Reign of Shadows (Reign of Shadows, #1)(2)

“It won’t last,” Perla replied in her usual perfunctory manner. “Never does.” She snapped a linen on the air.

I turned from the balcony and faced her. “How long before I can go out there? On my own?” I went out often enough, but only ever with Sivo. “I have to know how . . . I have to be able to live out there.”

It was a familiar argument. Sivo used it every time he took me with him. There was logic in it even she could not refute. But what I was asking for now—to go alone—had never been permitted. And yet I had to try. How was I ever going to learn to cope in this world if Sivo did everything for me?

“You don’t live out there. You live in here. And I don’t care how good you think you are at handling yourself,” Perla said. “You’re not stepping one foot outside these walls alone.”

“Let me go on a quick run for berries. It’s his birthday,” I wheedled. “Let me do this for him.”

“No,” she replied, swift and emphatic.

Sighing, I sank down on the bed, the brocade coverlet stiff under me. I plucked at a loose thread. The coverlet was old, belonging to the first occupant of the tower—a purported witch who wrought havoc on this forest long before we came here. Long before the eclipse. We had her to thank for the tower. Apparently she enjoyed luring travelers to her door and then making a soup out of them. It was the stuff of fairy tales, but I knew anything was possible. This life, the way the world was now, had taught me that.

Sivo and my father had explored the layout of the kingdom long ago. They knew every inch of it, including the Black Woods. The two of them discovered the tower in those years, before I was born, before the eclipse. Now only dark dwellers roamed the thick bramble of vines and towering trees. The world belonged to them.

The nearest village was over a week’s walk, if it still stood. We didn’t know anymore. We didn’t know how many people were left at all. Our world was the tower and the surrounding forest.

Sivo had selected our tower for its remoteness and because the Black Woods were rumored to be cursed. The witch’s fearful reputation lasted long after her death, keeping man, woman, and child from traveling into this forest. A fortuitous circumstance for people like us who didn’t want to be found.

“If you’re going to sit there, make yourself useful,” Perla prodded.

I plucked a linen from the basket, snapped it once on the air, and began folding. The linens smelled of the outdoors. We hung the wash to dry on a stretch of line on the balcony of Perla’s room. I carefully added the folded towel to the stack, inching closer to the woman who had raised me as a mother would. Without her I would have died alongside my mother the night of my birth, but that fact didn’t stop resentment from bubbling up inside my chest.

“Perla, please.” I touched her arm. “Sivo—”

“Sivo will understand, and we’ve prepared his favorite flatbread for the occasion. He will be satisfied with that.”

With a groan, I dropped back on the bed.

Satisfied. There was that word again. Being satisfied with our lives was enough for her. She didn’t understand the need for more. My need for more. She thought I should be content with what I had. Sanctuary. A roof over my head and food in my belly. It was more than so many people had.

“Do you want to end up like that rabbit out there?” she asked.

“Bats don’t attack humans,” I reminded her.

“I’m not talking about the bats and you well know that.”

I did know that. She was talking about dark dwellers.

Sitting up, I crossed my arms over my chest and tried another tactic. “Sivo thinks you should let me start going out alone.”

I could hear the faint grinding of her jaw. The habit had worsened lately, and I suppose I was to blame.

Sivo’s heavy footsteps thudded outside my room, halting at the threshold. He brought with him the loamy aroma of the woods. “I’m back,” he announced unnecessarily.

“Are those boots dirty?” Perla demanded, adjusting her weight onto her back foot and cocking out her hip.

“What, these?” He scuffed his boots, lifting first one and then the other, examining beneath them.

“Yes . . . those things on your feet,” she snapped. “You know I spent all day yesterday mopping.”

“No. No mud,” he assured her.

Perla grunted, clearly unconvinced. I fought a smile, accustomed to their bickering.

“I don’t know why you insist on dumping refuse when it’s dark,” she grumbled.

Perla didn’t approve of unnecessary risks, and as far as she was concerned Sivo took far too many of those.

“Midlight doesn’t last long enough to do all the things that need to be done in a day.” He didn’t sound annoyed as he uttered this. A remarkable fact considering he uttered it almost daily. Midlight lasted no more than an hour, but it was the only time a semblance of light emerged to push out the night. “Besides, root truffles don’t bloom in midlight.”

Perla gasped with delight. I smelled their pungent aroma as soon as Sivo pulled some from his pocket and held them out for her to see.

“Make a fine dinner,” he murmured. “Especially if you cook them with some of those potatoes the way you do.”

She cleared her throat and tried to sound gruff as she said, “Put them in the kitchen. We’ll have them on the morrow for your birthday. Still not worth the risk.” She had to add that last bit.