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The blond’s face shifted back. His fist flew.

Darkness swallowed me.

* * *

I blinked my eyes open. I was flat on my back, and I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there. For a long moment, my eyes wouldn’t focus, and the world remained a blurry mix of shadow and light.

And pain. My jaw throbbed.

Immediately, the events from the Thicket rushed back. The unnatural silence. The three elves. The ominous presence at my back. And finally, the blond-haired elf who mocked and then struck me.

I probed the edge of my jaw. He must have knocked me out. The fact that I didn’t know how long I’d been unconscious—and whether I’d been alone during that time—made nausea burn my throat.

Unable to stay in such a vulnerable position a second longer, I sat up. My head spun, and I had to take shallow breaths through my nose to keep from vomiting. Eventually, the nausea subsided and the room stopped spinning. I sat on an upholstered lounger—the kind of elegant sofa a lady might keep in her bedchamber. A light blanket draped over my legs. I stared at it, confusion like fog in my still-woozy head. I couldn’t imagine the elves from the forest covering me.

I took inventory of my body. Aside from my aching jaw, nothing seemed broken or abused. My back was stiff, which was likely due to my long walk through the Thicket.

I touched my jaw again. It was only slightly swollen, but I was probably going to have a nasty bruise.

Slowly, my vision improved, and I examined my surroundings for the first time—and stifled a gasp.

I was in a Great Hall, but I’d never set foot in a hall as impressive as this one. Not even the Sanctum in Lar Katerin compared. The Sanctum was obsidian, its shiny black floor and walls grand but ominous. By contrast, this was a palace of light.

Everything sparkled. Massive white pillars rose from the stone floor as if they’d sprung up naturally. Sunlight streamed through big, arched windows set high on the walls. A long, stone banquet table spanned the length of one side of the Hall. The table was empty, but the wall above it bore a painted coat of arms. Something about it drew me.

Ignoring my shrieking muscles, I stood and walked to the table so I could peer up at the design. The coat of arms was a slender tree with silver branches. Above it, a crescent moon was tipped on its side, its elegant curves painted a deep, shimmering gold. Something about it was so familiar…

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” a deep voice asked behind me.

I spun and felt my eyes go wide. “You,” I croaked. The elf from my dream—from a lifetime of dreams—stood steps away, his gaze on the coat of arms. But he was no dream this time. He was flesh and blood, his beauty more dazzling than the Hall around us. His dark-blue mantle was the same as usual, but now I could see the embroidered tunic and black trousers underneath it. He was brawnier than I’d previously thought, his height topping mine by nearly a foot. White-blond hair streamed over his shoulders like reams of silk. His handsome features were both youthful and ageless. A pointed ear peeked from among the gossamer strands of his hair.

He lowered his gaze to mine. “Given,” he said warmly. “I thought we might meet soon. And here you are.” His sapphire-blue gaze moved over my jaw. “I apologize for the brutality you endured in the woods. Rest assured, the one who struck you has been punished.” For a split second, his features appeared contorted in rage. Then I blinked, and his face was normal, making me wonder if I’d imagined it. I was still slightly dizzy. I couldn’t trust my head right now.

“Who are you?” I blurted.

He stepped back and bowed, his movements fluid. When he straightened, I could have sworn I heard the faint tinkling of bells. “I’m Midian, King of the Shade.”

Shade. Fir. The name didn’t matter. Either way, the place was the same. My mind traveled back to the day I left Sithistra, when I’d watched my niece Cathrin at lessons with a brother from the Towers of the Mir. They had stood at a large table covered with a colorful drawing, and the brother had explained the differences between the spiritual and mortal planes. “This is the Fir,” he said, pointing to a pit of orange flames at the bottom of the illustration. “The underworld where demons dwell.”

Midian watched me, a patient expression on his handsome face.

My knees loosened. “Am I dead?”

“No.” He looked like my question amused him. “Your towers teach that only the most depraved souls end up in the Shade. Are you so depraved that you deserve to spend eternity burning?” He made a soft, disapproving sound. “What nonsense. Simple stories invented by weak men who seek to control their followers by treating them like children.”

Relief swirled through me, and I let out a shaky breath. Abruptly, I realized I agreed with him. I couldn’t imagine any depravity bad enough to justify neverending torment. It was one of many reasons I’d never felt any desire to worship the Lord of the Mir.

But that didn’t change the fact that Midian stood before me. If we weren’t in the Shade—and I wasn’t dreaming—then we had to be somewhere deep inside Eldenvalla. Judging from the opulence of our surroundings, we were in Vai Seren. And Midian wore the skin of an elf whose body he’d stolen.

His eyes gleamed. “You mean the elf who imprisoned me,” he said softly.

Fear rooted me to the floor. Even if I’d known where to run, I couldn’t have moved. I stood in frozen trepidation and waited for him to continue rooting through my mind. Because now I understood where those random, unwelcome thoughts in the Thicket had come from. The elves who captured me had pawed inside my head and then fed me twisted perversions of my feelings. But unlike the elf I’d bound with Rhys, I hadn’t even felt their presence in my mind.

I hadn’t felt Midian’s, either, and it was horrifying to know I had no way of stopping him from ravaging my head.

He sighed. “You’re determined to cast me as a thief. I suppose I can’t blame you, considering the lies you’ve been told.” He looked up at the coat of arms. “The truth is a lot less dramatic, which might explain why the scribes who recorded your histories chose to embellish it. My kind didn’t come here voluntarily. We were summoned.” His voice softened. “And then we were enslaved.”

I followed his gaze to the painted wall. The tree’s silver branches gleamed in the light that poured through the windows.