Page 45 of Shadow's Heart

“I haven’t. Not in all my years.” Silt had planned to demoralize the princess; so why did the stoic acceptance in her eyes make him need to smash something? “Doesn’t mean thereisn’t one. Besides, if you’re bent on using Dorada’s wishgiver, I wager that would work on the plague.”

“You made logical points about the ring. Perhaps I wouldn’t sign over my life to her.”

Then perhaps you’re going to lose that clever mind of yours.And all of this was a moot point anyway if they couldn’t escape.

Staring straight ahead, she said, “I thought you would have more information about my situation.”

“Maybe I do. How did you get clawed?”

“I lost focus and my concealment for only a few moments, yet it was enough for a Horde vampire to seize my arm. We fought, and he sliced my skin.”

“How much time passed between that wound and the Gaolers coming for you?”

“I roamed New Orleans for mere hours before they appeared.”

“Hours, was it?” He had a suspicion.

She finally faced him. “Yes, so?”

“I’ll tell you more if you answer some questions.”

“Pose them, and we’ll see.”

“What’s Dacia like?” He’d never met someone who hailed from a “mythical” kingdom.

She hesitated, and he could all but see her calculating the risks versus benefits of answering him. At length she said, “Our realm is located in a hollowed-out mountain range with a breathtaking black-stone castle in the center. At the top of the highest mountain is a diamond as big as a cottage that allows in filtered sunlight, so we have days of a sort.” She slid him an unreadable look as she added, “Sometimes we even see a hint of moonlight.” Then her gaze went distant. “Mist is constant, blanketing the cobblestone streets. Blood fountains bubble, feeding the populace. The kingdom is known as the Realm of Blood and Mist for a reason. My brother and I are all that’s leftof the House of Castellan, the castle guard. We’re considered the heart of Dacia, tasked with caring for all those within its walls.”

“What was your life as a princess like?”

He didn’t expect her to answer that question, but she surprised him: “I appreciated what I had, but I often felt smothered. Mirceo and my uncles don’t see eye to eye over much, but they all agreed I should be protected. Which meant sheltered.”

Not sheltered enough.You’re in hell—withme, forgodsakes. Silt the Befouler.

“Sometimes . . . it was as if I moldered in a grave, slowly dying. Though I understood the risks to me away from the kingdom, I burned to dig my way out to freedom. To never look back.”

You dug straight into a plague-ridden prison sentence.“And here you are.”Fucked as fucked can be.

She nodded. “Yes. On an adventure like no other.”

Heh. “You said your parents died. What happened to them?”

“They were murdered—my father before I arrived, and my mother when I was three. Mirceo was just fifteen.”

Silt cast his mind back to when he’d been the same age. He’d already been pledged to revenge for years by that time. “Who did it?”

“My uncle Stelian’s father. He was then secretly murdered by another family member, most likely one of my other uncles. We might never know by whom. It’s all a snarl of royal intrigues and backbiting,” she said with a dismissive wave, again as if Silt couldn’t keep up with such lofty matters. “The generations who came before mine nearly destroyed an entire family through grudges, and we were expected to inherit our line’s vendetta, to punish Stelian and more. But Mirceo and I reject that. We’ve declined that inheritance forever.”

Silt stared at her in bafflement. She was breaking the chain of pain? Ignoring vendettas? “You don’t want to avenge your parents?”

“Mirceo told me that while they were loving to us, they were just as eager as the rest of the royals to deal death for power. Which meant other relatives might have inherited their own vendettas—against us. When Mirceo took over as my guardian, he was also my protector, always looking over his shoulder for danger. I’m more a daughter than a sister to him.”

Then pain was heading Mirceo’s way, regardless of Silt’s moves. “I can’t square the idea of your brother as some selfless protector.” The vampire had seemed apologetic during Silt’s handoff to the Gaolers, as if he’d had found a kindred spirit whom he’d been forced to screw over.No hard feelings.“He struck me as more of a hedonist.”

“Once the danger lessened and he was assured of my safety, he partook of all the delights denied a young man.”

“So you don’t mind dissolution in general. Just when I do it.”

“I believe there’s a difference between indulging because of desire or because of necessity. The trick is knowing which is which.”

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