The Shadowglass (The Bone Witch, #3)(36)

“You’re tired.” Fox sounded exhausted, grim. “And you’re obviously stressed. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

What was the point? My brother wasn’t going to believe me tomorrow any more than he did today. But I nodded, because he was right about one thing: I was tired of talking.

“Are you okay?” Kalen asked, entering the cell after Fox had left.

I sniffed, looking away.

“I can go.”

“No.” I reached for him, and a new vision rose to meet my gaze. But unlike Fox’s horrible deaths, there was warmth, love. Another Kalen superimposed himself over the original—stubbled, face framed by long hair and a wilder look, reaching his hand out for mine. Are you ready, love? he asked.

Then there was another me accepting his offer, rising to my feet, feeling strong and beautiful and happy, answering him in a voice that was mine but also wasn’t. “Always.”

I blinked, and both were gone. Kalen, clean-shaven Kalen, was the only one left.

“Please stay.” My voice was husky, unwilling to think about what this meant, why all my visions prophesied the worst for everyone but him. “Always stay.”

? ? ?

I was dreaming again. I held a knife and I was covered in blood, but the blood was not my own.

There was someone on the floor in front of me. I saw red pouring from her chest, and I knew she was dead. Her eyes were wide, mouth open in stunned surprise.

She looked familiar. I tried to place her face through the strange haze that obscured my view but could not.

She wasn’t enough, something in my head spoke up, but it was not my voice. It felt wrong to have it there, but try as I might, I could not dislodge it. We need another.

“Tea,” someone said from behind me.

I turned.

Fox stared back, face so pale that the moonlight drifting through the window did nothing to change his pallor. He looked past me at the fallen figure, then sank to the ground, his breathing uneven.

“Tea,” he said again. “Why?”

My view widened. I was standing before the entrance of the Valerian asha-ka, not in my cell. But I was wearing the same clothing as before I had drifted off to sleep. I blinked at the knife in my hand. I knew this make, this style. I carried it with me often, only now it was stained crimson. Disgust and fear raced through me. I dropped the knife, and it clattered to the ground.

Fox cradled the dead girl in his arms, sounds of agony coming through his lips. There was more commotion behind me. “Tea,” Kalen said, in a voice so gentle that I knew something was wrong.

I looked down at my heartsglass. It was the darkest black. When I looked back at the dead girl, the haze lifted. I knew why she was familiar.

Her name was Daisy. She was my sister.

The horror broke through.

This was not a dream.





She knelt before two graves and wept.

She had fractured the kingdoms. She had brought revolution to Daanoris and sent hellfire raining down on her enemies in Kion. She tamed seven daeva, fought armies, killed two Faceless. She faced blighted creatures and lived when others more experienced in years and skills had not. And yet, it was these small headstones, half-hidden among the weeds, which broke her.

“Rise up,” she told one of the forlorn mounds, the words built out of panic, cobbled from hysteria. “Rise up. Rise up! RISE UP!”

Nothing moved but the ferns, bending, swaying in the breeze.

“I raised Kalen. Why can’t I raise you? I broke so many rules, one more shouldn’t hurt like this. Why can’t I break the silver? Why can’t I break the one law I would give everything to overcome?”

Beside me, Lord Fox did not attack. Lord Fox did not summon the soldiers. Instead, he slipped across the grass like a wayward shadow and stopped where she knelt. His hand hovered above her shoulder, seemingly caught between maintaining the gap and being a brother—but the distance won. He was silent as she cried until she had nothing left to give.

Uneasy, I shifted away, knowing I was an unwanted stranger during this private moment, though not before I read the plain carvings on those round stones. Daisy Pahlavi, said one. Polaire Ishina, said the other.

The Dark asha’s sobs quieted, stilled. Finally, she found enough breath to speak, and when she did, she talked as if she had never left, as if she had not just grieved. “Heartshare. Parts of Kalen remained with me even when he died, because Heartshare never completely leaves. His blood is on my heart, like Dancing Wind’s was on Blade that Soars’. Stained with his lover’s blood. That’s the answer, isn’t it?”



She addressed the stones. “Is that why you refuse to return, Polaire? Or are you still angry at me?”

“Tea.” Lord Fox’s low timbre broke her focus.

She looked up at him.“You honored my request to have Daisy buried here, among the ashas’ graves.”

He nodded.

“A pauper’s grave is my fate, or a dishonorable cremation.” She bent down and pressed her lips against the smooth rock, marking her farewells with red lipstick. “Did Mykkie raise her after I left?”

Lord Fox nodded again, his expression unreadable. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry. That must have been hard on you. On Mom and Dad, on the others. I don’t think I could have borne it in your place.” She leaned back. “Are they well?”