Page 36 of Battle for the Shadow Prince (A Bargain with the Shadow Prince #2)

36

A Light in the Shadows

ELOISE

E verything is white. Are the walls of the silo made of sunlight again? I take a deep breath, smoothing my hands across soft cotton sheets. A bed. I blink and the room comes into focus. I’m facing a wall of glass, looking out onto the Japanese garden at Marabella’s. My head is up. I’m in a hospital bed. An IV runs from my arm to a dark bag dangling from a pole, and the stiff edge of a bandage pokes above my bottom rib. A tube runs along my cheek to my nose.

“Finally!” A woman in blue scrubs comes in, smiling in my direction. “You’re awake.” She starts hastily taking my vitals.

My mouth is dry, my throat thick from lack of use. I clear it with a cough. “Did I win?”

Her bright red lips spread into a smile that twinkles in her large blue eyes. “Yes, you won. Valeska was mightily pissed about it too.”

My lips feel like they might crack, but I manage a shallow smile. “Are you a doctor?”

“Nurse. I’m Karen.”

“Eloise. Nice to meet you.”

She laughs. “Oh, I know who you are. Everyone knows who you are.” She gestures behind her to where a table is overflowing with flowers, stuffed animals, and balloons.

I shake my head. “Who… did this?”

She tucks a strand of her blond hair back into her bun. “Who didn’t send something? Marabella told me to tell you that Commander Marcel, Everald, and Master George all sent well-wishes along with flowers and gifts, but there are also ones that came without a card?—”

“What about…?” Damien. Where’s Damien?

“Damien? No flowers from him, but to be fair he’s hardly left your room.” She points to the corner. I have to crane my neck to see him sleeping in the chair there. “It’s noon topside, and he’s barely slept since your surgery. He’s going to be out for a few more hours.”

Noon. It was still night when I came back through the archway. “How long have I been out?”

Her face falls, and her hand finds mine before she says, “It’s been six days.”

“Six days!”

Over the next few minutes, Karen removes all the tubes but the IV from my body, helps me to the bathroom, and orders me food. I’m in remarkably good shape for someone who’s been unconscious for six days, but I’m told it’s because Dr. Everline used magic as well as human medicine. I eat some soup and drink a protein shake.

And when Damien finally wakes, I’m standing next to the bed. “Hey, sleepyhead,” I say lightly.

A cloud of darkness swirls around me, spiraling in a ticklish rush that takes my breath away until Damien forms with me in his arms. He hugs me gently, his breath brushing the side of my neck.

“I’m okay,” I say softly, kissing the edge of his ear. “Feeling better by the minute.”

He draws back, taking my face in his hands.

“I won, Damien,” I say excitedly. “I only have to win one more challenge and we’re free.”

He licks his lips. All at once he looks gaunt, and I remember how Cassius said he could hide his scar but at a huge personal cost. Damien is desperately trying to mask his condition, and that mask is slipping. Has he eaten anything the past six days? Has he taken any blood?

“You can’t go back through that archway,” he says in a voice that is more grit than words.

I shake my head, searching his face for any hint that he’s joking. He’s not. “You know I can’t just quit. That’s not how this works. Sabrina told me the challenge is a magical contract.”

He swallows. “The magic is strong. I tried to travel, to consult with Cassius and his coven master about how to break free of this challenge. I was not able to leave. The spell is binding.”

“Right.” I lay my hands on the sides of his handsome face. His cheeks are unusually hollow, and his eyes are icy without the hint of blue I often see when he’s content. “So… you know then I have to go through again. I have to compete in the second trial.”

“You could have died.”

“I didn’t.”

He helps me back into bed and takes one of my hands between his own. “That thing you faced is called a Black Lake salamander,” he mumbles.

My eyes widen in surprise. How could he possibly know what my challenge entailed? “Could you see what was happening to me from the silo?”

“No. The venom was in your leg, and I smelled its blood on your daggers.”

“Oh.”

“Tell me what happened.”

With the light from the garden shining through the window behind him, his face is cloaked in shadow, but when he sits on the edge of the bed, his shoulders slump like he’s exhausted. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Tell me,” he grits out.

“It’s over, Damien. I think you should eat.”

He closes his eyes for a beat. “Tell me. Please.”

I reposition myself in bed, a twinge of pain flaring in the back of my leg. “I chose the star archway because I could see a purple rose and thought it would lead to the garden in your dream. You said your mom used to hunt behind the castle. I figured that was what she was doing when she lost her earring.”

“Smart.”

“I used a locator spell to find the earring. The spell led me out to the center of the lake, and I realized quickly it was actually in the belly of the salamander. Well, not quickly enough. Only after it tried to eat me and tore into my leg. I killed it and used magic to get it to shore. A little too much magic. But I was right. The earring was in its stomach.”

“I had no idea the challenges would be about me.”

“Of course it’s about you. We’re fighting for the privilege of being your mate.” I try not to sound bitter saying those words, but Damien is already my mate. How unfair is it that I have to risk my life to have what’s already mine?

