Page 19 of The Midnight Death Match

Gasps ripple around the circle.

One stands. “That’s madness!”

“We let her open it.” The violet one’s voice is like iron as the flames gutter low. “Then we shut it behind her.”

Chapter

Nine

EIRA

The storm hasn’t broken,but the sky seems to be pressing down. Even the dragons feel it. They’ve been pacing in their cove, and Harek has been going back and forth between them and us. It’s almost like Vash is becoming his.

After wearing myself out practicing alone with my sword, I find Einar in the library by the hearth, holding a book he’s not reading. His expression is distant, eyes reflecting flames but seeing something else entirely.

“You’re distracted,” I say.

He doesn’t answer right away. Just sets the book down, as if a world away. “I’ve been following rumors and whispers.”

“Meaning?” I keep my tone light to match his, but I’m eager to hear more.

My father plays with the spine of the book for a moment. “Before I found you, I’d already begun searching. Not for you,” he adds quickly. “For a noble of an old fae bloodline, tied to the some of the oldest hunters. Someone who may know how the curse originated.”

“It had a beginning?” I ask, unable to keep the surprise from my voice.

“Everything does.”

“It feels older than time.” But then a thought strikes me, and it gives me hope. “If it has a beginning, it could have an end. It can be stopped.”

“Exactly.”

I step closer. “Why haven’t you said anything until now?”

“Because there’s great danger in chasing myths. And even greater danger in proving them true.”

“That sounds cryptic.”

He moves to the window, looks out over the city. “Your mother didn’t want this life for you.”

“I know. But she also didn’t tell me the whole truth. She left a lot out.”

He goes still.

“What else did she tell you?” I ask. “Anything about being the Secret Keeper? Or any other surprises I don’t know about yet?”

His jaw tightens.

“Wasthere more?” I stare him down.

He turns slowly, and in his eyes I see something raw. A silence stretches between us. “I don’t know much. Your mother was the most private person I’ve met.”

“That’s saying something, coming from you.”

“She came from a bloodline older than mine,” he says at last. “One she was trying to escape. She was on the run when we met, and she was still on the run when she left carrying you.”

I nod slowly, my mind racing. “Does that somehow tie into the noble fae you’re looking for?”

He looks me dead in the eye. “That I can’t tell you, but if we want to end the hunter curse before it takes one of us, then we have to find him. We should leave before nightfall.”

---