Page 26 of Wicked Prince of Shadows
“Terrifying as you seem to find me, I find it amusing you speak with such roughness and carelessness. If I were truly evil, would that be wise?”
I glared at him as I strode up the staircase. My heart thundered within my ribs, my nerves screaming, but my mouth refused to stop. “Maybe because deep down I know that if you snapped and killed me now, it would be better for me than suffering the actual fate you have in mind.”
I turned on my heel and hurried on, not wanting to hear his counterargument. The words echoed in the air.
His gaze followed me down the hall. I couldfeelit and his seething.
But he didn’t come after me. That was something.
The moment my bedroom door closed behind me, I pressed my back to it and exhaled hard. My whole body trembled from fatigue. What a wretched day. My hands were still filthy, my face streaked with grime and dried sweat, and everything ached.
The cold hit next.
No curtains. No fire. No heat at all. Consequences of my own actions, of course. As cold as it was, I couldn’t bring myself to regret trying to escape. All I had for warmth was the blanket.He’d probably say I deserved to suffer, and in truth, I was grateful he had even allowed me to have another blanket.
I crossed to the basin in the bathing chamber and twisted the tap. The water sputtered out icy and sharp. I scrubbed my face and arms anyway, gasping at the cold. Blood and dirt smeared in the sink until they rinsed away.
By the time I dried off and dragged the single blanket from the foot of the bed, I could barely keep my eyes open. I collapsed, my eyes too heavy to hold open any more.
The wind howled outside the window, reaching into my dreams as well. The dreams of falling, claws, plants, and creatures returned with the same strange figures grasping from the darkness, desperate and rageful.
The nightmares plagued me until morning, all similar to the one the night before. I could practically feel those strange fingers wrapping around me.
I rose, stiffer this morning than I was the last. Maker, help me. Today was going to be a long day.
Breakfast had been set out for me in front of the door, dry grey meat and some sort of grey bread. I set the plate aside on a table in the alcove, hating to waste food no matter what it looked like and hoping someone else would eat it.
Within minutes, Six Stitches and Broken Nose came to escort me down to the garden. As soon as we stepped out onto the landing with the first set of stairs down into the garden though, I caught a different scent, something like ashy greens and burnt nettles. My eyes widened as I looked down.
Yesterday, the garden had been dead. Nothing but brittle branches and bone-dry dirt.
Now…dozens of new growths had appeared.
Black-veined leaves shivered faintly on gnarled stems in the morning breeze, their undersides ghost-pale beneath the charcoal tops and fragile as moth wings. Ash-colored shootshad broken through some of the planters, spiraling upward in twitching spirals. A few of the skeletal trees in the wider pots had begun to bow beneath new weight—branches bearing clumps of black-tipped buds or curling white fronds that fluttered in the steady wind.
A few of the planters had changed significantly, holding plants that were much farther along and looked almost as if they were on the verge of erupting in full bloom. One near the fountain had sprouted three strange saplings with silver-dusted bark, the roots pushing through the brittle stone like it wasn’t even there. Another far planter held thick grey brambles that twisted together, pulsing slightly. Maybe ten had plants in different stages but significantly farther along than all the rest.
I tightened my grip on the railing at the top of the stairs, my eyes wide. This was incredible…and unnerving. Though I had expected some signs yesterday, this was far beyond what I had hoped.
Six Stitches chuckled low in his throat. “Guess you had more magic in you than you gave yourself credit for.”
“The flowers are gonna be black and grey though,” Broken Nose said, his voice tight.
“What difference does the color make?” I blinked as I tried to take all of this in, feeling something between pride and confusion.
The Hollow King and another dark-robed fae advisor were already among the lower tiers, speaking in low tones, their heads tilted as if listening to something I couldn’t hear. A wave of nervous energy rushed through me, and my stomach gurgled loudly.
Six Stitches raised his brow. “You know you can eat. Being stuck here isn’t because of the food. It’s the portal.”
I pulled back slightly to look at him better. His dull grey eyes betrayed little emotion, but he sounded sincere. “I can’t takethe chance.” There was no chance I’d do anything that might bind me to the Hollow King. I walked down the steps, looking around cautiously. Not all of the planters held flowering plants now. Some were much the same as yesterday. The ones that were blooming were in clusters.
As I drew closer, I overheard the king speaking.
“They’re all black, grey, and white,” the Hollow King said. “Not a hint of color.”
The man beside him was an ancient individual with stitches down his jaw and up across his eye, the eye itself barely open and amplified by a monocle. “They may yet reveal another shade. It could be indigo, Your Majesty.”
“Perhaps.” His jaw tightened, the stitches pulling taut as the muscles ticked.
