Page 22 of Vow of the Shadow King

I’m in motion before my mind has a chance to catch up with my body. In three swift bounds, I cross the space between me and her. Even now, with terror surging in my veins, I do not forget the vow I’ve just spoken. Rather than touch her, I throw myself between her and the stone that breaks and falls from above. It would have brained her. I take it in my shoulder instead. Pain shoots through my body as I’m driven to my knees.

Faraine leaps back, one hand pressed to her chest, the other to her midsection. She stares at me, at the broken stone, at the unstable wall. At last, her gaze fixes on my shoulder. It throbs as though in response to her notice. I grimace, put up a hand to touch the sore place. My palm comes away sticky with blue blood.

“Vor!”

The sound of my name on her lips shoots straight to my core. Before I can speak a word of reassurance, she crouches before me and works to tear a strip off the hem of her robe. “It’s fine,” I protest when she presses the fabric to the wound. I wince but shake my head firmly. “No, leave it. It’s nothing Madame Ar cannot patch up.”

Faraine frowns, lifting her cloth and looking at the cut. “It looks deep.”

I twist my neck, trying to see. “I’ve had worse.”

She shakes her head, gets to her feet, and hastens to the bed. There she fetches a remnant of torn canopy fabric, shakes out the dust as best she can, before folding it into a square. “Here,” she says, returning to press it into my shoulder. “Can you lift your arm?”

I can and do. She winds her strip of fabric around my body to hold the square of blue fabric in place. “It’s not an ideal bandage, I know,” she mutters, “but we must stop the bleeding. It’ll have to do.”

Her nearness intoxicates me. The curve of her neck and shoulder, revealed against the neckline of her garment. The softness of her hair, even beneath the film of gray dust. The smell of her, so sweet, so delicate. Like a flower of the human world, bathed in sunshine and starlight by turns. So different from the subterranean blossoms of Mythanar.

She doesn’t belong here. But I cannot bear the idea of her going.

Which is why she must go. As soon as possible.

She steps back. The stern line between her brows deepens as she inspects her work. Then her gaze flicks sideways, catching mine. I don’t look away. I can’t. I wish I could make her see the truth in my eyes, could make her know that I could never intentionally cause her harm. I would sacrifice far more than I should to see her safely free of me and the danger I pose to her.

She tilts her head slightly. “What is that inside of you?”

I blink, surprised. But then, somehow it makes sense that she would know what question to ask. “It’sraogpoison,” I answer.

She nods as though she understands, though she’s surely never heard the word before.

“Someone administered a dose in my cup while I was in council with my ministers,” I continue. “We were discussing what to do with you after . . . after I realized who you were.” Grimacing, I roll my throbbing shoulder. A mistake. Pain shoots up my neck, and I hold still once more, head hanging. “At the time, I’d been listening to them urge for your death. When the poison entered my body, it . . . played on the deepest, darkest part of me. That part which wanted to listen to them.”

“So, youdidwant to kill me.”

“No!” The word bursts out a harsh bark. She starts back, and I hasten to modulate my tone. “No, Faraine. Never. But I felt betrayed. Stripped down. Humiliated before the eyes of my court, my kingdom. And . . . and that part of me . . .” I shake my head, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Gods, I don’t know how to describe it! It was like the poison latched onto me. Fed the wickedness in my heart, nurtured it. In my mind, you were no longer yourself. You were something different, something dark and terrible. As the poison strengthened, you transformed into a monster in my mind. A demon. I felt I must be free of you, must kill you to break your hold over me. It was soreal.”

She regards me silently, her eyes traveling over my face. As though she’s reading more in me than my feeble, fumbling words can express.

“I’ve not yet discovered who delivered the poison,” I continue, “but I believe this same person poisoned Lord Rath in another attempt to have you killed. And now . . . today . . .”

“You were poisoned a second time,” she whispers.

I nod slowly. Hating that I’ve just made excuses for what I did. Relieved that she allowed me to make them. I swallow hard but force myself to meet her eye. “As soon as we are out of this chamber, I will send you home. You and I need never see one another again.”

Faraine sits back on her heels, her arms tight around her body. She swallows hard. Her gaze drops. Her jaw is tight. One of her hands moves to her chest, feeling for something that isn’t there. Her necklace, I realize. In a flash, I remember ripping it from her neck, tossing it to the floor. It’s here somewhere, buried beneath all this debris.

“Let me look inside you.”

“What?” I frown, uncertain I heard her soft voice correctly.

In a single, swift movement, she sits up. Before I can react, she takes my face between her hands. I gasp and try to jerk away. “Hold still,” she says sharply.

I freeze in her grasp. The exquisite pain of her skin against mine is almost more than I can bear. The darkness inside me roils, seeking to rise up, to send poison shooting through my veins. I must be strong. I must resist the urge to catch hold of her arms, to drag her to me, to crush her in my embrace. My fists curl tight, squeezing so hard I could grind stone to powder.

But Faraine gazes into my eyes. Deeper and deeper.

Something is happening. I don’t understand. It’s as though she’s sent a silver thread of music into my mind, a bright clear note. It hums, a point of light and connection between the two of us. I feel that note taken up, faint but present, pulsing in the air, in the walls, in the broken rock under our feet.

What is she doing? Is this magic? Her gods-gift? It’s so strange, so unlike trolde magic in every way. And yet it is inexplicably familiar, though in the moment, I cannot place why.

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