The Shadow Heir: A Standalone Fantasy Romance (Secrets of the Fae), page 15
“Tonight is a special night. Until the sun rises, all rooms are open to you and all doors will open for you. Nothing is off limits. We have everything here that you could possibly want. After all, we want you to enjoy yourselves.” The way he lingered on the word “enjoy” made my skin crawl. “Whatever your heart desires, you will find it within these halls tonight. And in the morning, we will see you all at the arena for a little entertainment. I’ve crafted the next trial with particular enjoyment.” He completed his full turn and lowered his arms. Then he leaped down from the table and plopped back down at his seat with his book, his face resting on two upraised fingers.
All eyes in the cavern lingered on him as the fae exchanged excited whispers and the servants shifted uncomfortably where they stood awaiting orders. Ivy and I shared a glance, her crinkled brow and worried eyes reflecting the same unease I felt in my bones.
The next trial awaited us at dawn.
This could very well be the last night for some of us. A violent shudder shook my frame as my imagination painted vivid images of my companions sprawled across the sandy arena floor, never to rise again.
I stood and climbed up from the bench.
“Where are you going?” Ivy asked, voice laced with concern. “I know you wander the halls, but tonight is not a good night to wander.”
I pressed my hands against my middle, trying to calm the roiling inside. “Ivy, I can’t stay here. Twelve months is an eternity.”
Ivy glanced at Casimiro again, clearly reading my intentions. “They won’t let you escape.”
My hands twisted a wayward curl. She was probably right, but I had to try. After a moment, I said, “Come with me?”
She shook her head.
I nodded once, smoothed out the wrinkles in my dress, and visualized the hallways that led to the door I wanted to try.
As I walked away, Ivy hissed in a loud whisper, “Don’t do anything foolish.”
My lips quirked. “They’re going to try to kill us in the morning, Ivy. I’m not going to sit back and wait until then.”
She chewed her lower lip as she nodded once. “Be careful.”
I hurried toward the cavern’s exits, where several of the fae and mortal servants had already disappeared. I thought I saw a fae in deep green walk away hand-in-hand with one of the servants. Two female fae dressed in tight blue and purple jester suits danced and spun and turned flips as they vanished down the wide stone steps that led to the lower levels. Their magic crackled off their skin and buzzed in the air, snapping in tiny sparks against the stone walls. Maybe that was why these fae lived entirely encased in stone—so that when their magic threw sparks, they wouldn’t burn down their castle.
I peeled away from the cavern doors, heading toward the stairs leading up, toward the door carved with a familiar sight.
20
Zara
Ihurried up the steps, checking behind me to see if anyone was following. At the top, I turned left, pleased to find the next hall empty as well. At a wide intersection of four halls, a pair of fae in their shadow forms evaporated into the darkness as I approached. They seemed more concerned with avoiding me than following me.
My heartrate jumped as I snaked through the heart of the mountain, hunting the door that I’d found earlier today—a door to Avencia.
The doors to other worlds were all the same, I’d quickly learned this week in my wanderings. Carved directly into the stone walls of the palace, these doors looked like mere artwork, full of perfectly composed etchings of the world beyond. Superimposed over these carvings was always the same eye that would pulse blue at my approach but nothing else. These doors had never opened for me, no matter how hard I pushed or how ardently I screamed at them to open.
But Casimiro had said all the doors would open for us tonight.
It was almost like he was telling us to leave. I shook the thought away, not caring why the fae prince might say such a thing, only that if tonight held any chance to escape, I had to take it.
I turned another corner. A pale light pulsed to life above my head, throwing the carved lines into relief at the end of the hall. My heartrate tripled in excitement.
A pointed-arch doorway marked with an eye waited for me. The eye already pulsed a soft blue, as if the magic here was eager, ready to be used. Behind the image of the eye was a vivid cliffside ocean scene, despite the monochrome black of the stone.
I’d seen these cliffs once before.
