Page 24 of Bound to the Shadow Prince

Things are getting desperate.

I lie in the darkness and contemplate my options. Balon won’t help me. He’s made it clear that he’s going to show up when he pleases, talk of nothing but court gossip to me, and then leave again. I have to make things last until the solstice next year, when new supplies will be delivered.

And as I check the root cellar for the dozenth time in the last few days, I come to the realization that I don’t have nearly enough supplies. Either I’ve been deliberately sabotaged or whoever is in charge of supplying me needs to be removed from their post. That, or I’ve managed my supplies so very poorly that I’ve gone through a year’s worth of goods in a season. It doesn’t matter. What matters now is that I need to take action.

I can run out of everything and starve. I can let my potion run out and die. I can bargain with Nemeth for some of his supplies.

Or I can kill him, just as Erynne suggested, and take everything.

The thought sits with me all day. I don’t think of myself as a murderer, but I also don’t immediately dismiss the idea. I don’t like the idea of starving while he sits all pompous in the shadows, but he’s got a name. We’ve had conversations.

It’s hard to kill the enemy. It’s doubly hard when you know their name.

I don’t have many options, though. I feel naked without my knife, even though there are other blades in the kitchen. It’s that my knife was my consultant, my companion, my advice giver. I search for it all over again the next day, and I think about Nemeth and how I would kill him.

I don’t have the supplies for poison. I don’t have the strength or stealth to take him by surprise in his bed.

Maybe a seduction? He’s dismissive of me, but he also watched me bathe and didn’t seem in a hurry to leave. I could seduce his goods out of him, I decide. And if that fails, I can invite him to my bed and then kill him.

Then I’d have no problems with food or wood to last me through the year…but I would be sharing the tower with a dead body.

For the hundredth time a day, I want to just get up and walk out of the tower. To somehow get the doors open and unbricked, and race out into the fresh air. Damn the favor of the Golden Moon Goddess. Damn the crops that would surely be destroyed if the goddess is angered. Damn it all and just take my freedom.

Thunder crackles overhead, loud and booming enough to make me jump. It’s as if the gods are reminding me that I’m at their mercy. Figures. It’s the first storm I’ve heard since arriving, violent enough to make the walls shiver each time the thunderpeals and lightning strikes. Rain hammers on the tower, violent and furious, and it seems like fate when something wet drips onto my forehead.

Because of course the tower would have a leak.

The goddess really isn’t making me warm up to the idea of being her sacrifice, I grumble to myself as I drag my bed frame out of the way. Once it’s moved, I can hear theplip plip plipof the water dripping down from the floor above. Lightning crashes again, so loud that it shakes the tower itself. “Yes, yes,” I mutter aloud at the displeasure of the gods. “I’m staying. Don’t worry.”

I pick up my dress, intending to slip it over my head and lace it up, then head upstairs to check out the leak. The moment I do, though, I toss the dress back down. Does it matter if I wander about the tower in nothing but my filmy chemise? It’s not as if there’s anyone to see except Nemeth, and he’s already seen everything.

Even though it pains me, I light one of my precious candles and lift it in the air, heading out to the landing and towards the steps to the third floor. Thunder crackles overhead, booming and startling me with the severity of it. It’s the season of storms, so I’m not all that surprised. They’ll shower down for a month, and then it’s harvest time, and then come the snows.

After the thunder dies down, though, I hear something downstairs. It sounds like something hitting the wall, a soft thump that isn’t made by the storm itself. I imagine Nemeth falling down the stairs below, or the storm shaking loose a brick and it landing on his head. I imagine him lying on the floor, broken and bloodied, and when the strange, soft thump occurs again, my curiosity gets the better of me.

Instead of heading upstairs, I go down to the floor below.

Nemeth’s door is closed. Another round of thunder rumbles, the stone walls practically shaking, and then I hear a crash fromwithin. I move to his door and knock. “Everything all right in there?”

The door whips open to reveal a wild-eyed Fellian. Behind him, I catch a glimpse of crowded shelves, full of books and supplies. Before I have a chance to catch more than a quick look, Nemeth focuses stark eyes on me and then tugs me into his quarters. “Good, a hostage.”

A…what?

Chapter

Eighteen

My candle sputters as I surge forward into Nemeth’s room. He looks crazed, eyeing the walls with what looks like anger or resentment.

I’m confused. “What’s going on?”

“They are attacking the tower,” he says, grabbing me by my shoulders and eyeing the walls. “I have never heard such a din. Do they mean to tear it apart and pull us from the rubble?”

Thunder crashes overhead again and he jerks, his wings flicking out and extending in what must be a reflexing action. He pulls me against him, his claws twisting in the voluminous folds of my chemise.

Is this big Fellian warrior…afraid of thunder? Surely I am misunderstanding him. “You do know that’s a storm, right?”

His wild gaze focuses on me. “What?”

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