Page 12

Chapter twelve

A Tour

T he Shade remained silent as he turned down three different corridors.

“Could you”—I skipped to catch up again—“please, tour a bit slower, sir?” And don’t tours usually come with words of instruction?

“Words are excessive. Watch. Learn. Keep up.” He stopped suddenly, and I nearly careened into him. “And why are you behind me?”

“I’m sorry. You are faster than me.”

His green eyes flashed with black, and he gestured beside him. “Come here.”

My hand lifted my gown as I approached. He nodded once and stepped away; I followed just a step behind. He glanced at me again. “No.” Grasping my shoulders, he pulled me forward. His hands felt hot through the thin fabric. “Walk here. At my side.”

“But—”

He raised a black brow as he pursed his lips. That new rebellious coal in my chest wondered if I should push the issue, but when trying to survive Death, I surrendered. “Very well.”

We took off together. As I was no longer racing, I suspected he had slowed. He threw out a hand intermittently, indicating doors but providing only the briefest description as we went along. We passed many guest rooms and the servants’ quarters. We went around another corner before I dared to speak again. “What… what shall I call you, sir?”

The Shade paused, staring straight ahead in thought for a moment. “The Shade is adequate.”

I was pleased he didn’t say Master. The stairs ascended in rocky steps that were worn down in the center. The next ceiling was not quite as high—perhaps only nine feet. Small windows on the left let in some light as the rooms jutted off to the right.

“Here is the armory. The second kitchen is where a lot of bread is baked. The western wing. The chicken coop.”

“I’m sorry?” I’d stopped before a door that had been cut in half. The Shade strode to my side, his shadows sweeping aside my skirts as his shoulder brushed mine again.

“Chickens, Dayspring.” Opening the top of the door, I could see twenty black chickens milling around a stony room, the floor covered in straw. When he opened the lower door, chickens ran toward us, murmuring and clucking. Their combs, waddles, legs, and eyes were all black, but their black feathers shimmered in a rainbow of color under the lights. A shadow slipped between us, entered a drawer, and pulled out some seeds and mealworms for the excited chickens.

I blinked once, twice, and slowly turned to regard the Shade. The menace of hope and light had…chickens? Probably for blood sacrifices.

The Shade snorted, then scratched at the light stubble on his cheek as he turned his face toward the hall.

Eyeing the room once more, I turned. “Sir, would you like me to care for the chickens?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Why would you do this? ”

“As a servant of the Shade.” I curtsied briefly. “I’m happy to do what needs to be done.” I pulled the fine dress out to examine it. “Though this outfit would be soiled, so I’ll need a more casual outfit.”

A rumble burbled. Was he…laughing at me?

“Come, Dayspring. You will not be a chicken tender.”

I bustled behind him as he took off with long strides, light opaque shadows streaming behind him. “A maid then? I could clean.”

“No.”

“A…a chef? I’ve baked before at the…” Don’t mention the prince, don’t mention the prince. “I mean, before.”

“No. Speaking of him, why did the prince want you dead?” He turned so suddenly, I almost ran into him, but his shadows caught me and held me upright. My heart ached at his question.

“Well, the seers told him a prophecy.”

“Which prophecy?”

I shrugged, studying a very interesting crack between the stones on the floor and picking at the fabric near my thigh. “Something about how my powerlessness was going to ruin everything, and as things turn black as pitch, someone has to be sacrificed.” I rubbed the place where the arrow had pierced my flesh, the images of the previous night flashing through my mind. Images of those I thought I could count on for protection, friendship, or moral leadership. All had failed me. I could see my father’s stricken face but frozen body, my king’s apathetic but hungry observance, the prince’s deadly request. His mild regret didn’t make up for the betrayal—demanding my life to save his. Well, his, the kingdom’s, and the queen’s. Guilt surged along with anger. “I was the only way the queen would live. The goat was not an adequate sacrifice, they said. My father…” The words stuck in my throat, forming a ball of pain that swelled and ached, and I fell silent .

