hisses through the air, and I shove Soraya ahead of me as it sinks into a nearby tree with a thunk.

Ripping it from the wood, I stash it behind my belt, and then follow her.

On and on, with arrows hissing out of the weak afternoon light, as if Ruhle wants to taunt us with how easily he could kill us.

He’s playing with us.

Or no, herding us somewhere.

And the worst thing is, we’re not going to make it.

Enormous beech trees climb the rocky mountain slope beside us. There’s no help for it. I dart within their lingering gloom. Two steps in, and there’s an eerie silence that falls like a curtain. I swallow as I lead Soraya further.

The trees provide the cover we need, but we’re not the only ones who can hide in here.

“Give me your knife,” I tell her grimly.

The look she gives me tells me exactly what she’s thinking. A goblin-forged blade? When the sun rises in the Shadow Lands….

“I’ll bring it back to you,” I promise.

A certain bleak acceptance darkens her eyes as she passes it over. “Kill,” she says. “Don’t hesitate. Not today. This isn’t the Court of Shadows. Father isn’t here to whip Ruhle and his filthy brethren into line. If he gets his hands on either of us—”

“He won’t,” I promise. “Hide.”

She’s right.

She’s only slowing me down.

And there’s only one way to end this.

I have to become her.

I Sift away, slinking from shadow to shadow. I don’t know whether it’s the fact we’re being hunted, but I can’t help feeling as though there’s something dangerous about this place.

A figure appears, creeping through the forest on silent feet. Nocking an arrow to his bow, he eases over fallen trees, ghosting over dry leaves that ought to betray him.

Semirhyn. My brother’s tracker.

I meld back into being, my spine pressed against a beech trunk and my hand curving around the hilt of the knife.

Of all the wraiths in my brother’s hand-picked seven, he’s the most dangerous.

You never see him coming. I’ve been ambushed in hallways within the Court of Shadows and nearly knifed in my own bedroom. One night, when I was asleep, a knee drove into my back and someone looped a garrote around my throat. I thrashed and fought just long enough to drive my attacker into the wall, and then I Sifted to safety.

The next day, Semirhyn stared across the dining hall as I took my seat, his black eyes cold and emotionless.

There’d been a bruise on his cheekbone.

I’d learned how to lay nasty traps over my door after that. Sleep is difficult to find at the best of times, but since that night, I tend to wake at the slightest provocation.

It all boils within my chest.

All the sleepless nights. The nervous way I can’t walk through the castle without my hand twitching over my blade. The tripping beat of my heart….

I’ve never fought back. You don’t dare fight back against my brother’s seven, but this time I’m not alone.

And that prick put an arrow in my sister.

I can fight as good as Soraya can, but I’ve always lacked the ruthless edge she owns.

But this time…. This time there will be no mercy.

I punch into the shadows, alighting just long enough to kick a branch behind him. Semirhyn spins, his arrow driving into the tree root I was just on, but I’m already gone.

I slide into being on my knees, driving the knife across the back of his heel to cut the tendon.

With a scream he goes down, and I lunge to bury the knife in his throat, punching in and out of black smoke.

“She’s here!” someone yells, and then sunlight bursts over the clearing as though someone’s jerked a curtain from the window.

Rhyvaen. My brother’s little sun mage. It’s his one gift: the ability to conjure a shocking amount of light, although he can only hold it for seven seconds at best.

It’s long enough.

I scream as the light hits me and then vanish.

Through the trees. Rippling through shadows. Trying to smother the burns on my skin. When I’m shadow melding, I’m incredibly vulnerable to searing light.

The sound of a cantering horse suddenly captures my attention.

Shades of white and black glint between the trees. A rider clad in elegant finery, completely alone—

And then I see his face.

Keir.

Curse it. No. What is he doing here?

And he looks like he’s alone.

I flash to his side, startling the horse. It dances to the side, threatening to bolt, and Keir brings it back into line with the squeeze of his powerful thighs.

“Goddess’s mercy,” he hisses, as he wheels it around me. “Where have you—?”

I press a finger to my lips. “We’re not alone.”

That amber gaze locks on the blood dripping from my knife. “Mira?”

An arrow hisses out of the trees. The gelding rears, taking the shaft right in the chest. Its frightened whinny turns into a scream as it starts to fall.

Keir throws himself free of the stirrups at the last second, rolling to his feet beside me.

“What’s going on?” he snaps, scrambling to the side of his horse.

It screams in pain, its legs thrashing.

“It’s complicated!”

“It always is when it comes to you!”

“What are you doing here?” I demand. “You’re supposed to be at the court!”

“And you were supposed to be back by now!” He snaps the arrow, teeth gritting in fury as he strokes the beast’s frothed flanks. A certain kind of chilly rage settles over his face as the horse grunts and falls still. “I came to help you.”

There’s something about the way he soothes it that sends calm through it as it dies. It’s a particular kind of kindness, and the grief on his face is real. He couldn’t heal it. Not in time. So instead, he took its pain away.

And I know what he’s not saying.

I was supposed to be back—and so he came to find me. All the way out here, as if he somehow knew where I was.

“Are you tracking me?”

Keir gives me a withering look. “You have a habit of disappearing,

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