’ve already seen. And I have no trouble deciphering the bitter twist of his mouth or the tic of his jaw.
“He doesn’t think I can do it, does he? He thinks I’ll fail. And if I don’t break that hourglass…no one can.”
The Shadow’s eyes sweep shut for long moments.
When he finishes processing his private thoughts, he turns to me, his look solemn.
“Amriel’s so blinded by his pain that he’ll do anything to escape it.
Anything. Including sending his own mate into the Wildwood.
But no, he doesn’t expect you to survive.
And if you go in there, there’s a very good chance you won’t.
Which is why you should stay here, Princess.
For your own sake, but maybe for Amriel’s, too.
Because he could learn to live with his curse, if you could just show him a life beyond misery.
If he could smell you, touch you, lose himself in something other than agony, for once… ”
His voice breaks, and it hits me. He cares. Deeply. The Shadow loves his twin and doesn’t want to lose him, and now his anguish sneaks into me, seeping into my lungs, twining insistent fingers between my ribs.
I purse my lips, trying to dispel the sensation, but the ghost of this unwanted compassion lingers, pressing its fingerprints into my soul.
Goddess, no one should have to live like that, trapped in an unbearable prison they can’t escape. Maybe not even Amriel.
Still…
“I can’t stay here,” I say quietly, as if softening the words might soften their blow. “My home is in Aethrolia. If the Wildwood is my only chance at getting back there, then I have to take it. I have to try.”
The Shadow hunches into himself, his shoulders pulling toward his ears. “You say that, but you don’t know how dangerous it is out there. The curse extends far beyond Amriel, beyond this castle. The forest will try to stop you. It’ll send things to hunt you. Some worse than others. Much worse.”
Fear throttles my airway, but I breathe around the tightness. That may be true, but I can’t turn my back on my home. Not without turning my back on my goddess, my family, my entire way of life. Myself.
No, by bringing me here, Amriel has only forced me to cling more tightly to the future I’ve chosen.
Running the Wildwood might represent the biggest test of my faith so far, but I intend to prove myself.
To do as Ishanna says, and cleave to her in times of hardship. After all, it’s gotten me this far.
“Adversity is the crucible in which devotion is forged,” I murmur.
The Shadow clears his throat. “What?”
“It’s a saying. From the Book of Disciplines. About how to live.”
He regards me with a frown, skepticism heavy in his eyes.
Color warms my cheeks. “But…I guess you don’t believe in any of that, do you?”
He grunts. “I believe in what I can see. In what I can smell and touch and taste.” His gaze drops, perusing the length of my body. “Or in what I can’t touch, and can’t taste, as the case may be.”
Heat crawls up my neck as I endure the force of his stare. “You can’t keep doing that, you know. You can’t keep…coveting me. Not if you want us to get along.”
He barks out a laugh, short and sharp and biting. “You might as well ask the stars not to shine, Princess. I’m a goblin.”
I arch an eyebrow. “So?”
“So? Do you know what that actually means?”
I cross my arms, which makes for a flimsy defense against the fact that I absolutely don’t know what that means. Which the Shadow must realize, because his mouth flickers into a savage half-smile while something dark swirls behind his eyes.
“Don’t think of me as fae,” he says. “In this form, I’m not even really a person.”
“Not a person?” My brows lower as I eye him with suspicion. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that as a goblin, I’m more like a force.
An idea. When I’m in this body, this skin…
” He turns up his hands, his claws splayed, his palms glimmering with quiet light.
“There’s nothing in here but want. Hunger.
Desire and instinct and impulse. A goblin is nothing but a need come to life.
I’m my fae self’s darkest wish, the one that lives at the very center of his heart. ”
A surprised whimper blooms in my throat, but I tamp it down.
The Shadow’s stare intensifies. He takes a step closer, then another. Maybe on purpose, maybe without really meaning to, but either way, the atmosphere shifts, all the oxygen bleeding from the room. Yellow eyes bear down on me as silence crowds in from all sides.
I edge backward, my nerves snarling in the pit of my stomach.
Goddess, I knew better than to end up alone with him.
He warned me about his lack of control, and now it’s unfurling before me, because the Shadow prowls closer, his movements sleek.
Predatory. I dart a glance toward the door, my muscles primed to run.
“I don’t even have a name,” he continues, his voice swerving into darker territory, its rhythm mesmerizing, hypnotic. As if, in looking inward, his hold on himself is slipping. “In this body, I’m just a shadow. A nighttime reflection. A secret wish let off its leash.”
My back hits the wall. When did I retreat from him? “You’re… You’re scaring me.”
Sharp teeth flash in the azure dimness. “Am I?”
“Yes,” I breathe.
He chuckles and leans in. Hunger glazes his eyes, his pupils blown so wide the black swallows the gold. He’s close. Close enough that the heat radiating off him promises to consume me.