The Shade mercifully moved on. “I’ve heard this prophecy. It’s a convenient one.”

I turned my eyes to him, frowning. How could he have heard it?

He merely shrugged and walked on. “It was passed around many years ago.” He turned back with a smile. “Who else is as black as pitch and has doomed the land to death and decay?”

I vaguely remembered those words. “I mean, you are the Shade. Your magic is very black.”

“Ah, yes. Black magic, black heart.”

“Sir! I didn’t say th—”

He abruptly turned to head up yet another stairway, cutting me off. This one landed us in a large sitting room with a plate of rolls, pastries, and a teapot. He sat heavily in the chair, and his shadows pulled up a chair for me. Windows on two sides of the room let in the early morning light. Had I slept a whole day? I turned my face toward the sun like a flower—the manor had been very dark.

We were so high. I approached the window to see that we were hundreds of feet up though not quite at the top of the cliff. Birds flitted around, free and weightless, entering and exiting holes on the adjacent cliffside.

“The problem with prophecies is that one can always pick out the tasty bits and discard the rest, Dayspring.” He picked up a roll and pulled it apart. “For example, I am an excellent villain that the good prince of fire and light can battle against.”

“You do seem to send a lot of black storm clouds.”

The Shade took a bite of his roll. He had a penetrating gaze and raised brow as he considered my words. “So it would seem.” He passed me a pastry. “Tell me about this father of yours.”

My throat threatened to close again, but somehow, it was easier to talk about up here. “My father is an herbalist. He makes the queen’s potions to help her feel better, give her strength.” The Shade remained quiet, watching me, and I rushed to fill the empty space. “He brought us here after my mother died. We had lived in Aswan.”

“By the ocean?” he asked. I nodded. “That must have been quite the journey.”

“It was. Mother had just died. He burned his bond mark right before we left, and it festered some as we traveled. We barely made it with the small trading caravan because he became so ill. I was six, almost seven, but I remember how worried I was for him. It was such a long trip—not one I would make again easily.”

My feet and back had ached, and my father’s bandages stank as he changed them nightly. Despite the common healing potions, his arm had been swollen and dripping and red the whole trip.

“And your arrival at the castle? Was it a warm welcome?”

I laughed once. “I mean, it was fine at first. I was often passed off to the prince’s tutors as I had no mother. But later, I was tossed to the servants when my magic never surfaced.”

“You had no friends?”

“I thought Leon was…once. There was also a servant boy we liked to run through the gardens with—he was a bit older—but he disappeared after a few months, and I never saw him again.”

“What do you like to do now?” he asked abruptly. When he stood, his shadows tilted my chair, nearly dumping me out of it. We left the room, turning down a long hall with one side full of windows. My breath froze in my throat as I looked out at the steep expanse. “Dayspring.” He murmured, ripping my attention back to him. I hurried beside him again.

“I’m sorry. I…uh. I like to do whatever pleases the Shade.”

He rolled his eyes—rolled them. I hadn’t rolled my eyes since I was nine. “What pleases me is to know what you enjoy. ”

My mind whirred through what I usually did—collecting herbs, making powders and potions and poultices with father, helping Chef in the kitchen, washing dishes, helping Her Majesty with some task or other. “I enjoy being helpful. The world is better when people help others. And I love to help the queen.”

He halted again. “But what do you enjoy for you?”

My mouth opened and shut like a fish without air.

He huffed out a large breath. “That is a problem.”

An impolite scoff slipped from my throat. “And what do you enjoy?”

Green eyes flicked to mine, ran down my person, and then gazed out the window. “I enjoy a great many things.”

I crossed my arms, ignoring the shiver his gaze had caused, and considered everything I knew of him. Like fighting Prince Leon? Like drowning our world in shadow? Like poisoning our queen? Like—

The Shade scoffed. “Like gardening, Dayspring.”

