Page 56 of Bartered by the Shadow Prince (Bargain with the Shadow Prince #3)

Awaken

ELOISE

M ountain dwellers, I learn, are shades, but they are all descended from certain original families who thrived in the heat and underground environment necessary to forge weapons.

As such, they are all short in stature, coming in under my insignificant height, and strong as bulls by the look of the muscles that are showcased by their sleeveless cloaks.

Even the women look like they could bench-press a Buick.

They are also almost entirely hairless, aside from the men’s long beards.

Amala’s head is shorn to a short tight crop, and Seamus is entirely bald aside from his chin.

I understand the importance of being hairless the moment we arrive at the village at the center of the mountain.

It’s so hot, I’m already sweating by the time we disembark the train car and someone comes to lead the rabble beasts to the stables.

It’s not just the heat but the heaviness.

There is no breeze. The stagnant and humid air moves in and out of my lungs slowly, purposefully, as if I’m breathing underwater.

As a shade, this heat won’t kill me, but it doesn’t feel good. I’m already claustrophobic.

Seamus and Amala lead us to a chamber deep within the mountain. I’m ecstatic to learn there’s running water, but disappointed when my choices for a bath are warm or hot. Cold water and ice apparently don’t exist here.

“I tried to warn you it would be difficult,” Damien says as I step into a bath that is the same temperature as the air around us.

“Knowing the elves can’t come here, I’ll consider it paradise. I think I’m already acclimating.”

He leans over the beautiful brass tub and kisses me. “I promise it will be even easier once you have some mountain ale in your gut.”

“I can’t wait.” Actually, the thought of a good meal and an adult beverage after the last three days makes me almost giddy with happiness.

I finish my bath and dress in the purple gown Ariadne made for me, strapping on my daggers under the skirt for no other reason than habit. I feel incredibly safe here, for the first time in weeks. Damien escorts me to the Great Hall and then to a set of seats at a head table, near Seamus and Amala.

Servers come by and fill our goblets, but the table is already overflowing with a feast of fruit and bread. Seamus stands and raises his glass to the packed room. “It is my pleasure to welcome our honored guests, Damien, future king of Stygarde, and his mate, Eloise.”

The crowd goes wild with raucous applause.

“May he manage to win back our kingdom from the dark elves and set Stygarde right!”

The applause is deafening. But it doesn’t end there.

Seamus leans over and asks Damien to say something.

I’ve never been much of a speaker, and the idea of being put on the spot like what Seamus just did to Damien would make me squirm uncomfortably, but Damien takes it in stride. He stands and extends his own goblet.

“I am Damien Hymir. I know many of you from the time before I was taken, but for those who have never met me, allow me to tell you the truth. My brother Brahm murdered my father, King Malek, in cold blood.” A gasp rises from the crowd, and then everyone grows quiet.

“He colluded with Nevina and the elves to rise to power once my father was gone, and he attempted to kill my mother and my sister as well. I am pleased to share they are alive and living among the witches of Dimhollow. New Stygarde may have won the war. They may claim to lead our kingdom, but the truth is here in the hearts of the citizens who know better. We will not accept the tyranny forced on us. We will not serve a murderer and his elf bride. We will not see our children enslaved for their pleasure.”

A roar of appreciation rises up from the crowd, along with stomping feet.

Damien scans the throng of mountain dwellers as they quiet down again. “I have only one question for you. Will you join the resistance? Will you fight? Will you help me take back your kingdom?”

A few people clap, but not nearly as many as who applauded before. Anyone can sense the change in the room. People go back to their meals, their eyes shifting.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, Damien lowers himself into his chair beside me, looking confused. He swigs his ale, still staring at the crowd.

“They’re just afraid,” I tell him.

He pops a round yellow fruit into his mouth. “They can’t afford to be afraid. If we’re going to win back the kingdom, we can’t do it alone.”

I sigh. “Maybe they just need to grow to trust you. They need time to develop confidence in your ability to win.”

Seamus leans over as servers bring in trays of meat and vegetables.

“These families have already sacrificed their children to New Stygarde, Damien. Not only do they fear for their own lives, but they also fear for those who might be used as pawns by Brahm and his elf whore. You can count on us mountain dwellers to provide your army with weapons. But you’ll have to get your soldiers somewhere else. My people have spoken.”

Damien stares down at his food. “I thank you, Seamus, for giving us refuge here and for the promise of weapons, but swords are only useful if we have men to bear them.”

Tension rises in the warm air, and Seamus focuses on his meal. I place a hand on Damien’s thigh. “Give it time. We will find a way. We will build an army.”

“Every day we wait is another day more shades die of starvation or from overwork in the fields. Another day that Brahm disparages my father’s memory by sitting on his throne.”

I’m relieved to get back to our chambers at the end of the evening. The food was delicious, but now, in this heat, it sits in my stomach like a lead weight. Still, it’s refreshing to lie down in a real bed in a safe room. Before long, I am fast asleep.

Until the sound of a bird singing wakes me.

Beside me, Damien remains asleep, his breath steady.

Although there are no windows, my instincts tell me that the moon hasn’t risen.

I try to fall back asleep, but the singing seems to call to my very marrow.

Like silver bells, the sound sends goose bumps marching across my skin, not because it is haunting but because it is purer than anything I have known, like the sound of sunlight, if you could hear such a thing.

Quietly, I slip out of bed and then peek into the hall. Every direction is abandoned. I don’t see a single person in these halls, but the singing comes again.