“Shadows below,” he murmurs, his voice like oiled smoke. “You smell so— So—” He angles his head, his lips parting, those teeth straining toward my neck.
I flatten myself against the wall, but I have nowhere to go. No other choice but to defend myself.
The strike explodes out of me. My hand cracks across his face, snapping his head sideways. His hair fans out in a blue-white shimmer.
He stays like that, his head turned, his breathing harsh and shallow. Briefly, I consider running, but where would I go? He’s a solid wall, hemming me in, cutting off my freedom with a body carved from raw power.
So I wait, my throat working around nothing. I can’t believe I just hit him. Slapped a goblin across the face. What if he hits me back? Or worse? He could overpower me with as little effort as it takes him to breathe. He could tear me apart with hardly more than a thought.
But when he raises his head, his pupils have shrunk to lucid pinpoints.
“Shadows take me, I’m…” He wheels around as if searching for something that might explain his lapse in judgment. “I’m sorry. I should’ve left already. I should never be near you this close to sunrise.”
“Sunrise?” A frown drags at my mouth. “What does that have to do with it?”
He makes for the window, where the faint glow of dawn warms the sky. “Everything.”
“Okay, that’s…cryptic.”
At the window, he pauses, the cords of his neck rippling with tension. “Remember when I said the curse extends beyond Amriel? It extends to me, too. He’s not the only one who suffers. I just do it in a different way than he does, and only during the day.”
I hesitate. “What does that mean?”
He plants a foot on the window’s bench seat, his frame tensing as he leans out into the dawn.
Anticipatory restlessness pours off him, as if the rising light means he can no longer stand to be confined inside.
“It means that if you see me during the day—if you ever see this form, this body, when the sun is up—forget everything I told you. Run far, and run fast, and whatever you do, do not let me catch you. I don’t care what you have to do.
Kill me, if that’s what it takes. Because when the sun is up, I have no control at all. ”
The strain in his voice drives a shiver through me. “All…all right.”
He climbs higher, planting a boot on the sill. Outside, the sky shifts from deep purple to soft pink.
I wait, my insides quivering. I have no desire to keep him here, but the idea of being left alone in this strange castle intimidates me more than I care to admit.
I reach for my pendant, bolstering myself with the feel of smooth metal between my fingertips. “When…” I falter, then clear my throat. “When will I see you again?”
He regards me over his shoulder, his eyes gleaming in the growing light. “After the sun goes down again. Until then, stay out of the Wildwood. Please.”
“All right,” I hear myself say.
“And go talk to Amriel, while I’m gone. Have him tell you more.”
My stomach drops. “I don’t want to go anywhere near him.”
“I know.” Pain slices across his face. “But if you’d just spend time with him, if—”
“No.”
The word hangs between us. The Shadow’s jaw works, but he doesn’t argue. Just nods once and tenses to spring.
But…he can’t truly mean to jump, can he?
A protest crowds my throat, a warning I can’t hold back.
Because for all that he terrifies me, for all that I’m safest when he’s far away, the idea of him plummeting to his death makes me want to scream.
Some buried instinct writhes in my belly, a command to cross this room and haul him away from that drop, no matter what it costs.
My expression must betray me, because the Shadow pauses, his mouth flicking upward.
“What’s that look for?” He turns to face me fully, his back to the window. “You aren’t worried about me, are you?”
“No,” I snap. If he plummets to his doom, that’s a whole handful of problems solved for me at once.
But that doesn’t explain why I’m moving now, reaching for him, my fingers straining to stop this monster from losing his balance.
The Shadow grins. It’s full of fangs and triumph, and it’s the last thing I see before he lets go of the frame and tips backward out the window.
A shriek rips out of me, too late.
I rush to the sill and peer over. The Shadow plummets away, a star streaking into the abyss. His hair whips in the wind, his smile so broad I still see it.
A scream carves its way up my throat, one that feels like it will keep pouring out of me forever. But pink-gold rays spill over the horizon, and the moment the light hits the Shadow, he…vanishes.
Into thin air.
My throat closes up, my teeth clicking together. Is he…gone? Dead? What on Ishanna’s green earth just happened?
A surly bellow shatters the morning, pulling my attention to the island that harbors the hourglass.
I blink in disbelief. The Shadow is there now, atop that tiny oasis, hunched on all fours like an animal.
He roars again, then charges across the land bridge toward the forest, growling and snarling the whole way.
He disappears over the lip of the cliff, the echoes of his rage still ringing from the chasm’s walls.
I stare after him, sick with relief, even as I recall what he said just moments ago.
The forest will send things to hunt you. Some worse than others. Much worse.
As I watch my mate disappear into the Wildwood, I can’t help but wonder what, exactly, stalks the forest.
And whether the worst thing out there might be…him.