Page 63 of Ties of Shadow

The Shade’s smile turned as feral as the wolf’s. “No, but I do enjoy it.”

The black wolf slunk forward between us, its claws clattering on the stone tiles below. We froze as one of the guards looked up toward the mountain above us. Then as he turned away, we rushed ahead and ducked under the arching doorway.

Uncle Koll jostled the door. “Locked.”

A sliver of shadow brushed past me, weaving its way through my fingers before threading into the lock and snapping it open with a click.

“You would have been so handy when I was a hungry little girl trying to sneak into the kitchens,” I muttered as I led the way inside, pausing as we entered the small gardener’s room strewn with abandoned shovels, rakes, and aprons draped with dust and spiderwebs. The gardeners had long since given up on landscaping, scraping by with the vegetables and fruits grown inside the solarium.

I turned down the servants’ passage. The castle was eerily quiet. Down the hallway, I could hear the gentle clatter of early morning breadmaking. My heart ached at the thought of Chef. The Shade reached over and squeezed my hand, his eyes curious and kind. I squeezed back before entering the servants’ quarters.

We snuck past rooms whose inhabitants still snored the night away, slipped through the narrow threshold, and crept up the far steps. I patted the pack on my side. The clinking glass reassured me that the potions were still there—the bottles of hope. I paused beside a closed door, a hallway entrance to my father’s workstation.

I looked at the Shade. “Can we try to see her?”

His eyes unfocused, I assumed checking in with the other animals. “Everything seems quiet. The guards haven’t altered their course. But if we need to go, we go quickly.”

I carefully leaped and hugged him, being sure not to clank the potions much. I led away from the door to my father’s room and toward the back passages of the royal suites. We came to the final stair, and I put my ear against the door at the top. No sound came from the other side. The queen’s attendants would join her in a couple of hours as the sun began to rise, but they usually left the queen alone through the night since she got the most rest in the early morning hours.

I felt a squeeze in my chest—nervousness—but this feeling wasn’t mine. I looked back at the Shade. His fist pulsed, tapping on the side of his leg, and his jaw muscles feathered as he clenched them. I reached toward him, but he brushed my hand away.

Unduly hurt, I turned toward Uncle Koll, who looked paler than before. One hand was on his chest as the other fussed with his shirt sleeve. He glanced over at me, dismissing the question in my eyes with a shake of his head. My eyebrows furrowed with confusion, but I opened the door with a click. I peered in, listening for trouble. Thesmell hit me first—much worse than I remembered. The room was saturated in that sick, sour, rotten smell that came with the queen’s sickness. Uncle Koll’s breath shuddered. Nothing else in her room stirred.

I approached her bedside. Her thin frame looked more skeletal on the bed than when I’d last seen her; her eyes were sunken, her face resembling an empty skull. The pillows were fluffed, and the blanket tucked in around her. She looked more like a child than a queen. One of the potions I had sent was half drunk on the bedside table. It had kept her alive, but only just.

The words breathed out of me in a whisper, an ache unable to be restrained. “Oh, Your Majesty.”

Her eyes fluttered. I held my breath, torn between hoping she would awaken, and terrified of disturbing her. Slowly, her lids lifted, and she regarded my face. Her green eyes fixed on mine, sharp and clear. I stepped into the thin moonlight that streaked across her bedding so she could see me better.

“Aelia?” Her dry voice croaked. The Shade inhaled sharply. I stepped toward her and grasped her hand. “Your Majesty, I’m sorry to wake you.”

“You left the castle in uproar.” The queen swallowed hard, and I offered her a sip of water from her bedside table. “Everyone is certain you are dead. Leon won’t tell me what’s going on. The seers all left the castle and have been sending messages by pigeon. Where did you go, my dear? I’ve been so worried.”

I smiled at her. “I’m not dead, thankfully. And in fact, I have been very busy.” I turned and brought my bag to my lap. “We brought you some new potions.” I stacked them at her bedside. “I think they’ll be stronger. We were able to come up with some changes in the ingredients, and I think…” I glanced up at her face and stopped short. Her eyes were wide and frozen on the Shade behind me. She had become as still as death, although her chest still moved with each breath.

The queen’s gaze flickered to Uncle Koll. “What—”

“Oh, don’t worry, Your Majesty. They came with me. They’ve been helping. The Shade…he’s…” I paused my babbling—the words stuck in my throat as I watched tears well up in her eyes. “Your Majesty, don’t cry. You’re safe.” I reached for a handkerchief to dab at her cheeks.

“Koll.” The queen’s whisper was ragged. Koll? I twisted to look back at him.

“Gemmie.” Uncle Koll said, his voice stripped and raw. Queen Gemaline Aura Grace often went by Queen of Grace, but no one called her Gemmie. Uncle Koll’s cheeks glimmered with his own tears.

“Sha…ade,” the queen stuttered, turning to study him. The Shade nodded, his eyes soft and glassy, his Adam’s apple bobbing. His hands were folded in front of him, his thumb rubbing the other. What in all the lands was happening?

Uncle Koll pushed past me and cupped her face with his hand. The queen gave a small sob. His thumbs brushed her cheek, and he reached back to me for a potion.

“Gemmie, can you drink this?” The queen smiled a bit, and Uncle Koll brought the potion to her lips. “Just a bit more, my dear.”

The queen coughed as she swallowed the potion before smiling brightly. Even the darkness of the room lifted at the sight. “It’s good to see you.”

Her frail hand drifted past me and toward the Shade. One beat. Two. Then the menace of our nation, the embodiment of Death, stumbled forward to take her hand. “My queen.”

“My son.”

My gasp was too loud for the quiet room. I studied his face as his emotions flitted through me, affection and pain, betrayal and…love. Heswallowed again. My mind whirled. The Shade was the queen’s son. She wasn’t crying because she was afraid. She was crying because… I stepped back, giving them their space. I was so confused—the stories said that the Shade had caused her sickness, that his shadows were there the day she fell ill.

He turned his head slightly, his green eyes glowing in the cast of the moonlight. “Of course, I was here that day. And every day before that when I could sneak in as she was worsening. I was that boy you played with, Aelia.”His eyes closed in a picture of anguish.“But I was too young, andI couldn’t stop the sickness. And Father blamed me.”His hand squeezed around his mother’s small frail fingers.“Even though it was the mining—and the effect the mines had on the earth—that had made her unwell in the first place.”

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