Up the coast from Leor, the beaches disappeared and tall brown cliffs hugged the sea. Papá traveled often to Risona, a large town perched atop these cliffs, for business, and the summer I was fourteen, he’d rented a small flat in the heart of the seaside town, where I’d spent a month gazing at these very cliffs.
When I’d found the door that had first brought me to Nightsong, the one at the base of the branching stairwells, the image behind the eye no longer showed pine trees like it had the night I’d arrived. Each time I’d seen it, that one door had a different scene etched on it. Which was why, tonight, when I had a chance at escape, I came to this door instead.
I could almost smell the salt and feel the sea breeze on my face as I stepped near the door. Avencia waited beyond this door. Freedom. The carved scene in the stone sank deeper and filled with a shining black liquid that rippled along each line and quickly turned to color, filling the entire door like enchanted paint.
A warm breeze tousled my hair.
I gasped.
The cold, underground tunnel whooshed with hot air from another land. A quick glance behind me revealed I was still standing in Nightsong, the home of the shadow fae. Ahead stood my country—my home.
With a yelp of delight mixed with fear, I stepped forward and fell through the opening.
My whoop of victory morphed quickly into a shriek of terror. From my forehead down to my toes, a strange binding sensation cascaded over my muscles, locking me in a rigid stance with my arms pinned to my sides, as I plummeted face-first toward a grassy cliff edge high above the gray sea twinkling with blinding sunlight.
A strong, warm breeze pushed against my body as I fell, angling my trajectory over the calm ocean rather than the grassy clifftop meadow. The sea air, thick with salt and moisture, stung my eyes as I shot toward the gently crashing waves.
Panic blocked the air from my lungs, but my head was about to strike water, and I needed to take a deep breath.
Needed to be able to move.
Needed to back up and decide not to jump.
Five seconds ago, this place looked like freedom wrapped in adventure, a welcome friend waiting to take me by the hand. Now, I plunged toward my death, and I couldn’t even fight it.
By the time my body shot past the cliff edge, narrowly missing the rocky outcroppings, my skin prickled. A blink before my head pierced the water, my entire body burned like I was falling through flames rather than air.
My only consolation was that I hadn’t let the fae laugh at my death. I only wished I’d been able to find real love, the kind my parents had once shared, the kind that never lets go.
Ivy, I’m sorry I abandoned you. Talia, I wish I’d found you.
Father, I wish I could have seen you again. Wish you hadn’t let me go…
Sun above, this was going to hur—
Splash.
21
Zara
Like an arrow aimed at the sandy sea floor, I shot straight down. Pain lanced through my spine and my awareness dimmed as a massive headache exploded through my skull.
Dark shapes swarmed around me, but they moved too fast, and the light faded too quickly for me to register what these creatures were.
Then something grabbed me.
My entire body lurched as a force yanked me upward, sucking me from my watery grave. The magic binding my muscles vanished, and my limbs floated outward in the water, as did my dress. My hair billowed around my face, obscuring my view as the darting fish swirled and writhed in the waves around me.
Cold hands grabbed my ankle, then my waist, spinning my body until my face pointed up. My eyes stung too badly to register what was in the water with me, but strong arms wrapped around me as we rose.
A second longer and I would’ve taken water into my lungs. Then cold air washed over my wet body as I was pulled from the waves and toward the clifftop like a bird.
Grasses prickled against my skin as I hit the earth.
My lungs burned as I sucked in air, and my wheezing was accompanied by the groans of my rescuer.
Casimiro stood a few steps away, hands on his knees, heaving air through clenched teeth as black lines pulsed up from his hands toward his elbows. When he spied me watching him, he straightened and slung his hair backward with one hand, tossing a few water droplets into the sunlight.
“I knew you’d try to leave.”
Fists formed and loosened at his sides. His white shirt stuck to his skin, and his chin dripped water like a garden fountain. He lifted his face toward the sky, eyes squeezed shut and mouth open in an uncharacteristic grimace.
