Page 9

Chapter nine

Nowhere Else To Go

“ S top her!” the king bellowed as I bolted to the exit, smearing the rune on my forehead before they could use it like they did on the goat—if that were possible. The guards collapsed over me at once; one grasped at my wrist, but I wrenched it away. Ducking past another, I tripped and crawled toward the door. The prince dove and pulled on my ankle.

“Leon!” The king yelled.

“Please, Aelia.” The prince yanked me back toward the center of the room.

A surge of fury rose within me, hot and caustic. “Get OFF!” I kicked and landed a blow on his face. When his grip loosened, I scrambled past the others, tripping one man until I reached the threshold. My skirts wrapped around my legs, and I raised them as far as I dared. The men ran to the prince’s side.

“Leave me. Go get her!” Prince Leon’s shout was muffled as he held his bleeding nose. “Just keep her alive!”

A knife flew past and grazed my forearm, slicing through the thin fabric. I cried out and tried to cover it with my other hand, but then my skirts tangled as wind magic came from behind me swept around my feet. The guards seemed out of practice at chasing human targets, so their magic was chaotic, and their efforts didn’t slow me at all. Abandoning the hold on my arm, I swept up the fabric again. A guard at the door threw a whip of water that soaked my clothes, but I twisted and lost my balance, falling down the side of the hill. My descent rent me from the water’s grasp. The grasses were tall near the bottom, slowing me enough to pick myself up and sprint again. A zip warned me just before an arrow pierced the tree beside me, and I lurched to the side—so much for not killing me.

I reached the deciduous forest, the razewa trees still tall and regal…and well known to me. I spent more time here than anywhere in the castle, and I knew I could lose my pursuers. Their longer steps approached, but I knew my way through. The wind was useless here, and there was very little water for the washers to attack me with. For once, I was thankful for the dry earth.

The clouds swirled and darkened above me, and the world went eerily dark. The canopy darkened the forest floor the rest of the way. I felt the heat of the prince’s flame as he formed a fireball for light. I nearly tripped over the root of the hemty tree but caught myself just in time.

If the cries behind me were any indication, the men had run into each of the forest’s traps, and were now hindered by the roots, tripped up by the deep cracks of the earth, or held by the arms of the naked trees. My relief was short-lived—I had nowhere to run. I had no friends or allies outside the castle. I couldn’t ask Chef to put her life at risk to help me. The queen wasn’t strong enough to protect me. The castle was no longer safe. I had avoided the villagers—most nobles did—and knew no one who would be willing to stand against the king.

It was too far to escape down the mountains, too far to run to the coast to my homeland, too far to any adjacent village. I needed to hide. I needed to stop the bleeding. Dizziness struck me as I regarded the red streaking my arm and forced me to steady myself on the bark of a pine tree.

A wayward fireball landed beside me in an explosion of sparks. I fell, recoiling from the heat. How could my life end like this? Pushing back to my feet, sweat and furious tears dripped down my face. I had done everything they had ever asked. I had followed every rule, agreed to every task. But this was too far. Too much.

I started to run again when an arrow plunged into the side of my thigh. Shrieking, I grabbed the tip and tried to rip it the rest of the way through, but it caught in the fabric of my skirt, and I couldn’t remove the shaft. I screamed again in my final attempt, but the men were closing in. I wouldn’t give them what they wanted. The forest shifted as I limped. I no longer passed the dead patches of aspens and razewa and hempty, but blackened silhouettes of tall pines that pierced the sky. The ground below me was rising again. The mountainside belched pillars of shadow and smoke. Deep, dark ravines cut through the mountain face, and gravel shifted beneath my feet.

I crossed the boundary into the Shade’s land, pausing, gasping, with my hands wrapped around my torso. My palm was slick with blood, and my shoe began to fill with it as well. Every step was agony as my clothes pulled on the arrow. The men behind me slowed only a little, but with a rally cry, they also pushed onto the Shade’s land. There was nowhere to hide and plan my next move. There was no time, if even the threat of being so near the Shade wouldn’t slow them down. I had never come this far for herbs and wasn’t sure where to go next. The sounds were more distant—they were regrouping, I guessed, rather than giving up. I slowed only a little, exhausted from the long flight. I limped to a dry riverbed, its edges quickly rising to tall cliff walls that blocked out the sky. A clamoring like metal hammers echoed up the canyon. Cave entrances and massive caverns appeared on the sides as I dragged myself down the sandy path.

Panting, I stopped and fell forward with my hands on my knees. My body ached, my side split with pain from the exertion, and my head swam from the shock. Blood left a footprint on the cracked earth from the wound on my thigh. There was no escape. Tears dripped down my cheeks. A shout from the ravine drove me to run again.

The cliffs turned ashy, then black as night. Silver veins of mica glittered against obsidian stones. I passed one statue carved into the wall. Beyond this was a carved column. Then, as I turned the corner, a massive fence of metal and stone arched in front of an enormous black castle, built into the walls of the mountain itself. The large door gaped black like the maw of a dragon. My head tilted upward to follow the spires, which were lost to dark clouds that hung low on the cliff face.

My heart froze as I took in the hazy smoke that drifted in the front garden and the glaring stone monsters on the turrets. Any light from the sickly sun was absorbed by the darkness of the stone. High metallic screeches echoed from within. The hair on my neck stood on end.

