Page 55 of Slaying the Shadow Prince
Wind whipped through Talemir’s hair, but he didn’t break his focus until he felt the sand bank scrape along the bottom of the raft. There, he leapt into the shallows and began to drag the vessel onto shore, his magic flickering out like a candle in a breeze.
He could feel Drue’s eyes on him, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to face her. She’d given him her trust, given him permission, but that had been before she’d seen him use his power. He heard her jump into the sand. He heard the horses gratefully lurching from the raft onto sturdy ground, and still, he couldn’t look, scared of what he might see staring back at him.
But as he fitted his boot to the stirrup and reached for the saddle horn to swing himself atop his stallion, a hand closed over his.
Slowly, he turned to Drue.
It was not fear on her face, but something else simmering behind those blue eyes.
‘Thank you,’ she said, her voice barely a whisper. ‘How did you do it?’
Talemir ran his thumb over the back of her hand, her skin cold from the water, and met her gaze. ‘Someone told me there are all kinds of darkness in this world. And that it’s what you do with it yourself that matters most.’
A smile broke across that beautiful face. ‘She sounds brilliant.’
‘She’s a pain in the arse, mostly.’ Talemir answered her with a grin of his own as he dared to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. ‘But she has her moments.’
Drue laughed deeply, and to Talemir, there was no sound more exquisite.
11
Drue
Drue couldn’t stop stealing glances at the shadow-wielding warrior as they rode through the night. Talemir Starling had stayed with her when he could have left her to her death. His power had saved them from a terrible fate, had savedher.She could still feel the gentle imprint of his fingers gripping her chin as he stared into her eyes and asked her to trust him.
And gods, she had.
She had trusted a shadow wraith.
The truth of it had her reeling. As did that second touch between them, where he’d tucked her hair behind her ear, his fingertips brushing the side of her face ever so gently.
But he hadn’t pulled her to him. He hadn’t leant in to kiss her again. As much as she’d wanted him to, her heart hammering mercilessly. His kisses in the hot springs had been a searing brand upon her lips that she’d never forget, that she never wanted to. Only he hadn’t touched her since.
The intensity of how much she wanted him scared her. For it was no dark magic of his that toyed with her desires. It came purely from within – a force she needed to reckon with on her own.
The next morning,they reached the Naarvian steel source. After leaving their horses to graze nearby, she brought Talemir right to the edge, and together they stared into the layered crater in the earth. Drue had seen it many times before throughout her travels, but each time its vastness struck her anew. In the early sunlight, numerous colours sparkled from the tiers of rock within the pit that yawned deep into the ground. Though at first glance it looked like a site of destruction, the banded formation of earth appeared as a spectrum of hues – beautiful.
‘Here it is,’ she announced to the warrior at last. ‘The source of your Warsword steel… It’s said that the Furies themselves sent the star shower that caused it to open up in the ground…’
Looking at the crater now, she felt the weight of the sword strapped to her back, the sword she shouldn’t have in her possession at all.
Talemir peered into the source. ‘Where are the workers? The miners?’
‘Have you not noticed the state of our kingdom?’ she asked, frowning. ‘They come when they have to, when your brothers back at Thezmarr need more weapons. Which is rarely, seeing as there are so few of them now.’
Talemir shot her a look of surprise.
Drue folded her arms over her chest, glancing up as Terrence flew overhead, scouting for any signs of danger. ‘You think the forge master’s daughter wouldn’t know that fewer and fewer Warswords are surviving the Great Rite? I’m well aware that Wilder Hawthorne was the last to pass.’
Talemir made a noncommittal noise in his throat.
‘In any case,’ Drue said, ‘the source is actually an iron quarry, where workers mine ore which is then smelted back at the forge and turned into steel for weapons. But as I mentioned, there’s not much of that going on nowadays, even since before the fall of Ciraun. The royal family, before they disappeared, decreed that drawing attention to the source was dangerous, that the wraiths might discover that the work being done here could lead to their downfall. So the mining was officially shut down. Certain parts of it are only carried out every few seasons. If at all.’
Talemir stared at her.
She met his gaze. ‘Do you believe me? That there is nothing untoward going on here? No one is sabotaging the source or its magical properties.’
He blinked.
