Ambrosia (Frost and Nectar, #2)(59)

Shalini must have known that I had disappeared, and she was the most loyal friend I’d ever known. Maybe she didn’t want to leave Faerie without finding out what had happened to me. Maybe, when Torin returned to his kingdom, he would send her home.

She’d run back here, relieved, maybe with a new boyfriend in tow, and we would hug each other and drink wine and tell each other about everything that happened in the past few weeks. Months? How long had it actually been? Somehow, it felt like years and hours at the same time. I washed down the dry cereal with cool tap water. Holy shit. Had I never realized before how amazing tap water tasted? Tap water was the nectar of the gods, and you could have it whenever you wanted it. It was the one thing I still liked about this place.

When I’d filled my stomach and drank as much as I wanted, I headed over to Shalini’s bedroom. As she was my best friend, I didn’t think she’d mind if I borrowed some clothes.

I pulled open her drawers and fished out some dark leggings and a long-sleeved shirt, then stepped into her cream-tiled bathroom.

I turned on the shower, letting the steam fill the room. As the shower heated, I felt myself slip into a daze, listening to the comforting hum of water pounding against the tiles. I pulled off the bloodstained dress and shoved it into the trash. Naked, I stepped into the shower, and the hot water pounded my skin. I grabbed a bottle of liquid soap and scrubbed myself. Dirt from my feet swirled in the drain, a tiny whirlpool of mud.

What was Torin doing right now?

I came out of the shower smelling like vanilla and civilization. I towel-dried my hair and pulled on the clean clothes, then crossed into the living room to drop down onto the sofa. How long would it take for Shalini to come back once she realized I was here?

I bit my lip, staring into space. She would come home, wouldn’t she? With Torin’s permission, she could go in and out of the different realms. But worry nagged at the back of my mind.

I cleared my throat as my nervous thoughts grew louder. I really had no idea what happened after I left the kingdom. Torin wondered if his sister had taken over, but who knew? Maybe no one took over and they all starved. Maybe Moria took over, or the bitter hag who cursed the place.

I stood and started pacing. How long was I going to wait before giving in and using that magical piece of mirror?

A male voice, tentative and worried, pierced my thoughts. “Hello?”

My head snapped up, and I looked at the door.

Someone, Shalini’s neighbor, I presumed, stood in the doorway, a man dressed in a light blue button-down l shirt with closely cropped brown hair. “Is everything okay here? It looks like there was a breakin. I’m sorry—who are you?”

I rubbed the knot in my forehead. I needed people to leave me alone. And it seemed like I’d forgotten how to behave normally in the Court of Sorrows, because I muttered those words out loud.

“Are you supposed to be in here?” he asked .

“I’m Shalini’s roommate,” I said. “Her new roommate.”

“She hasn’t been here in a while,” he shot back, staring nervously at my horns.

I really wished there was a way to shut the door, but I’d broken it too much.

I prowled closer to him across the room. “Your help isn’t needed here.” I bared my teeth with a snarl. “And I’d advise you to leave well enough alone. You don’t know what might happen to you if you cross a Dark Cromm.”

I heard the echoes of my brother in my threat.

The stranger turned white as milk, and he pivoted to hurry down the stairs.





36





TORIN




The portal ejected me onto a cold stone floor. Icy light filtered through a mullioned window, and a marrow-deep chill was in the air. I was back in my castle, for some reason, in Orla’s room. The mirror had sent me here.

Orla herself was not here.

As my eyes scanned my sister’s room, a shiver of dread snaked up my spine. It was even colder than it had been when I’d left, and the air carried a faint scent of smoke and sulfur. Was the desolation of this place because of my forced separation from Ava?

No, that wasn’t it. Screams pierced the stone walls from outside. The normally serene stillness of the castle was replaced with a sharp tension coiling through the atmosphere, dragging cold claws over my skin.

I went still. A voice wended through the air, one I recognized.

Orla’s voice.

From somewhere, she was calling my name. Had she felt my return? If she’d left the kingdom, nearly died, and come back again, I thought I would feel it in my blood.

But her screams…

Up here, the castle felt empty, haunted. My breath misted around my head in a frozen fog. I crossed into the corridor. Darkness crept over the walls, even though it was day. Deep gray shadows writhed over the stones.

I gripped the hilt of my sword. Today, the castle felt like a tomb of rock.

The Sword of Whispers sang to me. You are death. You are the frigid isolation that comes with the last breath.

The walls exuded a malign presence, and I didn’t feel welcome here anymore. My magic hadn’t returned to my body, which meant my throne was still shattered. Here in Faerie, I felt like a hollow king walking through these corridors, divested of the power that had once coursed through my veins.

When I heard the distant pounding of soldiers’ heels on the stones, I slipped back into the shadows of an empty bed chamber. I needed to see who the soldiers served before I engaged them, to find out if I was an enemy in my own kingdom. With the Sword of Whispers, I could cut them down in a fight, one by one. The blade sang in my skull with every breath I took, hungry for blood.