“What I mean is I had no idea the challenges themselves would be drawn from my personal history and take place on my world, or else an echo of it.”

Our eyes meet, and the meaning behind his words clicks. “Are you saying that challenge wasn’t just about finding your mother’s earring, it was related to something that happened to you personally?”

He nods slowly. “I was twelve, my brother was ten, my sister six. Babies by shade standards. Our parents took us hunting in Stygarde Forest. It borders the Black Lake. My mother lost her earring and didn’t notice until we were home.”

“Why was she wearing earrings to hunt?” I ask. “And for that matter, her gown and crown?”

A wistful smile curls his lips. “My mother owned no other clothing but dresses and at the time almost never wore the same one twice. Besides, to a shade the type of hunting we were doing was an easy stroll in the woods. She was barely at risk of breaking a nail.”

I try to get my mind around that. I suppose when you can easily run as fast as any stag and are as strong as a bear, dealing with a gown isn’t exactly an issue. “How did the earring end up in the lake?”

“Mother had an event that night, and she lamented that she didn’t have the earring. The set had been a gift from my father. So I volunteered to go back into the woods to find it for her. It didn’t take me long. As you saw, the blue pearls glowed in the moonlight, and it stood out on the forest floor. But before I could return it to my mother, Brahm snatched it from my hand. I hadn’t even known he’d followed me into the woods, but he was always up to mischief, and that day was no different. I chased him, trying to get it back, but he darted through the woods and to the shore of the Black Lake, taunting me to follow. I didn’t want to go there. Our parents had always told us to avoid the lake for fear of the monsters that lived in it. It’s said the bottom is covered in bones.”

I think back to the feel of the bottom under my feet. I’d thought I was walking on branches, stripped of their bark and smoothed over time. Bones, though, in retrospect, make more sense. I shudder.

He takes a deep breath and blows it out. “In any case, Brahm walked out onto an outcropping and held the earring over the water, daring me, through an ornery smile, to take it from him before he dropped it in the lake. I thought about taking on my battle form or tangling with his shadows but then decided he wasn’t worth the effort. Brahm would return with the earring and take credit for finding it himself, and that was fine with me. But before I could leave, a Black Lake salamander, presumably the one you killed, leaped from the water and tore Brahm’s arm off, earring and all.”

“Jesus Christ! He lost an arm to that thing?”

Damien pushes off the window and comes to my side. “The salamander’s silver venom is toxic even to us. The sight of Brahm screaming as his body bled, his shadows swirling around him, is something I will never forget. We can transform into shadow, but if we do so with an injury like that, it can become permanent. So I told him not to shift and carried him back to the castle where he had immediate care by the best doctors in Stygarde. It still took over a week for his body to rid itself of the toxin and for his arm to regenerate.”

“That must’ve been terrifying for both of you. Thank fuck he was able to regenerate at all!”

Damien takes my hand, rubbing his thumb over the back of my it. “You are lucky to be alive with all your limbs attached, Eloise. It’s a miracle you survived.”

I flinch at his words, and at first I’m not sure why. There’s nothing uncaring about them or callous. But then it dawns on me. “It wasn’t a miracle, Damien. It was me. My magic. The box didn’t give me more than I could handle. Yes, I was injured, but I still won. And I’ll win again.”

“Maybe.” He frowns.

“I need to know you still believe in me. You of all people have to believe I can do this.”

He takes a deep breath. “I believe you can do it.”

“Good.”

“I also believe you shouldn’t have to.”

I lean my head back and look at the ceiling. “That ship has sailed.”

He grunts in disapproval, but I soldier on. “Look on the bright side, now that we know the nature of the challenges, you can greatly improve my odds of success by telling me more about yourself.”

A low chuckle rumbles in his chest. “How can I do that when my life didn’t start until you summoned me?” We both groan and then laugh together. “I will do as you wish, little bird, as I have always done. But I loathe the thought of you going back through that archway. I’d bargain my soul to get you out of it.”

I shake my head. “Don’t you dare. No more bargains. No more deals. Our debt to this world ends here.”

He gives me a slow, almost reluctant nod, then leans forward to kiss me, saying without words that his only true bargain is with me. A bargain for forever. A bargain to be mates.

When he draws back again, he straightens my blankets. “Now that we know the challenges come from my memories, you have one clear advantage. I plan to share as many of them as possible, only with you.”

I scoot over to make room and he slides into bed next to me. Damien spends that night and every night of my recovery telling me stories about his world and drawing me maps of Tenebris. He describes in detail the kingdom of the dark elves in Willowgulch to the north, Stygarde to the south. The forest between, which he explains is a major source of contention, and the river of magma that runs from the mountains along the western border of the witch kingdom of Dimhollow. He tells me about the independent coastal territory of Aendor and the way merchant boats carry goods from the other side of their world to Stygarde’s shores and Dimhollow’s, and how pirates steal goods for the benefit of the dark elves of Willowgulch.

I try my best to commit everything to memory even when it all starts to run together.

After a week, Marabella clears me to go back to my room and back to my scheduled donations.

Much to Damien’s growling disappointment.