Chapter 4
Four
Hanna
Imade it three corridors before Honor caught up to me. “Hanna, stop!”
I didn’t stop. The goddess was screaming in my head, urging me forward, away, anywhere but here where I could feel the walls closing in.
Keep moving. Don’t let her cage you.
Honor’s hand caught my arm, and I spun, magic flaring before I could control it. Shadows writhed across my skin where she’d grabbed me, and she jerked back.
We stared at each other, both breathing hard.
“I’m sorry,” I said, but it came out too sharp. “I didn’t mean—”
“What’s happening to you?” Honor’s voice was a desperate wisp, more afraid than I’d ever heard her. “Please, Hanna. Talk to me.”
Before I could answer, footsteps echoed down the corridor. Quick. Purposeful.
Jaik. I knew it was him even before he rounded the corner, his dark hair and posture immaculate, as always.
He took in the scene—me with magic still licking along my skin, Honor looking shaken—and his expression hardened.
“What’s going on?” His voice was calm, but full of command.
“Nothing,” I said.
He didn’t even acknowledge me. “Honor?”
My sister hesitated, and I saw the moment she made her choice. “Hanna’s struggling with the goddess. The Shadow Weaver.”
Traitor. See? They’re turning on you already.
The goddess’s voice was venom, but worse, part of me felt betrayed, even though Honor was just worried.
Jaik’s stance shifted subtly, but he had trained me, and so I didn’t miss it. He was ready to put himself between me and Honor.
“Struggling how?” His tone was cold. Assessing.
“I’m fine,” I cut in, over Honor who had also started to speak.
Jaik’s gaze flashed to me, hard enough to cut. He hated when anyone disrespected his wife. “The truth, Hanna. Our children sleep in this castle.”
The words hit like a slap. Of course he saw me as a danger to his children. The memory of what had happened in that nursery still filled me with shame even though I had done nothing but protect them.
“Jaik—” Honor ordered.
“No.” He cut her off, still watching me. Clearly, he was the only one allowed to interrupt. “Hanna, are you in control of the goddess?”
“Yes.” Even I could hear the lie in my own words. “She’s just been—” I struggled to find words that wouldn’t make this worse. “Present.”
“Present.” Jaik repeated the word flatly. “Honor, go get Branok and Lynx. And stay with the children.”
Honor’s brows arched. “Jaik.”
She said his name fondly, but firmly. As if there were years of negotiations about his commanding nature behind those words.
His cold gaze finally pulled away from me to her. “Please.”
“I’m not a threat!” I exclaimed.
“Of course you’re not,” he said, and Honor’s face softened with relief, before we added. “But we need to contain this situation until we understand what we’re dealing with.”
Fire surged through me, hot and wild. “You want to lock me up?”
“I want to keep everyone safe while we figure out how to separate you from that goddess.”
Separate. The word echoed in my head, and the Shadow Weaver’s response was immediate and visceral.
They want to rip me out. But they don’t understand. Destroying me will destroy your magic.
The shadows in the room flickered.
What? I tried to ask her in my mind. Why would you be destroyed? And why would I lose my magic?
I wasn’t sure if I spoke the words aloud or not from the way Honor and Jaik stared at me.
“Jaik.” Honor said urgently, her gaze shifting over the shadows.
My heart raced as I understood too.
The shadows in the room were responding to her rage. Or was it my rage? I couldn’t tell anymore.
“She doesn’t know how to leave me.” I wasn’t sure if I was the one who had chosen those words or if the goddess had. We hadn’t even talked about having her leave me. “If she were even willing.”
“Then we’ll find someone who does,” Jaik said. “We’ve killed gods before—”
“She was imprisoned for centuries, tortured, broken.” I burst out. “But she can help! How are we going to defeat Edric without her magic?”
“Are you speaking to me, Hanna?” Jaik’s gaze searched mine, so penetrating that it was hard to face. I raised my chin anyway though, meeting his gaze. “Or is it the goddess?”
See how quickly love turns to fear? How easily they’d cage you?
“Jaik.” Honor’s voice was sharp. “You’re making this worse. Let me talk to my sister while you get Branok and Lynx.”
The two of them exchanged a long look. So long that slowly, I realized they were having another conversation, through the bond, one that didn’t involve me.
And they didn’t need to go to get Branok and Lynx. They could call them here through the bonds.
But neither wanted to leave me alone with the other. They didn’t trust me.
“I’m going back to my kingdom,” I told them quietly. “My men and I can figure out anything we need to. Together. But you’re wrong, thinking I need you—”
“Hanna.” Honor moved toward me swiftly, reaching for me as if I were a child she could pull back from the edge of some abyss. “When you leave the Isle, you’re going into a war. There is no room for error. The logical thing to do is stay here if you’re possessed.”
