Chapter 36
The Ancients agreed that each item must be tested before they were used on the Old Ones.
As Solis used her ring to create dreams, and Noctua played her lute, Nerthus filled the silver cup with nectar and gave it to a brave, strong human warrior.
But to her dismay, the second the liquid touched his lips, he fell to the ground.
So great was the magic that his heart forgot to beat.
His death disturbed Nerthus so much, she hid the cup so it could harm no one else.
But the cup’s shadow spoke to Erebus, as all dark spirits can, and told him where to find it.
—OLD ONES, ANCIENTS, AND THE FOLK
Erebus’s knives homed in on Thea, curving like arrows loosed from some impossible bow that locked onto a single target. As she watched them come for her heart, she tensed, trusting her own shadows.
Her shield held, but the jarring impact sent her airborne. She landed hard, the breath knocked out of her. Erebus’s shadows followed, trying to find a way past her shield. She struggled to breathe, her chest aching as the king’s footsteps neared.
Erebus seemed to grow in height, his own shadow a long, misshapen thing on the wall behind him.
The ground quaked with each of his steps as he neared.
Thea felt her insides being shaken and wondered wildly if he meant to step on her and if her bones would grind together into dust. Each footfall left a crack in the floor, releasing steam from the fissures, bringing the scents of magma and other unnamed things.
Finally, he halted, and the world stilled, allowing Thea to catch her breath.
“Hubris,” he said, staring down at her with triumph.
His eyes burned with real fire, his face taking on an animal shape as his mouth stretched in a grimace of hatred.
His body seemed to grow, becoming larger than a bear’s, larger than any creature Thea had seen—a monster that would steal the sleep from those who saw it.
This was a form she had never imagined, something wild and primal that made her chest tighten with rising panic.
Erebus made a wide-armed gesture, retrieving his shadows as if he were gathering a dark harvest into his arms. He moved his fingers, and the shadows turned into knives, then he made a downward motion with his palms. The blades rained upon her, cutting her cheeks and scalp before she covered her head.
They sliced into her arms and back, the cuts burning as if they were filled with poison.
At that moment, Thea felt in her bones that Erebus was one of the Old Ones.
Cold. Monstrous. Merciless. A creature who’d existed long before things like morality and conscience.
She had defied him with all the confidence that she was stronger.
But I didn’t win his shadows. The failure seared into her mind.
His voice had the intonation of a furious deity. “You spit on my generosity. You dreamed you had power in my realm. Now you bleed at my feet.”
Thea drew a painful breath. “I don’t regret anything.” Though her voice was thin, she hoped he heard the perfect truth in her words.
He spat a guttural word in a tongue she didn’t know. “Then you will become one of my silver trees. Not a commander but a thrall. You have decided that, Theodora. I offer everyone a choice, and you have made yours.”
She stared into his fiery eyes and spoke the truth despite her fear. “You take. You manipulate and violate. You are surely the worst of the Old Ones. You create nothing. Your power is stolen.”
He sucked in a breath and a wind raged around the ballroom, his shadows obscuring him for a moment so that only his red eyes glowed through. “Then I will steal one last thing from you. Your spirit will serve me quietly when you would not.”
The room darkened. Thea lifted her head in time to see a host of shadows moving in through the open doorway.
They kept coming and coming, an endless dark tide of night, filling every corner of the ballroom, blocking out light from the lanterns.
The air pressure increased until her chest hurt as if it were being crushed.
Her beleaguered heart ached. She was going to die painfully, and no one would know what had happened to her.
A gasp escaped her throat. “Prospect’s shadows gave you a false sense of confidence.
” Erebus sounded as if he were smiling at her obvious pain.
“You thought it was proof you are powerful. But it only means he is weak.”
A light flared, illuminating Prospect. Erebus turned to face the Seer, whose pale hands trembled as he bowed to the king.
“My king, you cannot blame me. I put her in the cave as you ordered, but instead of emerging subdued as she should, she was… changed in some way that drew my shadows to her.” He shook his head, his gray eyes settling on Thea with loathing. “It was not my fault.”
Erebus stepped toward the Seer, his footfalls reverberating through the room. “You disgust me. When you came into my realm, you promised to bring me the best and strongest folk from above. Instead, my son far surpassed your abilities.”