“Stars, Valencia, you could have died.”
The words tumbled from his lips as if by accident, and I found that my inability to stand had nothing to do with the pain in my spine. I stared at him, trying to read the sarcasm that was surely buried somewhere, or the venom that would be hidden in his meaning. I found none.
He leveled his dark eyes at me, his cold veneer quickly returning, then glanced down at the black lines spreading up his arm. “Don’t flatter yourself by thinking your life matters to me,” he said. “When someone bound to our court escapes, the magic that ties your blood to the one who made the bargain will bind your body until you are retrieved.”
Finally, I clambered to my feet in my now heavy dress. “Why not let me die then?” I managed to breathe out.
“Because,” he said simply, his tone calm and even once more, “if you die outside of the prescribed trials you’ve agreed to, my father will suffer. The bargain comes with a price for both parties. And while I’m not opposed to my father suffering, I am opposed to him coming home early.”
My brows lifted. Here was a valuable piece of information, almost like he was handing it to me on a platter. But why would he do that? To establish trust? He’d have to do more than drag me from the waters and tell me that he didn’t love his father to make me trust him. The warm sea breeze loosened a halo of tiny hairs from my wet curls and tossed them in my face. Casimiro’s dark hair whipped backward in the wind, revealing his face in the bright sun in a way that made him look almost boyish—certainly not the grim captor who sulked through his own palace halls.
I glanced at his blackening arms, and though he was trying to hide it, whatever was happening to him was causing him pain. The skin around his eyes was tight and his mouth moved less than usual as he spoke. “And you inherited these bargains from your father?”
His jaw twitched before he answered. “My father left me in charge of ensuring he does not suffer.”
“Where is your father?”
Casimiro’s eyes narrowed. “Away.”
“I gathered that. How long will you be in charge?” I parroted his words with mock deference.
He stormed forward, and I matched his movements, stepping backward, barefoot, over the dry grass. “Stop running, Zara. I’m only trying to take us—”
But I’d already stopped at the sound of my name, and his chest bumped into my shoulder. In Avencia, men did not use women’s first names until they were well acquainted. The only men who’d ever called me Zara were my father and a half-dozen past lovers—or rather, men I’d hoped would be my true love.
But it turned out true love wasn’t something I could craft, uncover, or insert within another person, no matter how much I liked them. Love was supposed to be fierce and forever, a force that nothing in the world could stop. Of all the men who’d claimed to adore me, not one had loved me like that. My true love was still out there, searching, as I was, for the match that would finally make this mad world make sense. I would survive my year of torture and find him—one day.
The heir to the Shadow Court wrapped one cold hand around my upper arm, gently but firmly, and in another blink, a doorway opened up in the very air beside us. Another second and he pulled me through after him.
We stood in a black hallway so dim in comparison to the sunlit clifftop that I felt momentarily blind.
My clothes and hair no longer held a drop of ocean water. Casimiro’s were dry as well. He turned away from me in the dim hall—no, room—and shoved his sleeves back up to his elbows. His arms were streaked black. As my eyes adjusted, I made out rows of shelves dotted with tiny vials and a fur rug beneath a painted wooden desk stacked with books, loose papers, and an ink pot. A few of the vials glowed faintly, creating the only light in the room. Casimiro again grabbed my arm and turned me so that my gaze was averted away from the desk and wall of shelves and toward a wide archway that led into a small anteroom set with two other arches.
“I didn’t bring you to my room so you could stay,” he sneered.
“Your room?” My throat closed up a little in fear. My head whipped around and searched for the doorway we’d come through. There was an etching on the wall, the outline of a door with an eye on it, but it was too dim to make out any other designs. “You have a door to Avencia in your room?”
He huffed. “It leads wherever I want it to.” He noticed the tensing in my muscles and added, “And it only ever opens for me.”
