Page 57 of Heart of the Shadow King

She was afraid.

Then she was not afraid.

She was nothing.

Like me.

I don’t remember what happened. How I lost control.

There was heat. Terrible heat. The furnace at the core of the world, blasting into me. Were I not so deeply enstoned myself, I would have perished in that blast.

I should have perished.

Even now, I wish . . .

Three cities were lost in the space of a single day.

Others were devastated by poison.

Zur died.

And the dragon lived.

23

FARAINE

Until this moment, I’ve never been able to read this woman’s heart. The layers of protective stone she wears are so profound, it’s too easy to think of her as a different kind of being, set apart from creatures of flesh and feeling. A true embodiment of thejorto which trolde aspire.

Now? It’s as though she’s cut open her chest cavity, pulled her heart from her breast, and placed it on the ground between us. Pulsing. Oozing. Struggling to live apart from its life source. A gruesome sight.

Shuddering, I turn away from her and stare out across the steaming waters of the lake. Only then do I realize my face is wet with tears. They stream down my cheeks, drip from my chin. I wipe them away swiftly, but more follow, a torrent I cannot suppress. The story is too real, too raw in my head, conveyed primarily through feelings rather than words. Feelings—all recalled with such exquisitely cruel clarity—implanted directly into my mind. Were it not for the remnants ofjorstill shielding my spirit, the pain would incapacitate me.

After a long silence, Maylin clears her throat. Her words, when they finally come again, are brittle and hard. “I could not return from the depths ofjor. Not for many days, many weeks. They began to think I had lost control entirely. I have no memory of that time. There was no feeling, no thought. Merely being.

“In the end, however, thejorfell away. My body warmed. My soul stirred. I came back to myself. Back to an existence in which the horror I had endured, the evil I had done, surrounded me once more.”

Emotions erupt in my head again, complex and many-colored. But the raw red of Zur’s death dominates the rest. I shrink from it, wishing I dared rise and flee this place.

“I left,” Maylin continues, a world of meaning in those simple words. “Gaur tracked me down, of course. But this time I warned him never to seek me out again. I placed such a dread of me into his heart, he turned at once and never looked back. Not long after, he took a new wife, who bore another son. But he did not disinherit Vor. For that I owe him something.” She grimaces as though the admission tastes bitter.

I bow my head, my temples throbbing with emotions not my own. “Was it for Vor then that you have remained?” I ask softly. “That you sought me out, that you . . . made it possible for me to come here?”

“No.” Her voice is a sharp, swift cut. “It was for Zur.”

I feel the need in her. It’s too strong to suppress, this compulsion, this ache to somehow justify the death of the man she loved. Even now, after all this time, the brutality of his final moments haunts her. He begged her to let his death matter, to let his spilled blood and suffering be the means to save his world. She failed him then.

She will not fail him again.

I put my hands in my hair, fingers digging into my scalp. If I could, I would pull these feelings straight out of my head, free myself of her pain. But my emotions are so tangled up with hers now. I think of Vor. I think of all I would do to protect him, to keep him alive and with me. And if he is dead? If he has already lost his life on some distant battlefield? What would I give to make that sacrifice matter?

How far am I willing to go?

“Theva-jor,” I whisper. “Vor told me it was black magic. The blood, the sacrifice. He said it was evil.”

“Only if the sacrifice is unwilling.” Maylin lifts her chin. “Should a willing sacrifice be found, the ceremony may be performed in its fullness without guilt, without sin.”

“Zur . . . He wasn’t truly willing.”

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