Page 80 of The Shadow Heir

With my finger, I traced the corners of his mouth, pushing the last couple of drops of antidote into his mouth. If he needed every drop of it, I wasn’t going to let a single bit go to waste. I wiped my fingers on his lips to make sure he got it all. His eyes watched me the entire time, and pretty soon my skin was on fire, though not from a fever. My fingers lingered on his mouth a split second longer than necessary. I jerked them back toward me, but his hand reached up and found mine, and with the smallest of movements, he kissed the ends of my first two fingers before his head lolled to the side and he dropped off to sleep.

33

Zara

My head reeled, but not from dizziness as I stood frozen beside Cas’s bed.

Had he justkissedme?

At least he wasn’t watching me for my reaction. But to be safe, I spun in a circle in case he opened his eyes again. My hands instinctively traveled up to my chest, and I rested my chin on my knuckles, remembering the past few hours as best I could.

Because I’d certainly missed something.

Casimiro, heir of the Shadow Court, couldn’t possibly have been in his right mind when he… I fanned out the fingers on my left hand and stared at the place his lips had touched.

When I’d been administering his medicine, I hadn’t thought about how my hands were all over him. Or at least, I hadn’t thoughthe’dnotice. I was merely treating a patient. It’s what any nurse would do.

But, stars above, he’d noticed. He’d sensed my hesitation to let go and read it in my eyes. How could I have let him get to me? A fae was definitely on the list ofwrong guysto fall for, and theprince of shadows—an immortal who despised humans—was at the top of the list.

In my head, I watched that list burn.

I stepped through the doorway that led to his study and back to the halls that would take me to the infirmary where my burns could be treated and I could finally rest again. I’d promised myself that love would solve my problems, not create more, and he wasdefinitelymore. Perhaps my overzealous heart would calm down after a good sleep.

I glanced back at his quietly breathing form before stepping out of his bedroom. Half of me wanted to run back and check those black lines to see if they’d receded farther. I nearly did. But then I was closing the heavy door to his study behind me and slipping quietly down the cold stone hall.

Samuel was in the infirmary when I got there. Half his body was bandaged, but he was alive. The nurse explained that Samuel had rolled to shield Eudoria from the flames. The elderly woman, Ivy, and Tomas had all survived. Apparently, the dragons had taken flight about the time I’d passed out, leaving us alone and angering the fae.

The mortal nurse, a man named Nadoo with skin as smooth and dark as the palace walls, explained that dragon fire burns could not be healed fully with fae magic. The wounds could be closed up with a spell, but the infection and the remaining burn scars had to be treated the old-fashioned way. With mortal medicine and time.

I’d slept for the majority of the first two days, but after that, time passed slowly. The pain was manageable, but I’d never felt so tired in my life. Staying awake to help Cas had seemed easy at the time—after all, he’d needed me to. But it had taxed me more than I’d realized.

I was not allowed to leave until Nadoo was certain the infection was gone. But three days in the otherwise empty, pristine room set aside for sick and wounded servants felt like six months.

Finally alert when Nadoo came to doctor my wounds, I watched as a second nurse changed the bandages on Samuel’s arms. “Why didn’t they let him die?” I asked as Nadoo dabbed a thick cream onto my burns.

He shrugged. “The heir commanded that the survivors be treated. The king won’t like it. He’ll be in a rage when he returns.” The man shivered and replaced the lid on the cream. “The heir will go the way of the rest of them.”

My heart turned over in my chest. “Go? Is the heir leaving when the king returns?”

The man pursed his lips. “Leaving? No, my dear, he will not survive his father’s return. No heir ever does.”

“Wha—?” All the breath rushed from my lungs, and I clutched my sheets in tight fists. “What do you mean?”

He clicked his tongue, clearly annoyed at my concern for the prince of this court. “The king kills them all as soon as he returns. Everyone knows it.” He leaned forward, oblivious to my quickening breaths. “The coup is this court’s best bet for ousting that eternal madman. If they can kill both heirsanda handful of the mortals tied to him, breaking several of his bargains at once, theymighthave a chance.” He lifted both eyebrows dramatically. “But in three thousand years, no one’s ever done it.”

I remained in a seated position, staring blankly at the far wall of the infirmary long after Nadoo left and the lights dimmed.

My palms peeled stickily away from my sheets when I finally released them and rose from my bed to relieve myself in the washroom.

I’d learned more in the two minutes I’d spoken to Nadoo than I had the entirety of my stay in this palace. Death awaited Cas, as it had every one of his siblings. My chest ached to think how many brothers and sisters he might have lost in his long life. No wonder he’d lived with such anger—such hate.

He only had Alba now. Their closeness suddenly made more sense.

For hours, I couldn’t shake the memory of his chest beneath my face as I’d slept in that sunlit field. He wasn’t the man I’d once thought him. And he would die as soon as his father returned.

All I could see as I tried to sleep were the black lines snaking toward Casimiro’s chest.He will not survive.No heir ever has. The words etched into my mind like the carvings on the stone walls of Nightsong.

As I lay there, tucked into a small ball in my creaky infirmary bed, I whispered his name into the dark.

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