Page 42 of The Shadow Heir

“You’re afraid of sunlight,” I blurted, desperate to shove his weaknesses back at him. “Your court has been defeated before, and I will figure out how.”

The heir chuckled and began walking away once more. “The passionate ones always go down in the brightest flames. My court will enjoy watching you burn.”

Felipe’s hand caught my upper arm a half-second before I lunged for the prince. “I’ll let him see me burn, all right,” I grumbled against Felipe’s hold, his wraith-like touch suddenly stronger. “And he’ll burn with me—I will destroy him.”

The fae’s grip and the sight of the heir waltzing away as if my threats meant nothing to him tore a crazed grunt from my lips. I jerked my arm out of Felipe’s hold, and he did not try to grab me again.

As Casimiro ambled down the long, windowless tunnel, his frame shuddered slightly and his shadow seemed to lurch toward the ceiling, though I couldn’t be sure what was real in this dark world. Whatever it took, I would survive, and the most valuable thing I’d learned today was that there were doors here that led to other worlds. Using the art to make a map of this place, I would find the door that led me back home, and then I’d be free of this place.

18

Casimiro

Alba’s idea of employing this new mortal as a spy occupied my mind as I scared a pair of dryads away from the base of our mountain, where I’d been reconstructing a weakened part of the magical barrier that hid our mountain from fae and mortal eyes alike. As one of only a few fae in my court with concealment powers and the one with the strongest ability to cast a spell that would last for months untended, this job fell to me when Father was absent. It felt like grunt work, but I was grateful for the fresh air and the moment away from Alba’s prying eyes and Felipe's knowing looks. Between the two of them, there was little I could hide, and I didn’t want anyone knowing I’d decided to invest a mortal’s help to uncover the traitors in my own court.

There was no sense speaking to Zara until I’d replenished the supply of herbs necessary to mix the antidote, but I’d kept an eye on her. For the remainder of the week, she haunted the paths outside the palace like some demented mountain goat, wrapped in everything from a blanket to a fur cape—an addition I wasn’t expecting her wardrobe to supply. Every time I pushed magic through the court to find her, she was scampering around on thenarrow, crisscrossing outdoor pathways that were built at the behest of the Sun Sovereign back when this place was nothing more than a prince’s home, not the seat of our court. Back when day and night courted each other like lovers. When sunlight wasn’t the shackles it had become to my kind.

A different time. My father’s predecessor, King Caligo, was born of the marriage between the Sun Queen and a Prince of Night. Caligo took the power of his mother and father and established this court, starting the war that tore our court from the rest of Rivenmark, banishing us to this mountain between worlds. But Caligo’s reign was not to last.

My father was the one who killed Caligo, weakened as he was after the war.

And that was the legacy I had to live up to. A three-thousand-year reign of complete, tyrannical supremacy.

From my bedroom balcony, I studied the horizon as two dragons raced each other in the growing twilight. The beasts moved with more grace and speed than any other living creatures, but their fire and their hatred of our magic kept us from admiring them up close. Only the ones we stole as eggs and kept in cages were ours to admire. But even they eventually outgrew our confines and our magic.

They were tolerant enough to let us share their mountain, only because we gifted them with jewels mined as we tunneled deep underground. But our stores of jewels were long depleted, and the dragons would tire of us when the magic of the stones they loved was finally all spent. A dragon could smell magic in the blood, in the air, and quite possibly in someone’s intentions, but the only magic they liked was the inherent magic woven into the world at its creation, magic that was mostly gone now.

My fingers rolled a tiny ruby back and forth, back and forth, as my eyes moved from the racing dragons to the curly-haired woman darting along a distant path high above. If shewas looking for an escape route up there, she would be sorely disappointed.

One side of my mouth twitched. The woman never stopped moving. Like a tree forced to grow on a windswept hillside, she remained in constant motion. I didn’t know what she was searching for, but the ferocity with which she hunted instilled admiration inside me. Most mortals succumbed to despair soon after arriving in these halls. But not her. If anything, she burned even brighter now than she had the night I’d danced with her in her ballroom.

“Burn, little spark.” My words were sucked away by the howling wind. I curled my fist around the ruby, angry at the pain shooting up my veins that accompanied my shifting thoughts about this woman.

My father always hated my curiosity about mortals. Curiosity, he’d said, was only useful when it uncovered secrets. I chuckled to myself. At the present moment, the secret I most wanted to uncover was what Zara Valencia was hunting.

Before the trial in two days’ time, I would speak with her. Until then, I’d make sure she didn’t do anything foolish, like accept anyone else’s help.

In my shadow form, beneath a concealment spell, Zara couldn’t see me. I slinked silently through the dark passage behind her, indistinguishable from the black stone walls and chilly air that bled through these halls. The trial would take place in two days, and I still hadn’t spoken with her. She’d refused Alba’s attempts to recruit her as a dueling partner, which only cemented the notion that Zara Valencia wasn’t going to say yes to a request from a fae without ample reason to.

My physical body remained in my suite, and when the door to my room burst open and Felipe stomped in, my shadow form flickered briefly at the disturbance in my concentration.

Felipe glanced at a gray-haired mortal woman sprawled on the floor, swept his hair back, and shut the door behind him. He stepped over her body and set a small vial on the desk beside my arm. My veins ran black and thick, raised under my skin like little moles bored through my flesh.

Once again avoiding the mortal like she was nothing other than a piece of furniture to step around, Felipe edged back, his brows lifted. He clasped his hands at his waist and waited for me to speak, to thank him for the replenished supply of ingredients I needed to make my antidote.

In another part of the castle, my shadow form watched as Zara marched obediently toward the arena for her final day of training. If I was to employ her, I must speak with her tonight.

While hearing and seeing in both forms had become easy enough, talking in both forms at the same time was extraordinarily tricky magic. In my physical body, my eyes remained fixed on the vial, its murky contents enough to make my stomach sour, remembering how goosenettle stuck to my throat like drying paint and forced me to endure its lingering taste.

Felipe cleared his throat.

I looked up at him, mind focused elsewhere. The mortal on the floor groaned, and Felipe sidestepped, his lip curling in disgust.

“She’s alive,” he announced, surprised. “So, it worked.”

“Of course she’s alive,” I said, ripping my awareness away from Zara’s bouncing curls two hallways away. My shadow form would have to wait. No one could know I was trailing a mortal or why. I nudged the prostrate woman’s shoulder with my bare toes. She jerked a little, and her eyes popped open.

I yanked my foot back. Felipe laughed.

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