Page 32 of Bound to the Shadow Queen
The familiar pull tugged between my shoulders, leaving a faint ache in its wake, like the ghost of something larger pressing to be free. It was routine, automatic, yet after hiding them for so long, it always left me feeling smaller.
I grabbed my cloak from the peg near the door, swept it over my shoulders, and tugged the hood low over my head.
On much lighter footsteps, I crept back to the window, my fingers sliding over the latch until it was unlocked, and then waited for a sign that anyone had heard.
Zerina was too careful, too suspicious to leave much distance between herself and my door, but the other guards always stationed themselves farther down the hall.
Too far away to hear the window open.
It felt wrong to be taking advantage of her absence while she was grieving Alaric. Grieving the loss of her husband because my husband had killed him…
I swallowed the thought, forcing myself to focus on the task at hand.
With a soft click, I pushed on the window as quietly as I could, waiting until the rotating guards shifted to slip out into the night.
The fires outside had burned down to embers, warriors curled beneath furs or keeping quiet vigil at the edges of the village wards. My pulse thundered in my ears as I slipped past our hut and into the treeline of the forest.
Every flap of wings, or rustle of leaves, scraped along my nerves. But adrenaline dulled the fear into something more tolerable, and perhaps wildly more reckless.
I’d been lying awake too long. Alaric’s death continued to claw at me right along with Draven’s rage, and ice, and pain. The way he shattered everything around him…
I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing it again. Without feeling it.
So I didn’t. I just kept moving.
The air was sharp enough to bite, stars crowding the sky like frozen fire. My boots crunched over frost-slickened roots as I wound through the pines. Every shadow sighed as if it were alive, but I kept walking.
When I made it to the training grounds without being caught, I nearly sighed in relief. Kaelen was waiting for me there, his back turned, the silver streaks in his midnight wings flaring under the moonlight.
Then he turned, and the world tilted. A moonbeam glinted off the tip of his ear…catching on the metal of an earring.
Not Kaelen.
Kyros.
His golden eyes gleamed like a predator with freshly cornered prey. I stepped back, my pulse hammering beneath the surface of my skin.
“Sorry to disappoint. I know you were expecting my brother,” Kyros said, taking a casual step forward. “But he isn’t feeling so well.”
His words landed like a blow. Each one rattling like a cage door as it slammed into place.
“What did you do to him?” I hated the way my voice trembled, hated the way Kyros’ pupils widened in response, as if my fear was something that excited him.
I needed to get out of here.
My eyes sliced to the forest surrounding the training arena, then up into the starlit sky. I could fly, but I knew he would outmatch me there. He was a trained Skaldwing warrior, and I had spent half of my life on the ground.
But he wasn’t built for this terrain… The forest was a gauntlet of roots and fallen trees just waiting to trip him, and if I was lucky, he would end up eating bark while I ran for help.
A bored sigh escaped me, my breath forming a small cloud in the cool night air. I parted my lips like I was about to say something, but then spun on my heel to dart for the trees. I didn’t make it far.
White-hot pain exploded through my skull before my foot could even hit the ground. I didn’t have time to brace myself before my head slammed into the packed dirt.
The impact rattled my spine, and my ears rang with a high, piercing whine, drowning out every other sound.
The world swam around me, shadows and torchlight blurring together. My stomach lurched, bile rising in my throat, and I couldn’t seem to catch a full breath.
The edges of my vision went dark, tunneling in on Kyros’ bulky frame. He was still moving toward me, taking slow deliberate steps, a satisfied grin flashing across his face.
