Page 31 of Shadow's Heart

Who will take care of you?

Though only four, Mina had dedicated herself to him as much as he had to her. They were connected by blood, by their past tragedies, and by devotion.

Tonight, Mina would prove hers. . . .

The sorcerer slept sitting up, his breaths deep and even, his heartbeat like a drum. She quirked a brow. So much for keeping watch. In the waning firelight, her gaze roamed over him. His face appeared chiseled, the shadows lovingly dancing over him.

Shadows. Shady. He certainly was that.

She stared at his mouth and ran the pad of her forefinger over her lips, imagining his kiss. Her inexplicable attraction to him dwarfed the longing she’d felt for Kristoff. The Gravewalker had struck her as the most gorgeous male Mina had ever seen, but this . . . thisruffian’spull was even more powerful.

Her gaze dipped to his laborer’s build. With rest, he’d put on even more ripcord mass. The tattoos across his broad chest, visible between the lapels of his coat, drew her eye. She made out curious shapes, animals, feathers. What did those mean?Why had he marked himself so before he’d even frozen into his immortality?

She would never know, secrets lost to the universe. Like her foremothers before her, she stalked closer to make a kill.

Standing over him, she raised her weapon. Mirceo would never be safe as long as Silt Harea—and his ill-conceived vow—endured.

Good-bye, sorcerer.

Some unsettling hesitation tried to stay her hand. Love for her brother made her swing.

Fourteen

Castle Dacia

“Uh-uh, Leo. Not on your friggin’ life,” Ellie told Lothaire, her thick Appalachian accent pronounced. “When you breezily informed me that you want to vacay in a hellplane filled with the undead, did you think I wasn’t gonna push back?”

Kristoff wasn’t sure why Lothaire had brought him here to Ellie’s sitting room to witness this conversation. Across the space, Balery, the court oracle, gazed on as well, her fey ears giving a twitch with each inflection in the conversation.

Lothaire took a seat beside Ellie, clearly unused to explaining his actions. “Before Nïx lightning-portaled away, she confirmed our suspicions that the Gaolers took Mina to Nightside. And she gave us this.” He handed Ellie the journal.

She skimmed through, then set it aside with a shudder. “Feels as creepy as a two-headed snake.”

“Yes. An evil wizard penned it.” Lothaire had rapidly read it, the pages speeding under his fingers as if the journal were a flipbook cartoon. “Apparently his victims’ blood had stained the pages, requiring witchcraft to clean. I suspect Nïx stole it froma coven. Finders, keepers, et cetera. What’s important is that it contains directions to Nightside’s portal. I’ve garnered enough information for me and Kristoff to try to breach that realm.”

“And why would I go with you?” Kristoff asked, even as he knew he would have to.

“Don’t play coy. You must keep me alive so my secrets don’t die with me.”

Keep alive the one I hate most.

Lothaire turned back to Ellie. “You did say you wanted our niece found.”

“Of course I want Mina found!” she cried. “But you’re talking about waltzing straight into danger. Again. And I’ve heard you yappin’ about how to getintothat plane—but not how to get out.”

Good point.

“If an entrance exists, an exit surely must as well.” Lothaire uttered this unreasonable statement in a reasonable tone. “And consider this: Nïx wants me there. She’s set all these moves into motion. She would not lead me into disaster.”

Ellie raised her brows. “Uh, are you serious? She’s done it to you, like, ten times now. She got you sent to that human pokey, and she knew you were buried in the Bloodroot Forest for six centuries.”

Lothaire’s eyes deepened in color with that memory.

Kristoff had recently learned that Demestriu had planted Lothaire deep within the Horde’s forest, for carnivorous bloodroot trees to feed on his ever-regenerating body. Part of the reason Lothaire wanted to control the Horde castle of Helvita was to raze the trees he’d grown with his blood.

His torment had probably been as hellish as Furie’s, which made sense as they were devised by the same vampire. Known for his tortures, Demestriu had also burned alive the werewolf king for centuries.

Kristoff would almost prefer that over roots boring under his skin. Sometimes he experienced a flare of pity for his half brother. Then he pictured Furie at the bottom of the ocean, her fire wings extinguished, her mind possibly lost.

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