Page 40 of The Shadow Heir

As I marched back out of the tunnel, the shadows seeming to twist and slink away, I had the distinct feeling someone had been watching me.

17

Zara

Iwalked back to the massive cavern where I’d nearly died, hoping to find a bit of food, but by the time I arrived, every table was empty and sparkling clean. I saw one servant carrying a platter of fruit out the cavern doors. I followed them up several floors, hungry enough to test the warning about eating fae fruit, until they deposited the food in a small cavern that seemed to be a kitchen of sorts. That room, windowless and dark as all the rest, was filled with piles of fruit, bread, dried meats, and cheeses resting on stone slabs that ran along the walls like counters. There was a massive fireplace hung with pots and a skylight for the smoke. After a baguette and a mountain of dried salami, I felt much better.

A pair of servants came in, took some fruit, and left. Perhaps they were delivering it. Or they had a way to avoid its magical effects?

I left the cavern, wishing I had someone to talk to. By the time I reached the windowed hall outside our bedrooms, the bright midday sun reflected off the mountain peaks with blinding, intoxicating light.

Ivy wasn’t in her room.

For several minutes, I stared out at the rushing waterfall pouring from the heart of the mountain. My full stomach churned uneasily at the memory of the dip’s fangs so close to my throat. The prince’s horrible face filled my mind, and I doubled over, clutching my arms around my middle. To him, I was no different than the rope he tossed to his pet.

I placed my hands on the glass of one of the tall windows, its cold touch pulling my scattered thoughts together. I tried to recall everything I’d ever heard about the fae, anything that might give me an advantage here. These shadow fae hated the sunlight, but they’d found a place to live where the sun barely even touched their windows. But unless I could bottle sunlight, that knowledge would do me little good. My fingers fisted on the glass, the imprint of my hand slowly fading. There had to be something else, some weakness I hadn’t yet discovered that could help me beat the fae at their games.

Pushing away from the windows, I strode down the hall, away from the stairwells that descended to the dining cavern and the tunnels that snaked around to the door that led to the arena. The spartan hallways never changed, each opening up with the same smooth walls and lack of adornment, save for intermittent carvings etched in the stone. Memories filled my mind of the artwork hanging in my home in Leor. My father had little taste for art, but he enjoyed having impressive pieces in our home. We had a massive painting of a greyhound, and we didn’t even own a greyhound. In the ballroom, the ceiling was painted with scenes of the more popular Avencian myths: the sun god and his wife, a woman who could transform into a red macaw; beings who could wield sunlight in their hands fighting their enemies, dark creatures with black swords; and clouds that parted and led to a place so bright it outshined the sun.

As I peered at the nearest carving on the wall, I chuckled to myself. Art could tell me much about these fae, for art told the truths of a culture.

I ran my hand over the fine lines, expertly cut into the stone. This image depicted stars over water, with what looked like a whirlpool in the center and stars falling from the sky into the massive vortex. I titled my head as I considered what this might represent. The fae had different courts, according to Ivy, and one of them was the Star Court. Perhaps the Shadow Court didn’t like the Star Court?

I moved down the hallway, eager now to find another carving, another truth captured in art.

I found an etching of a mountain range with peaks as sharp and majestic as the ones outside my bedroom. Another image showed dragons in flight. And another, dance scenes where the fae in ballgowns and suits held swords and daggers as they twirled. One carving on the ceiling above a stairwell revealed an enormous battle. The ceiling above the top of the flight of steps had pointy-eared fae soldiers with raging faces and pointed swords, and as I descended, I walked beneath depictions of the carnage. Winged bodies sprawled out, lifeless, with others grasping for help, their weapons cast down beside them.

I walked back and forth up and down the stairwell, studying the carving. Without color, the images were difficult to discern, but the white light cast the lines into relief, making them easy to see against the smooth ceiling. Some of the fallen soldiers appeared like two figures emerging from the same set of feet, one standing and the other fallen on the ground. The fae with wings had small swirling lines coming from them. These were the shadow fae. And this was a battle they had lost.

With one hand pressed to the wall, I walked back up the steps and craned my neck to look at who the winning soldiers were. They had no wings. No swirling shadows around them. None ofthem appeared to have two forms either. They wore armor on their chests marked with a sun symbol.

“Aha,” I said, rolling my neck. “So you do have enemies. This must be the Sun Court. And it looks like they beat you. Whenever this was.”

I wondered if their hatred of sunlight had anything to do with this battle. Ivy had said the Shadow Court broke off from the other courts. Was this battle a portrayal of that event?

I moved on, feeling like I’d learned something of value, but still feeling like there was so much to learn. One carving looked eerily like it had been defaced with claw marks, and I turned away from that hall, choosing instead the hall branching off the opposite way, which was marked with an etching of two fae locked in a kiss. I frowned and turned away.

But something odd about the image, or maybe my own curiosity, turned me back to it. Swirling lines circled the pair, and upon closer inspection, it looked almost like the pair was bleeding from their entwined hands, their blood mingling in the swirling pattern around them. The strangest part was that a crowd was gathered around them, and flowers decorated every head, almost like this was a fae wedding.

I made a face and forced myself to look away. If that was a fae wedding, I hoped I never had to see one.

After another right turn, the hallway abruptly ended at a solid wall of stone, less polished than the rest of the castle halls. A scene had been carved into the rock to look like an open doorway revealing a world beyond. Within the false doorway, chiseled by skilled hands, was the illusion of overlapping tree branches. In the center of the image was an eye.

My fingers brushed against the stone, feeling the grooves of the design. As my hand passed over the eye, it pulsed a faint blue.

I yanked my hand back and clutched it to my chest.

“I don’t think you want to go through that door,” someone spoke from behind me.

Felipe strolled toward me, hands clasped behind his back under a cape that billowed lazily at his slow pace. The pale light of the orbs overhead washed his dark skin in a ghostly light.

My heart hammered loudly in my chest. “Where does it lead?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. I hadn’t broken any rules, but I couldn’t suppress the feeling that I was about to be punished. If I screamed, I doubted anyone would hear me—or care.

Felipe stopped a few paces from me. “You needn’t worry. I’m not here to punish you.” My eyes bulged, but he lifted a hand to silence me. “And no, I cannot read your mind, señorita Valencia. It so happens that we can read mortals like any other language. You speak your thoughts so plainly with your bodies that we do not have to read your mind.”

The fact that he was reading my body sent a shiver of disgust down my back.

“And to answer your question, this door leads to a country called Verindal. It exists on no map you would have studied, as it lies under the protection of the fae. No humans can inhabit those lands.”

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