“I brought you the Sylvan queen!” Prospect cried, his thin face twisted in some mixture of rage and plea. “It was my crow who saw her daughter violate your boundary!”
Erebus’s voice lowered to its usual volume but was filled with contempt. “And for that, I will spare your life. But your last act as my Seer will be to use the silver cup on the Sylvan king’s daughter.”
“You can’t mean that,” the Seer argued, his eyes pleading. “I have served you faithfully for ages. You can’t mean to send me away.”
Erebus’s shadows moved menacingly over the Seer. “Make her drink, then take your shadows back. Perhaps, if you grovel for a hundred years, I’ll consider forgiving you.”
Prospect nodded, but his face was still twisted in resentment.
Thea had taken his shadows, and he had no reason to help her, but if she could play on his bitterness, poke at his pride…
“Prospect isn’t one of your thralls to be ordered around.
He’s strong enough to defy you if he wishes,” she said hoarsely.
It might be a waste of the breath that was rapidly leaving her body, but she had to try.
Prospect stared at her for a moment, something measuring in his eyes.
But then he lifted his chin, his face set in lines of determination as he moved toward her.
She tried to get up, but her legs were weak, so she pushed herself backward on the floor, her hands slipping on her own blood.
The Seer reached toward her and plucked a cup of pure silver from the shadows around Thea, grimacing as he touched it.
“Don’t!” Thea cried, managing to push to her feet. But before she could run, Erebus’s shadows swept to her, grabbing her arms and holding them to her sides so she couldn’t fight. More shadows held her still, preventing her from turning her face away.
She watched with a sense of violent outrage mixed with helplessness, her heart slamming as Prospect brought the cup closer, his fingers stretched around the base of the goblet.
All she could think of was the image of her mother as a silver tree, her branches straining away from the throne, unable to escape.
Her eyes pricked with tears, but she pressed her lips together, determined to fight him to the last. The cup touched her cheek.
It burned colder than ice, a painful chill that ran into her skull and down her back, making her shake.
She tried to turn her head away, but the shadows held her fast.
Prospect bent to whisper in her ear, and what he said shocked her into stillness.
“Pretend to drink.” It was no louder than the beat of butterfly wings.
Pretend? Thea made an involuntary sound in her throat, more surprise than anything, but when King Erebus laughed, she realized he must be enjoying what he perceived as her pain at the burn of the cup.
She made a pantomime of drinking as the cup was pressed to the edge of her lips, but no liquid touched her skin.
Prospect returned the cup to the shadows, mouthing something to them as he did so.
The shades moved downward, and Thea watched as her feet turned silver, then transformed into roots that spread out over the ballroom floor.
She gasped in horror as the silver moved upward in a pattern like the whorls of tree bark, covering her body from ankles to waist and rising, molding to her curves.
In moments, she was encased in a sheath of silver, her arms become branches, among others reaching toward the sky.
But she felt her heart beating and the warmth of her own blood rushing through her veins. She took a shuddering breath, almost certain her mother had not been able to breathe when she had been a silver tree.
The shadows had created a shining illusion.
The king walked up, reaching out to touch her. Thea held her breath. His finger ran along her arm. She bit her lip to keep from spitting in his face. Finally, he stepped back, shaking his head. “So strong. So misguided. Such a disappointment. She will serve me better in this form.”
As he turned away, Thea let her breath out slowly. The shadows had succeeded in fooling the king. And Prospect had told them to do it. She didn’t know which was more surprising.
Erebus spoke once more, his voice drawing farther away. “The Sylvan king’s daughter has shown me that it is past time to pay a visit to Thirstwood, to remind the folk who I am. Prospect, if you want forgiveness for your failures, retrieve your errant shadows and meet me by the walnut tree.”
Thea waited for the Seer to do just that, but Prospect did not come to take the shadows disguising her. She heard his voice one more time, soft and bitter. “You are on your own, girl. Your people will pay the price for your folly.”
A second later, the door closed with a clang.
Thea’s legs shook. Lightheaded with blood loss, injured, exhausted, she crumpled to the floor, and her mind fell into darkness.