The summer heat suddenly felt suffocating.
I turned my back on my sister’s concern and careful questions and the loving cage she was building around me and strode away.
Jaik and Hanna called after me. A servant rounded the corner and froze, seeing my face. Whatever expression I was wearing made her step back, clearing the path.
Let them fear you. You’re powerful. Strong enough to face Edric now with me on your side.
I needed to think. Needed to get my head clear without the Shadow Weaver’s voice in one ear and my sister’s in another.
“Hanna, stop.” Jaik’s voice was full of arrogant command, and I gritted my teeth as I stormed away. And my sister thought I was married to an asshole? “We’re having a new statue of the goddess created. It’ll be here tonight. We’ll transfer the goddess.”
They’ll destroy you with their good intentions.
I would be gone by tonight.
“Hanna.” Jaik called demandingly. “Don’t walk away from your sister.”
Honor’s footfalls were soft behind me. At that, she must have come to a stop, as if she realized that Jaik’s demands weren’t helping.
Thank the gods. I would get Kaelan and we would fly before they had the chance to gang up on me. Kaelan would certainly agree with Honor that it was better to keep me here away from the war, regardless of any divine possession.
The air in the corridor shifted.
Shadows exploded around us. I whirled, ready to fight to protect Honor and Jaik even if I were furious with them.
Dark bonds of smoke slid around Honor and Jaik, flattening them to the wall. Fear spiked through my muscles, which were tense and ready for battle.
The goddess?
Was my own magic attacking them without my will?
But my own shoulders bumped the stone behind me. My arms were pinned to either side, my wrists firmly but gently bound to the cool wall.
“That’s enough.” Zehr’s voice came from everywhere and nowhere. “Nobody’s going anywhere until we all calm down.”
He materialized from the shadows themselves, his bone crown catching the light.
The Shadow Weaver’s reaction was immediate and furious.
His shadows. Who is he to bind us with shadows?
The shadows stirred, responding to her rage. They wanted out, wanted to shred Zehr’s control and prove they could not be caged. Not anymore.
We had been caged too long.
“Let me go,” I said through gritted teeth.
“No.” Zehr’s tone was mild, almost amused. “Jaik and Caldren had so much to work out once upon a time, and pinning them to the walls was helpful. I cannot believe we’re here again, Jaik.”
Jaik gave him a withering look. Zehr did not seem offended, though the shadow bonds tying Jaik’s wrists to the wall seemed to pulse as if they were tightening.
“I’m done listening to everyone talk over each other.” Zehr’s dark eyes found mine. “We are a family. We choose each other. Always.”
His stern gaze swept to Jaik’s. It was a side of Zehr I’d rarely seen; he always seemed so wry and untroubled.
But he felt differently when it came to his family.
“It’s not the same.” I didn’t want to voice how it was different.
Honor’s face softened, as if she understood. Jaik was clearly still fixed on the problem at hand.
Zehr took his crown off and pushed his hand through his hair as if we were all giving him a headache.
I wanted to talk to him, but the Shadow Weaver distracted me as she tested his shadows, her own shadows sliding around his, trying to unravel the bindings that trapped my waist and shoulders against the wall. When Zehr’s shadows held, she pushed harder.
They were all watching now as the shadows battled, Zehr’s inky shadows and her lighter, grayer ones sliding over each other.
Stop. I tried to pull her back. If it looks like I can’t control you, they’ll keep us here.
I’m proving we won’t be controlled.
Exasperation flooded me. We’re not going to win a shadow fight with the Shadow King himself. Stand down.
Never. He’s a mere king. I’m the shadow goddess.
Apparently I had pressed the wrong nerve. My shadows flickered, responding to her fury.
Zehr’s eyes narrowed. “Hanna. Can you control the shadows?”
“I’m trying.”
Zehr studied me. They all did.
Footsteps echoed down the corridor.
Thorne took in the scene—all of us pinned to the walls by shadow—and fury flashed across his face. “Let her go, Zehr.”
“She won’t run.” Thorne said it with such certainty that I almost believed him. “There’s no need for this.”
Zehr studied us both, then looked at Jaik. “You going to behave if I release you?”
Jaik’s jaw was tight. “Define behave.”
“Not trying to lock your little sister in a cell. Or provoking her until we have to lock her up.”
“That depends on her. On whether she’s still in control of the goddess.”
“She’s in control,” Thorne’s dark gaze found mine. “Aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I said. Then, because he deserved honesty: “Mostly.”