Wide awake now, I follow the sound, checking in both directions as I navigate the halls, seeking out the source.

The song leads me through a dark tunnel and then down into the belly of the mountain, where I find the forge in which the mountain dwellers make weapons.

The Stygian steel cooling on the racks reflects the light of the flowing lava, and I marvel at the craftsmanship.

Still, the song calls to me like a siren’s.

Sweating and heart pounding from the heat, I leave the forge and descend through a small, roughhewn passageway that is somehow even hotter than where I’ve come from.

My nightgown is drenched and sticks to my body, but I’m compelled forward.

Somewhere, there is a bird singing in this mountain, singing a song I must hear.

I draw a deep breath when the passageway opens to a cavern even bigger than the Great Hall.

Only, this is no place for entertaining guests.

It’s dusty and cluttered with animal bones picked clean and left to gather cobwebs.

I wonder if this might have been used as a place to dispose of kitchen scraps at one time. Still, the song calls me forward.

It is in the adjacent, smaller chamber, with only the glow of a small stream of lava to light the room, that I find the egg.

It’s a shiny, pearlescent white with a bumpy shell, as if someone wrapped a string of pearls into an egg shape.

The sound I’m hearing is louder here, closer.

But it isn’t coming from the egg itself.

I step between two columns of stone to get a better view and gasp.

Bones the size of a dinosaur’s wrap around the egg, still covered in scales that glint in the fiery light.

Carefully, I pick my way around rough terrain to reach the skull, my soaked nightgown hitched high.

I place a hand in the creature’s eye socket, an eye that would be bigger than my entire head if she were alive.

This is real. This is the skeleton of the dragon that started a war. The dragon Brahm said had disappeared and was never seen again. She must have brought her egg here to hatch it but died in the process.

I stroke the bony projections of the horns, tears welling in my eyes. “You were the best mama,” I say to her. “I’m sorry they scared you. I’m sorry you lost your baby.”

A flash of silver catches in the corner of my eye, and I wipe my tears before turning to see what it is. A woman, translucent and black-and-white, the color of newsprint, with silver pinprick eyes, stands beside the pile of bones. I haven’t seen her in so long, my heart leaps.

“Grams?” I cry. She smiles and blows me a kiss.

Her lips start to move, but I can’t make out what she’s saying. Her hands are on her chest as she babbles silently, and then she points at me. I can’t hear any of it.

“Please, I don’t understand,” I say to her.

She stops and then deliberately turns and points to the pile of bones.

I stare at her and then at the dragon’s corpse. An idea so big and so powerful kindles within me. But no… Is it even possible? A dragon is so much bigger than a clock or a fox. How can my power be big enough to animate something like that? It’s impossible.

My grams frowns and shakes her head. She points at me and then at the bones. The light in her eyes seems to say, Don’t you dare make yourself small again, Eloise .

I nod. “Okay, Grams. I’ll try.”

Closing my eyes, I reach out for my anchor.

I don’t have one, of course, just a swarm of my ancestors in the Darklands.

It takes forever for me to hook on, and it feels like I’ve reached an arm into the underworld and gripped the hand of my grams. I’m stretched to my limit, my power pulsing in a way that almost seems like pain.

One by one, my ancestors form a chain, each grabbing on to the hand of the one in front of them.

My family tree branches out across the spirit world, and the hand I hold becomes heavy, much too heavy to lift.

But I try anyway, try as hard as I ever have.

It feels like I’m dragging a semitruck to the surface from the bottom of the ocean.

Nothing moves at first. I cry out, and my grandmother moves.

It’s hardly anything, but when I keep trying, she rises an inch.

On Earth, when I connected with the dead, the world turned red and ash rained from the sky.

But here, I’m pulling from the Darklands, not the underworld.

I smell pine, the forest. Cool air rises with the souls I invite to the surface.

An inch turns into two and then three, my work growing easier as if the pendulum has been dropped and now can’t stop until it finishes its swing.

And then something wonderful happens: the ancestors behind Grams begin to push her toward me as I pull.

The locus of my power moves as if I’ve reached some kind of tipping point.

Instead of grabbing souls and pulling them out of the Darklands, I am simply a ramp that they use to climb out and into the dragon’s body.

Grams smiles at me as she sinks into the bones of the dragon.

I watch a thigh bone reconnect to a shin bone.

More ancestors dive in. My parents and grandfather wave to me before disappearing into the dragon, and then a legion of ancestors I only recognize from photographs. Then some I don’t recognize at all.

Muscle and sinew regrow. Flesh forms on bone and over muscle. Skin grows again. A face forms, that whale of an eye balloons in the dead socket. And still, I pull, faster and faster. I channel every ounce of energy, every ancestor I can wrest from the other side into the dead dragon.

My head throbs and I’m sure my nose is bleeding, although I’m sweating so much and I’m so hot I can’t feel it.

Until there is no one left to gather in.

I’ve done it. My legs go weak and my ass hits the flat top of a rock.

Before me, a silver-and-white dragon rises from the cavern floor and uncurls itself from around the egg.

Its eyes glow solid white, just as Phantom’s had before he’d disappeared, and when it smiles at me, it displays a mouthful of truly terrifying teeth. Its enormous paws shake the ground as it approaches, its talons clanking on the stones. A puff of smoke coils in two perfect rings from its nostrils.

I blink up into the larger-than-life face of the dragon and ask, “Grams?”

“Call us Phantom, dear,” the dragon says in my grams’s voice. “After all, there’s more than me in here.”