Chapter 15
Dagen thinks he’s in love with a bondslave, but he’s not. I know everything there is to know about my brother, including his giant heart. He’s still healing from the night Mother died. The Awoms have a way with souls. That’s why Emya is good for him now, but once he grows through his grief, he’ll need someone who fights as fiercely as she loves. I regret to say his pool of betrothals is beautiful, but disappointing.
My time with King Rajim is always disappointing. But this time, it was more than just his bedside manner. After the king’s sleep elixir finally kicked in, I had a good look at his ledgers.
Someone is stealing void gems.
Ah, levels of subterfuge. What concerns me, however, is Rajim thinks it’s my father who is stealing . . .
I open my eyes, unsure what pulled me from sleep, besides perhaps, the frigid draft. Dawn is still a few hours off and my eyes are wet from crying through my dreams. Dreams about—
Wait. He’s here. Settled like impending death, touching every polished surface, wilting any warmth around me. He’s so pigmented, I can make out his tall, defined form leaning against the far wall, the air curling differently around his outline. Not a hovering ball like last time, a man.
He pushes from the wall and prowls to where I’ve propped myself up on my elbow. My nightgown has fallen off one shoulder, barely covering the more scandalizing parts of me, but I leave it because he’s a realm’s damned ghost.
“Spying on sleeping women in your afterlife? You must’ve been one sick bastard when you were alive.”
He slinks closer and I’m swallowed by the depth of his power, as if a vast, endless hole takes root in my room, sucking everything into it. Sucking me into him.
He bends to my level, tilts that dark, airy head of his, and his black velvet voice ghosts across my skin. “Hmm, such eloquent words for a princess.”
As much as I tried to forget his voice from the bathing chamber, I can’t. It’s a deep, velvet, coy voice. The curling toes kind, that when whispered against one’s ear—
“I want you to leave,” I say.
A dark laugh slices the air around me. “Your desires are quite mixed on that subject.”
My breathing hitches, my first instinct being to grab the dagger at my thigh. My second, more stupid instinct is to say more words so I can hear that voice again.
“You know nothing about my desires.”
“I know all about your desires when your little, pink friend is gone. You desire to win the King’s Duel. I am very powerful. I could help you do that, Nizzara.”
Goosebumps trail up my neck, all from him. “I do not wish for more power—”
He vanishes suddenly, leaving a cold, eerie silence throughout my room.
“Oh, you’re awake,” Liha’s voice comes through my caster shield.
“Where have you been?” I ask.
“Playing,” she says in her snooty way. A silence stretches between us before she adds, “Why is your room like ice?”
“That spirit passed through.”
I feel her stiffen. “Stay away from that spirit,” she says. “He”s a product of damnation.” Liha stays with me for the rest of the night, but I don’t find sleep again.