Reign of Shadows (Reign of Shadows, #1)(12)

Perla frequently accused me of being quick to provoke. She always pointed to my bloodlines. Apparently, my father had been hot tempered. I punched the dough I was kneading and flipped it over.

Fowler had emerged fully clothed shortly after I left him. His scent had been less potent, and I knew I would never make the mistake of failing to recognize him unclothed again. He’d walked a hard line for my chamber. I didn’t even feel his gaze upon me. He would be leaving tomorrow. Unless he changed his mind and intended to leave this very day. I didn’t know and, of course, I couldn’t inquire. That would call too much attention to the fact that he affected me.

“How’s the boy?” I asked Perla as I set the dough in a bowl and draped a linen over it.

Her response was a grunt. Madoc still lived, and she was frustrated that I had made him our problem, that I brought him here and threatened our sanctuary.

I didn’t press for more. Perla was in no mood for it. The air felt strained and tenuous enough, brittle like the ancient parchment of the few books we possessed.

I held silent as Perla gathered what she needed. Sivo hummed lightly from the chair where he sat. She banged through the cupboards, searching for something.

“What are you looking for?” I asked tentatively.

“The large bowl with the chip in it.”

I automatically reached for it behind the basket of root truffles Sivo had gathered yesterday.

She grunted again as I handed it to her, her chapped fingers brushing mine. This grunt translated to: “thank you but I’m still angry with you.”

She returned to the chamber, her tread heavier than usual.

“She’s not happy with me,” I murmured.

Sivo stopped humming. “What makes you think that?”

He was teasing. I smiled and shook my head. “Oh, just a feeling.”

“She’s scared. She loves you more than herself. We both do. We worry about what will happen to you when we are . . .”

My smile slipped as his words faded, but the rest was there. I heard it even if unspoken.

I thought of Fowler’s words. Only the selfish survive this world.

They rang ominously, an echo that I couldn’t banish. If that were true, then Sivo and Perla had long outlived their life expectancies. That should disprove his statement and not make me feel like their demise was an impending fate chasing them like a bloodhound. It shouldn’t make me feel like my own time was slipping through my fingers like water through a sieve. My throat tightened at the notion. It wasn’t so much that I could die. Everyone died. I wasn’t afraid of death.

It’s that I would die with so little to show for my life. A long stretch of days spent trapped in a tower.

I was afraid that was all I would ever have.





SEVEN


Luna


THAT EVENING I ventured into my bedchamber. Slinked really, pressing flat against the wall, hugging a fresh pitcher of water to my chest—my excuse for entering the room.

Madoc was awake, thrashing and pleading for relief in a voice that cracked. I could smell the earthy bite of sweat beading his skin. The copper of his blood tainted the room.

Dagne sniffed softly from beside the bed and adjusted her weight in the chair. “What’s your name again?”

“Luna.”

We were both quiet for a long while until her chair creaked again and she said, “You’re lucky to have this place. I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere so clean and warm. So safe. I didn’t know places like this exist.”

A sudden laugh had my head whipping around.

“No place is safe.” Fowler sat in the corner. He had been there all along. His body was utterly still in a chair near the balcony. I’d occupied that seat for countless hours with the balcony doors open to the outside world, listening to the winds and drone of insects and the distant sounds of dark dwellers. Occasionally, I could hear the death of some poor animal as it fell victim to their ravenous appetites. We weren’t the only things they fed upon.

The seat cushion bore a permanent indentation from my weight, and now he filled it, altering its shape so that the next time I sat in it I would only think of him and remember the boy—man—who wore his selfishness like a badge of honor.

My awareness of him burned a path through me. I brushed a stray strand of hair back from my cheek and tried to pretend I didn’t feel his stare. And yet, like an animal aware of something else in its orbit, I knew he was there, watching me, thinking about our last encounter and the truth of my existence. A girl without sight in a world where we lived as prey.

I could feel him thinking about me, the knowledge whispering in the space between us like a ghost’s breath. Sivo and Perla would panic when they learned this vulnerability had been exposed. And then they would only worry that he might discover the rest. That he would figure out who I was.

But he would be leaving tomorrow.

A desperate breath welled up inside me as though I was on the verge of losing something, a chance . . . an opportunity for something new and strange and exciting. A short time ago I stood alone in a room with him. The air churning from cold to hot, thin to thick, in a way I had never felt before.

He rose and left the room without a word.

I exhaled, feeling like I was balancing on a knife’s edge, anxious with the knowledge that he was going to leave and that would be the end of all this. A return to monotony.