Page 95 of The Evernight Court

The people suffered—the peoplealwayssuffered. I had no problem with that.

What I had a problem with was that Fall was out there, andshewas suffering, too.

I didn’t know her well enough, not even close to how I wanted to know her. I wanted to study her even more than I already had. I wanted to know her mind inside out the way I knew her body. But from what little I did know, she was in pain. She was stuck. She was trapped in that fucking castle, and she would not accept the help of anyone in it—and rightly so. They would all betray her if given the chance, but to be allalone among men like my brothers was a death sentence, just like mine.

It drove me crazy, that thought, even though I knew she’d figure out how to survive eventually.

When she came to the castle, the first thing I noticed about her was that she wasn’t a quitter. Her beauty had disarmed me completely at first sight, yes, but the depth of her had ensnared me for good. She’d ended up in the Whispering Woods without her consent, and she’d quickly found out exactly what that meant, and she still constantly defied my brothers and me. Constantly tried to find a way out and she wasn’t afraid to tell anyone that she would escape the first chance she got.

How fascinating. I hadneverbefore met anyone like her. I had never before come across someone who didn’t care about who I was or what my last name was or what it meant.

No, she was not affected by the looks of us, by the appeal of magic, the promise of fake glamour and power and ruling. She was just…Fall.

It’s no wonder I fell for her the way I did.

The surprise of finding outshe existeddid me in the most, but it was the little things that pulled me under all the way. How she smiled. How she laughed—only when she genuinely meant to. Her curiosity about everything and anything, the idea that the best days of her life were when she was sneaking into her school to make music, and the sound she loved most was that of birds. She wanted tomakethings, bring them to life, and she was so good at it. The first time she played the piano was the first time I decided the world was worth exploring if something so soulful could exist in it. It wasn’t all darkness and deception, lies and manipulation. It was beautiful, too. Fall could make it so.

She really was good at it, at many things—except that awful, awful joke she told me that night. I was smiling as Iclimbed the rocks of the mountain even now. I’d never wanted to laugh as much as I did in those moments in the kitchen, and it had taken all my will to hold myself back.

Perfect.She was perfect. And I was pretty sure the memory of her was the reason I was still here. She kept me alive even when we were a world apart.

And I couldn’t get to her, even knowing she needed me.

I made it all the way to the top of the mountain, but I had no more energy left to shout at the skies again. Death had never scared me. The thought of it had never even bothered me until now. Had I ended up here before I met Fall, I wouldn’t have minded withering away in that cave.

In fact, I’d have welcomed my end with open arms.

But everything was different now, and despite it, there was no way out. Despite it, I was stuck here because of my brother’s foolish jealousy.

Damn you, Romin,I thought to myself. He’d always been afraid of me, always thought I was after his position as the ruler of the court—which was fucking ridiculous. I wouldn’t have accepted it if he offered. I didn’t want to rule over two-faced people who’d stab me in the back the moment it was convenient. I guess that’s whyIgot stabbed in the back by my brother the first chance he got.

I should have known. I should have fucking seen it coming. I should have expected him to try to find any reason to get rid of me, just so he didn’t have to be afraid of me anymore. Just so he could have Fall all to himself.

The anger that rose inside me at the thought of him or any of them putting their hands on her burned me. I slammed my fists onto the rocks of the mountain with all my remaining strength.

The mountain groaned, and for a moment, I considered the dragon inside it might awaken. For a moment, I considered he’d come out of the tomb. I wasn’t afraid—on the contrary.My mind kept trying to figure out more ways to get out of here, and half of me was convinced that that dragon could actually take me back.

Because there had to be a way out. I was sure of it. Valentine had been desperate to get banished, and I’d figured it out much too late, only when he sent his wounded dragon after Fall, knowing Storm was right there. Knowing he would be stopped in time. Whether he meant to really hurt Fall or not didn’t matter—he was hoping to be accused oftryingand get banished.

When Storm smashed that small dragon of his to the ground, I was about to tell Rominnotto banish him yet. I was about to pull Romin to the side and tell him that we needed to question him first, find out what he was planning, because he’d found a way out of the Eighth Isle, no doubt. Valentine was no fool—on the contrary. He was a very smart young man. If he wanted to get banished, it was because he knew a way out.

It all made sense when Fall said he’d taken her to Faeries’ Aerie. He'd done that with magic. And whatever kind of magic he’d used for that, he would use the same to set himself free of the Eighth Isle forever.

The consequences to that could be dire, and so I’d planned to force the truth out of him as soon as Fall was in our bedroom, safe from everyone and their dragons.

I’d planned—and then my coward of a brother had banishedmebecause he knew he’d never get a better chance. He’d doomed me and Fall, not to mention Storm.My dragonwho would be withering in Agva now, waiting to die.

Maybe that’s why the mountain was still groaning even though I had no strength to slam my fists to it again. Maybe it felt what I was feeling, and it was raging with me.

It took me a while to realize that all that noise wasn’t coming from the mountain at all. I’d been so lost in my ownhead, my thoughts chaotic, a fucking mess, that I hadn’t noticed that the sky was moving. That the darkness had begun to swirl around itself, creating a hole in it, and it was spinning faster by the second.

Realization froze me right there on top of the mountain as the first lightning strike illuminated the entire Isle.

Someone was coming.

Another Evernight had been banished, and the sky was about to spit them out any second.

Lightning struck again. I saw the small figure in the distance spinning around itself as it fell. I saw him, and even though I couldn’t make out his clothes or his face, I already knew who it was.

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