At a sudden right turn, I almost had to shut my eyes from the bright light of an enormous solarium. The walls soared above me as unrefined glass covered every surface. The light drifted down through three levels of a room rivaling the castle ballroom’s floorspace. The air was heavy and humid, and mist sprayed into the room at intervals. Colorful birds flitted about the trees, and an armored groundhog with plates in rows waddled past a spiky plant and scratched about the loamy soil on the edge of a hard rock path.

“Armadillo,” the Shade supplied. “And those are parrots.” He indicated the flying rainbows above us.

“Hmm,” I grunted intelligently. “Why does that armadillo look different than the one in the dining room?”

“That was a pangolin. ”

My brain was buzzing in wonder. I meandered down the narrow path, skirting through the purple ferns and large solar hastas, beyond the arching trees and dripping long leaves of the mother willow.

Another turn led to tables holding thick, healthy herbs such as white thieves and purple dranger, pericott, rainboss mushroom, and…there was so much. The Shade followed at a distance, judging his work with a hard eye. He dispensed a dead flower here and trimmed a failing leaf there, but I was entranced by the living world around me. We climbed the steps, his shadows drifting behind him, to a level with countless flowers of all types, blooms I had no names for. I touched a petal here and there. We turned a corner, and he indicated the sign that warned of poisonous plants. I withdrew my hand. Then, at the top of the next level, my heart stuttered. I recognized that vanilla scent. The room was full of racerbristles.

Racerbristles.

There were easily a hundred bushes in this very space. My fingertips ached, and I touched one, then another. My heart rate raced, and my breathing came in pants. All the wasted hours and days, all the storms I’d endured and burns I had suffered searching for this infernal plant. And they were right here! I whirled upon the Shade who was studying me, shadows in his eyes.

“Racerbristles,” I spat. “So many racerbristles.” Gesturing to one side, my pitch rose, despite any attempt to maintain control. “Sir, this many could save the queen!”

The Shade huffed. “Racerbristles alone would not compl—”

The coal in my chest ignited. “They would help her heal. They would restore her!”

He shook his head. “Racerbristle is not the cure the queen needs.”

I pointed a finger at him. “ Your shadows—” He took a step toward me, and the room darkened as bursts of shadow flew from him and curled around us. Death and danger and power stopped my very breath. He towered above me, the shadows closing in like a whirling cocoon.

His green eyes flashed as he raised a brow. “What of them?”

I panted, but this time, I felt fear. I was a fool. A hopeless, feckless fool. “Th-they are lovely.” Another surge thickened them and plunged us into blackness. The only remaining light came from the necklace at my chest, which glowed with yellow warmth. I clung to it.

“Liar. What of them?” He stepped into my space, and I backed up a step. The table pressed into my back. A single shadow reached from his side to caress my cheek. My hand trembled at my utter helplessness. His shadow ducked lower and raised my chin, forcing my gaze to meet his. “Speak the truth, Dayspring.”

The words were whispered, treasonous, and harsh. “Your—the shadows are killing her.”

“Finally, a truth you believe.” He withdrew his shadows by degrees. “But belief, Dayspring, even if fervently held, is not the same as the truth.”

Outrage twisted my stomach. Of course, it was the truth. I had seen the queen’s frail body. I had mixed a thousand potions for her. I had been burned by the acid rain from the shadow storms as I trod the sick earth looking for the herbs she needed to live.

“The truth is you killed those three soldiers! You’ve killed before, so why not the queen of your enemies?” I gasped at my own words. His sharp glare froze me to my core, and I shuddered. Stupid, stupid girl. “I’m sorry.” I curtsied and waited for the death I had once escaped.

The Shade turned his back to me as the shadows at his feet churned like angry clouds. “Those men deserved it.”

The shadows dissipated, and the room stirred, silent but not suffocating. A bird chirped at the top of a tree, silhouetted by the white, sunlit window. It was trapped just as I was. Quietly, I asked, “Sir, why did you bring me here?”

The muscles in his jaw feathered as the shadows coiled and twisted around him. He extended one hand to the plants around us. “Keep them alive.”

The Shade paced from the room. The shadows swept behind him, falling and rolling down the steps. I was alone. And somehow, I was emptier for it.