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We followed.

31

Estrella

My room was too quiet after Nila left that night. My magic thrummed through my veins, the collar absent from my throat. After Mab’s presentation of the creatures to Tartarus, she’d only leveled me with a glare and a warning.

Escape attempts would only result in Caldris’s suffering and the death of human mates.

It was a rare moment of understanding between us. Mab didn’twantto keep my magic suppressed, because if she did, we would never come to know what I was capable of.

And she would never be able to use that magic to her advantage if we didn’t know about it.

I had so rarely engaged with it when I wasn’t in a moment of fear, when instinct wasn’t driving me to protect myself.

I settled deep into myself, standing in the center of my room. The fire roared in the hearth to my left, but I let my eyes drop closed and stared into that chasm of power. The monster waiting there cracked an eye open, lifting her head off her paws and purring in delight as I took a deep breath.

Darkness swirled around her as I raised my arms, holding out two flat palms in front of me. I thought of the depths of night—of the new moon and a cloudy sky. I needed a walkway, a passage to reach the other half of me. The memory of the shadow realm formed in my mind as the creature within me sighed, raising a single talon to gift me with the magic I requested.I became the shadows she held within her, melting into the night that formed at my palms.

My nightgown swirled around me, blowing back from the subtle night wind that passed through my room.

I opened my eyes.

The edges of the shadow realm were twisted, gnarled, and writhing like the leafless trees of the Pillars as I stepped forward, putting my first foot into the walkway. A wall of darkness blocked my path, pressing back into me as if it could lock me within my rooms. Pushing forward, I touched a single finger to the wall.

It pushed back, shoving at me with the loud howl of furious winds filling my passageway. The darkness swirled furiously, shifting from the quiet, peaceful night I’d summoned to my aid to a raging storm of black.

I thought of the moons in the sky, of light in that darkness.

Of love.

The stardust upon my fingers glowed with gold that spread throughout the barrier in front of me. Mab’s magic pressed down on me, her raging, hollow emptiness that was devoid of all life. In those moments, I felt exactly what I had seen in her stare that first day in the throne room.

Nothing.

Dark wind howled through the shadow realm, pushing me back toward the entrance to the passage. The tendrils of shadows felt like claws as they dragged over my skin, wrapping around me and squeezing. I saw the madness within Mab, the fate that cursed crown upon her head had condemned her to.

Within that storm of darkness was only the thirst for power—hungry and insatiable. It was never satisfied, never content as it tore through my skin and bled me, taking anything it could.

I refused to give into that, to allow that nightmare to win. I sank not into the monster inside of me, but to the thread that connected me to Caldris. Focusing on that pulsing warmth—on that love—I shoved back at the shadows surrounding me.

Stardust flickered through the boundary that tried to keep me in, a ripple spreading through it as the shadows melted away. They turned liquid beneath the starlight, fading away. I pulled my magic back ever-so-slightly, stepping through the now passable barrier and turning to watch as it reformed behind me.

I needed to come and go as I pleased, but I didn’t want to dissolve whatever magic Mab had placed around my room. I willed it to strengthen, to not allow any others to walk into my room or suspect that I could leave, but to always recognize me and my magic.

It reformed, the twisted shadows knitting themselves back together as I turned and made my way toward my mate. I could see the real realm through the barrier they formed, but I continued forward as it sped past me. Four steps was all it took to reach Caldris’s bedroom. I’d never been there, never even known where they kept him, but the thread that connected to my very soul guided me toward him, regardless.

He was alone as I approached; an ancient book opened on the arm of the chair where he sat. His tunic was half untied, the laces loose and hanging down his chest. I stepped out of the shadow realm, putting the first of my slippered feet against the blue stone floor.

He jumped to his feet; his hand curled to summon the shadows that he would use to defend himself against any intruder.

I pressed a finger to my mouth as I smiled—a warning to be quiet as I stepped up to him.

Tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, he grinned. “I see you figured out the shadow walk,” he said, his voice amused as those full lips curled.

“So it would seem,” I whispered, leaning up onto my toes so that he could grace my lips with a kiss.

“Only you,min asteren, could summon the shadow realm so easily. It took me decades to master. Others take centuries if they ever manage,” Caldris explained, reaching down to take my hands. “Particularly when your room is shielded against such things. She’ll know you broke through her shields.”