He marched me through this small room into a space even darker, with no glowing vials to cast any light. He seemed perfectly capable of seeing in the darkness, and he directed me to another door marked with a small moon-shaped window. Through the tiny window, a thousand stars shone.
Casimiro ripped open the door and starlight revealed the black lines still snaking up his arm. They’d diminished somewhat, now only discoloring his hands and wrists.
“Will that go away?” I asked, staring at his bulging veins. The binding sensation had broken as soon as he’d snatched me from the water, before we’d even returned to these halls. I shivered at the thought that being in his arms counted as being retrieved by the shadows.
His eyes held a faint blue glow as he fisted his hands at his sides. “Come. I didn’t rescue you just to make you swoon.”
He didn’t see my shocked grimace as he stormed toward a thin set of steps carved into the mountainside.
“I will never swoon for you,” I spat as I followed him out into the icy night. As soon as the cold air bit at my skin, I longed for the ocean breeze and warm sunlight of my world.
“Good, it’ll make this easier.”
I wrapped my arms around myself and hurried after the heir as he jogged down the stairs.
A veil of ice rested on the banister, so I held my skirts instead. “Make what easier?” The moonless night meant he was at his peak power, and I wanted to get away from him as quickly as possible.
But at the bottom of the stairs, Casimiro turned, trapping me on the narrow stone steps as he braced one arm on the frozen banister. “Your escape tonight was staged. I must say, you played your part seamlessly.” He ignored my guffaw and pressed on. “I knew you would try to escape, and everyone here knew I would have to retrieve you or let my father suffer. If I didn’t retrieve you, my father would know I was responsible, and—well, let’s just say you don’t want him returning early any more than I do.” He flexed his hand at his side. “But now I need your help.”
I blinked at him rapidly. “You need my help?”
His jaw tensed, but he showed no other signs of being offended by asking me, a mortal, for help. “Unfortunately, yes.”
The information washed over me like a bucket of cold water, and for several seconds I was speechless. “I don’t want to help you,” I finally admitted, crossing my arms, mostly to barricade myself from the bitter wind.
“I didn’t imagine that you did. But I design your trials, so it behooves you to do what I say.”
“Blackmail. An excellent choice. It befits your station.”
He sniffed. “I don’t need your approval or your admiration. I merely need your compliance.”
“What if I refuse?”
His gaze sharpened. “I will ensure that you never find out about your friend.”
My stomach dropped. “You know about Talia?”
He nodded.
“And you won’t tell me about her unless I help you?”
Another nod.
“You really are foul, you know that?”
Casimiro sighed. “This will only work if you choose to do it on your own. Any magic I place on you to force your hand would be traceable. This must happen without anyone discovering your true role.”
“My true role,” I repeated, brows lifting. “If I agree to this, am I your accomplice? Does that mean we’re partners, Casimiro?”
I threw his given name at him like he’d done to me, and it filled me with a sense of power that shot like lightning through my veins.
His brow quirked at my use of his name. “Think what you like, but I haven’t explained yet how this will work.” He paused, and the longer the silence stretched on, the more threatened I felt.
“Okay, fine. How will it work?” I needed to get back inside. My muscles were starting to shake.
He smiled, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes. “I need you to befriend the servants and find out who is poisoning them.”
“Poisoning them?” I barked, my chest rocking forward, putting me dangerously off balance on the icy steps.
Casimiro’s arm lifted from the banister as if to steady me, but when I straightened, his hand, now no longer streaked with black, quickly settled again on the icy stone. My eyes stared at his hand a moment too long, and when my attention shifted back to his face, I couldn’t reconcile his desire to kill me with his desire to keep me from falling.
“That’s what I said,” he drawled. “Most of the mortals here have been offered some sort of deal to not speak to any fae of the poisonings by whoever is behind it. But your only hope for finding out about Talia is to do as I say. With a word, I can place a spell on the name of your friend that will silence anyone who wishes to speak of her to you.”