“There she is!” The sounds from the men sharpened. The bays of bloodhounds crooned to the night. A plume of fire and wind surged through, scorching the rocky outcrop of trees to my right, knocking me off my feet, and scalding my hand. The fire that reached the fence collided with a billowing cloud of shadow, which laced the edge of the fencing like a magical wall.

My hand seared in pain as blood continued to drip from the tip of my elbow. My thigh burned in anguish, but the rest of my leg was cooling to ice. My heart twisted in my chest. My prince had just burned me. My king would sacrifice me. And my father, yet again, had abandoned me .

My mind recalled green eyes and menacing magic. The only person the prince feared. I was a dead woman anyway. Exhaustion leeched power from my body, but that last scrap of my will to live wouldn’t just lie down if there was any chance, even an unlikely one, at the end of the path.

Struggling forward, I reached for the large handle, but the gate swung open on its own. I clumsily dragged down the path and up the stairs with the last of my strength, then collapsed against the door. I pounded weakly on the wood with my fist. “Please. Please let me in.” The barking dogs and shouting men approached from behind, so I hit the door harder. I was hanging on only by a fraying thread.

At last, the door opened, and I was engulfed in billows of smoke. I fell to my hip and gazed up into the impassive and terrifying face of the Shade. His dark brows furrowed as he took in my haggard appearance and the arrow protruding from the folds of my dress. His eyes flashed up to mine.

“You.” The word was a threat and a question and an accusation wrapped in one.

Terror seized my chest. “I’m sorry…I-I had nowhere else to go. The prince…”

Behind me, the clamor of voices grew closer, and the Shade flipped his gaze to the gate. His teeth clacked as his jaw clenched visibly. He stepped over the threshold and stood with his hands tucked into his pockets. Then he relaxed back on one heel and glared disdainfully, as if the prince had interrupted teatime and not threatened him with an army at his home. As the prince hesitated, the Shade lifted a single eyebrow.

My head was heavy, but I needed to see what was happening, so I lifted it with what little strength I had left. Beyond the gate, the prince took a slow step forward. He held out his hand, palm up, and called loudly over the shadowy storm. “Give me the girl.”

The Shade blinked slowly before casting a quick glance down at me. A grumbling growl preceded a single word. “No.”

“She is none of your concern. She’s a criminal to the crown, and she’s trespassing. Just give her back so I can deal with her.”

The Shade furrowed his eyebrows. “A criminal? This bloodless waif?” The Shade stepped toward me and crouched, placing a thumb on my chin. He slowly turned my head side to side as if attempting to solve a riddle. “What is your crime?”

My thoughts were muddled and costly. My eyelids drifted downward against my will. Clearing my throat, I managed to say, “My crime… My crime is…not dying.”

A pool of blood seeped around his shoes and dragged heavily through my clothes. Distantly, I thought that it looked like too much blood loss for someone to survive. Shivering, I smiled at the Shade. “Well…not dying before…when they asked me to.” I laid my head on the stone, and his eyes fixed on the swirl on my neck. My words sounded garbled. “I think I’m dying now, though. He should be pleased.”

The prince stepped into the courtyard, and without looking, the Shade threw out a wave of shadow down the path, buffeting him and his men backward.

The Shade studied me, our eyes locked as I focused on him alone. He murmured, “Do you want to live?”

I blinked and huffed a desperate laugh. “I’m cold.” My good arm moved weakly across my middle. “I don’t want to be cold.”

His voice rumbled again, annoyed and growly. “Just say yes.”

“Yes?”

A smirk pulled his lips to the side as he sliced a small X across his palm with a small dagger and tucked the hand beside my neck. His palm connected beside my jaw where the mark was, and I felt a frisson of an electric shock. Black and purple light burst from the connection.

Bending down, the Shade whispered. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

My eyes flew wide, and his lips descended even as he pulled me up to him. Lights like fireworks burst above us as the shadows whipped about like smoke in the wind. His lips were hot and sweet. Death smelled like the pine forests in winter. He ended it before I was ready. There were surely worse ways to die.

His breath tickled as he whispered, “And now you are mine.” The frisson of emotion that raced through my spine was not fear, though it was embarrassing to admit that. The Shade pulled back, lifted me into his arms, and turned back to the prince. “Begone, princeling.”

“But-but she is my ward, servant to my crown!”

“No longer.” The Shade smiled, a wicked sort of thing. “I have claimed her. Now. Go.”

A burst of black wind from the manor swept past us and filled the courtyard with impenetrable smoke. The prince and his men shouted something, but I couldn’t see through it. The crook of the Shade’s arm shifted my head, and I turned my face into the warm, smooth fabric of his shoulder.

“Rest,” the Shade murmured. “You will not die now.”

I didn’t believe him; the cold had seeped into my core. But speaking required energy that had bled out onto his stoop. I should probably clean that up.

The Shade turned to enter his home. Shivering, I sighed in a strange sort of peace as sleep dragged me under. My heart slowed its rhythm, and the mortal fear tugging in my belly halted as our gazes connected. Possessing, studying, disapproving. Green and ethereal. His eyes were bottomless. His face was as sculpted as his mansion. He was like marble. Blackness clouded around the edges of my vision.

At least staring Death in the face was a beautiful way to go.