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“I’m…” I couldn’t find the words. My mind was muddled, like I was wandering through a thick fog and couldn’t reorient myself.I had walked this path of self-preservation for so long, I lost my way from the reason I kept living in the first place.

Had I become the monster I hated?

“I need to go.” Dazed, I turned to walk from the tavern.

“No, wait Haron!” Jessella’s slender hand wrapped around my bicep, and she tried pulling me to a stop. I had a good five inches and a third of her weight over her, so the effort was mostly useless. “Just tell us the problem and we can work on it together! You don’t have to fight whatever it is you think you need to by yourself!”

The sigh that heaved from my chest came from deeper than my lungs. It left my very worn, tired, old soul. “Unfortunately,vilasch, I do.”

Prying her fingers from my arm was easy. But turning my back on the two people who thought they knew me, who thought they could support me in whatever I chose to do, was the hardest thing I’d had to do in this life.

“I need to speak with Prince Irin.”

The guard at the main gate looked me up and down twice. I had walked straight up to the palace from The Hanging Cat, not even bothering to bring my pack or belt, so I wasn’t sure what he was trying to find just from staring at me. “Do you have an appointment?”

I gave my most level, dead-eyed stare. “If I did, I certainly wouldn’t have stopped to talk to you about it. Please tell him Haron Val Toric needs to speak to him urgently.”

“Court hours have not started yet; you will need to come back—”

An annoyed breath hissed from my mouth. “Gods, you are less than helpful!”

It was more difficult to do in the light of day with no shadows to slink into, but I managed to turn myself insubstantial enough to slip by the guard and skirt around the thin line of shade cast from the palace’s high walls toward the hedges lining the main walkway. Immediately the pair of guards shouted in alarm and scattered to look for me.

Beolf led another small group of guards from the palace, flagging down the one who tried to stop me at the gate. “What’s going on here? Is there an intruder?”

The man was breathless from running around in his heavy armor. “Yes… sorry General. Some crazy lady who called herself Haron Val Toric said she needed to see the prince. Then she just… turned into a shadow snake and slithered past!”

Even from my shadowy hiding spot in the neat hedges, I could see Beolf’s frustration. His head tilted back, and a gloved hand pinched the bridge of his nose as his eyes scrunched shut. He was muttering something, but I was too far away to hear. After a few silent moments—the guards waiting as if hanging on their general's every breath—he finally tilted his head back down to give the next command.

“Return to your posts, soldiers. I know Haron,”—unfortunate for the both of us— “so she may be willing to talk to me instead.”

Fat chance.

I wasn’t going to waste my time with Sir Rocks-For-Brains. He already had a low opinion of women in general. Surely, he wouldjust write me off as completely unhinged and throw me in a cell if I told him what I found about Gennel.

It was difficult to keep this shadow form—both because it was a bright morning, and my concentration was fragile and scattered—but I managed to creep my way down the hedge line toward the palace’s main entrance. Instead of making a break for it, I waited for the opportune moment to sprint across the short but open space toward the opposite brick wall. The stable’s doors were open, so any stable hand working there could easily see me from this angle if I didn’t move my ass. Granted, they would only see a human-shaped shadow. It would still be wildly inconvenient.

My spell flickered, beginning to draw its power from me in massive draws like a man dying of thirst. Being a shadow in broad daylight was taking its toll on my energy. “Shit!” I hissed quietly and gritted my teeth against the uncomfortable draining sensation.

I had to drop the spell. It didn’t stand a chance of holding against the direct sunlight pounding down on me now. Dying by spell devouring was not on my list of ways I’d like to go. So reluctantly, I let the shadowy cloak slip free and disperse in a sizzle to the burning light. The feeling of being out in the open, for anyone to see, made my pulse hammer in my ears and my stomach twist in painful knots. Regardless, I had to find a window to slip into before Beolf decided to look this way.

It took five sets of windows before I found one that was cracked open. Despite the several warnings and previous events of breaking in, Irin still hadn’t reinforced the wards guarding the palace grounds. It was like he kept the door cracked for me to sneak through without openly inviting me inside. My teeth gripped the fingertip of my glove, and I yanked it off with a vicious tug of my head, then placed my hand against the weakward. It sparked immediately, like throwing water in a hot oiled pan.

“Oh hush,” I chastised the offended ward. “Maybe I am losing my mind, talking to inanimate magic wards now.”

Crack!

The ward gave beneath the press of my palm, shattering as if I’d broken the glass itself, and I hurriedly pushed the window open on its oiled hinges to slip over the windowsill. The room was dark, despite the light streaming into the stained-glass windows lining it, and after allowing my eyes to adjust, I realized it was Irin’s private study. I only recognized it from the looming, dark wood bookshelves laden with tomes and history books.

A light sound, like nails clicking along the stone floor, was shortly followed by a wet snout pushing into my hand. I looked down to see Behar’s huge, scruffy black head angled up at me with his tongue lolling out. His tail wagged so hard it shook his body. But if Behar was here, that meant…

“I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon, much less by breaking into my study.”

He was easy to miss, bent over his desk in the unnatural darkness. Today he wore a deep red vest over a simple black shirt, a silky black robe draped across his shoulders and hanging loosely from his arms. A massive book lay flat across the cluttered desk, the pages barely lit by a single candle at its corner. If I wasn’t so worried about him calling for his guards to haul me off, I’d make a comment to move the flame further from his book. It made me nervous seeing it so carelessly placed.

“Do you always sit in the dark like this?” I tried to ask casually and lean back against the windows. I hoped the move of closing the window and flipping the lock was nonchalant enough for him to not notice. Which, of course, was a stupid idea. Irin’s hearing was sharp enough to hear the lightclickof the latch slipping into place, just as Behar’s ears perked at the sound. Irin’s head liftedthen, finally looking me straight on. The candle’s flame played delicious shadows across his tanned skin, casting half of it in darkness like he had two distinct halves. The one he showed me was amused, a slight smile crooking the left side of his lips. His eyes flicked across my disheveled appearance, likely able to see the faint traces of bruising on my face that hadn't healed yet, and that amusement slipped away to make way for concern.

“What happened to you?” He rose from the desk, pushing the book away slightly as he did so and knocking the edge of it into the candle. Irin moved around to place a hand on the back of one of the overstuffed chairs facing the desk. “Did someone try to chase you down?”