Page 118 of Shade of Ruin

I reach out for the shadows that cling to the bed, and I throw all of my so-called friends out of the darkness. I can feel them leave this place. Darian and Lee had almost given themselves all the way over to the darkness. I’d almost killed them.

The pressure is still there. The temptation of serenity is still calling to me. But I ignore it.

I have to heal Hazel. If nothing else, that has to happen before I let the darkness claim me. I reach for the shadow and pull myself toward the light.

And just as I’m about to leave, I hear a soft voice. A voice I barely remember. “Little Star?”

Then I’m out, and I’m standing in my old room in my aunt and uncle’s townhouse in Blackgrove. Darian and Lee are barely awake, the darkness not wanting to give up its grip on them. I reach out toward them and pull the shadows that cling to their souls away, surprised at how close to being lost they are.

Cole is staring at me, his eyes burning orange. I glance down at my wrist as another tally mark burns away. “You owe two more debts,” he says.

I nod to him. He saved us all from the darkness. The anger inside me is gone, taken away, but the love I’d felt for Cole may be gone as well. I can’t tell, but I know I can’t look at him the same way.

Then he speaks again. “I call in the debt,” he whispers, and I can feel the magic in the next tally mark activating. “Do not hurt Darian and Lee, my Queen,” he whispers. He could have said not to hurt any of them, but he didn’t.

I shake my head slowly, but I don’t argue. I don’t talk. Instead, I leave them there. I walk out of the room and don’t bother closing the door. I just brought three High Fae into my family’shouse, and they’re going to be furious. That only makes me feel better.

That lightning may not be bouncing around inside me, but nothing is right. Nothing. Except, strangely enough, Aunt Prudence, Uncle Trevor, and Hazel. Those three people have never tried to manipulate me at all. Aunt Prudence and Uncle Trevor may have hated me. They may have wished that I were dead, but they never lied to me.

Right now, I’d much rather deal with honest hatred than deceitful smiles.

And yet, as I walk without my mother’s ring on, shadows pour from my fingertips, swirling around me just like the shadows had swirled around the Shade’s cloak. They crawl over my traveling clothes, clinging to me like my only friends in the world.

But they aren’t. Hazel’s my friend. She may not be an Immortal, and she may never understand me, but she’s my friend in a way that no one else in my life has been. She’s never tried to manipulate me or lie to me.

That’s why, when I step into the sitting room and see Aunt Prudence, I smile at her even as she stares in shock at me. “Good afternoon, Aunt Prudence,” I say more politely than I can remember.

“Maeve,” she whispers. The book she was reading falls to the floor. “I thought you’d be dead. After you left…”

I smile wider and survey the room, my eyes landing on Hazel, who looks far worse than I remember her being. Silently, she stares at me. The look on her face is shock, but the curve of her lips tells me she’s happy even if I’m sure that my visage is a bit unsettling for her. “I survived just fine, thank you very much.”

I ignore anything else that Aunt Prudence says and move toward my cousin. Her eyes follow me, and I realize just how farthose black lines have gone. All the way up her chest. The tips of the blackened lines peek out from her high-necked day dress.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper to her and take her hand. I hadn’t hurt her with shadows. I know that now. The House of Earth is not based on desire or revulsion. No, it’s powered by peace and anger. Peace like I found in the forests and anger like I experienced that day in this townhouse. Anger that flowed from me to her, turning her blood black.

Poison. I run my hand over hers, and she shivers at my touch, but I just smile. I never needed Calyr. I needed peace. I needed control over my powers. Just as easily as I pulled the shadows from Darian and Lee, I draw out the poison from Hazel’s skin, a flood of blackened sludge. It flows through her skin just as easily as my shadows flow from mine.

The sludge falls to the floor, and Hazel’s body visibly relaxes. “Oh, Maeve. I knew you’d come back,” she whispers. “I knew you’d survive. Mother and Father said that you were dead, that the monsters that attacked the inn had killed you, but I knew. Deep down, no matter what anyone said, I knew that you’d survive. You always do.”

I hold up her hand so that she looks at it. “I did. I survived, and I learned many things in the process. I’m sorry I hurt you, but you’re all better now.”

She looks down at her arm, a smile curling up. “Thank you.”

I’d expected to feel accomplished, as if I could go back to my old life after this, but now it just feels like I’m further away from my old life than I was before. Everything I’ve done had originally been for Hazel, but now that she’s healed, I have no reason to be here. I have no reason to be connected to her or anyone from my past.

Her eyes dance in the afternoon sunlight that streams through the window. “You look different… well, more different than you used to. You look like one of them.”

I nod my head. “I am different. I think that maybe I’m not a Wyrdling anymore. Maybe I’m full-blooded High Fae now.”

“You are. The Painted Crown burned away your humanity.” Cole’s voice says from behind me. I turn to see him staring at me from my bedroom doorway. Aunt Prudence whirls around, her eyes going wide as she looks at him. Her face shows her emotions as plainly as if they’d been written down. First, it’s surprise, then it’s lust, and finally, it’s anger.

The typical set of instincts from any human that stumbles on a High Fae.

“He’s a Prince, Aunt Prudence,” I say, not bothering to mention my connection to him.

“Then why is he here? Shouldn’t he be in a castle somewhere with his kind?” The anger and suspicion are so intense, but I understand why she’d feel like that. I nearly killed Hazel, and a single High Fae could destroy a village in the blink of an eye. There are certainly good reasons she wouldn’t want him here.

But he smiles at her. “I am only here because my Queen has commanded it. I won’t stay long and will disrupt your lives as little as possible.” Then he bows to her.

---