Falion steps out of the shadows, wiping at his hand with a linen handkerchief. His shock of silvery blond hair gleams in the light, and he’s still wearing the elegant silvery-blue doublet he wore for the wedding ceremony.
“No matter,” says Ruhle, cutting me a sharp look I have no trouble interpreting, considering it lingers on my face and hair. Clearly, he sees the resemblance as he steps back toward the mouth of the cavern. “We’ll deal with this development later. Retreat.”
“But we were just getting acquainted,” Falion mocks, spreading his hands.
Ruhle and his remaining companions flee, and while I’ve always thought I’d enjoy the sight, I can’t turn my back on the real monster in the room.
The smile falls off Falion’s face. “Get up.”
“What do you want with me?” I demand, shoving to my feet.
His eyebrow quirks and then he rakes me over with a disdainful look. “Where’s the horn?”
“Somewhere you’ll never find it. Stay back,” I warn, waving my knife at him.
He stills, but there’s a dangerous look in his merciless blue eyes. “I’m not here to kill you.”
“No?”
“If I wanted you dead, all I had to do was wait. You were about to have your throat slit by that two-bit wraith,” he sneers.
I stare at him, but there’s no hint he’s lying. He wants something from me. It’s not the horn, or he wouldn’t be here. It’s not to see me dead, or he could have merely waited.
“Fine,” I say, flipping the knife and sheathing it at my hip. “I’ll play. Why did you save my life? What do you want?”
“Want?” His gaze hardens. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? I want answers. I want to know who you are and where you came from. And I want to know how you can walk in my shadows….”
26
“Who I am?” Of all the things I expected, it wasn’t this. I spread my hands wide. “I’m Merisel of Greenslieves, the beloved betrothed of Prince K—”
“You’re wraithenborn,” Falion says, his lip curling. “With fae magic in your veins. You’re an impossibility. You should never have been bred. But you….” He takes a dangerous step toward me, making me regret the impulse to sheathe the knife. “You are an abomination.”
The words strike me where they hadn’t been able to hit earlier. “Like I had any choice in the matter. I was born into this body. I didn’t choose it.”
“Who is your father?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“It’s Raesh, isn’t it?” Every step he takes is tight with menace, but it’s the unsettling intensity in his eyes that unnerves me.
I don’t know what he wants.
I don’t know why he’s looking at me like that—like he’s one step short of violence—but this is personal for him, somehow.
He’s a Shadow Walker.
A gift granted to me by my mother.
And she was…. She was…. The heat bleeds out of my face. It’s impossible, but then fae magic tends to run through family bloodlines.
“Answer me,” he snaps. “Your father is Raesh Ghul, the King Beyond the Shadowfangs, isn’t he?”
“What do I get if I say yes?” I drown my sudden terror in a smirk. “A sweetmeat?”
His thumb rasps over the hilt sheathed at his hip. “Maybe I don’t kill you.”
“Maybe you can’t,” I taunt. “You seem to be having some difficulty killing wraithenborn today, considering my sister is walking free.”
Oh, yes, he’s definitely still feeling the weight of losing to Soraya.
We circle each other, and he chokes down the emotion lighting bonfires in his eyes. “Who was your mother?”
It’s an old hurt, but it lances through me like an arrow to the chest. “I don’t know.”
“I overheard Keir call you Zemira,” he says, sauntering toward me nonchalantly despite the wraith blood dripping from his knife. “What’s your real name?”
“You want my name?” I blurt. He’s got to be joking. My father’s the only one who knows my three names, and the giving of such a gift is merely another manacle to shackle myself with.
“Did your mother name you?” Falion demands.
“That’s none of your business.”
“No?” He gives me an evil smile as he spreads his hands. “You walk the shadows. There’s only one fae bloodline that can do that.”
“Two,” I point out. “The Court of Shadows and the Court of the Moon and Stars.”
“One,” he says coldly. “The Court of Shadows took one of our Shadow Walker’s as queen long ago, but her bloodline has long-since died out. I would know. My people kept immaculate records. You shouldn’t exist.”
And then he disappears.
I’m so used to being the only one who can do that, that I hesitate a fraction of a moment too long. Idiot. I spin, driving my knife toward where I expect him to appear, but it merely cuts through the air harmlessly.
Instead, something swipes across the back of my calf.
I scream as I fall, my shadow bleeding across the floor in some amorphous shape. He didn’t cut me. He cut through my shadow, and now it’s untethered and leaves me feeling dizzy.
“You wraithblighted asshole,” I growl.
Falion suddenly reappears, flipping his dagger from hilt to blade and back again as he circles me. “You’re a Shadow Walker,” he confirms, “but you barely know the basics. You’re barely a baby.”
I hiss and lunge toward him, ungainly and heavy in my flesh.
He vanishes again, but this time so do I, even if it’s like clawing my way through quicksand.
The world turns to shadows.
I try to Sift, but something grabs me by the hair and then I’m staggering back into cold, merciless arms.
“You know nothing,” Falion says in disgust, his voice an odd echo in my ear.
I’m little more than a mass of black smoke, a shadow rippling and straining to escape his arms. He wrestles with me, but he’s far more skilled than I am. My inky form keeps breaking away. Instinct wants me to Sift again, but he’s holding me here, like two shadows tangled in each other.
I slam back into reality and hit my knees.
For the first time in my life I
