Page 129 of Thief of Souls
I don’t know what he wants.
I don’t know why he’s looking at me like that—like he’s one step short of violence—but this is personal for him, somehow.
He’s a Shadow Walker.
A gift granted to me by my mother.
And she was…. She was…. The heat bleeds out of my face. It’s impossible, but then fae magic tends to run through family bloodlines.
“Answer me,” he snaps. “Your father is Raesh Ghul, the King Beyond the Shadowfangs, isn’t he?”
“What do I get if I say yes?” I drown my sudden terror in a smirk. “A sweetmeat?”
His thumb rasps over the hilt sheathed at his hip. “Maybe I don’t kill you.”
“Maybe you can’t,” I taunt. “You seem to be having some difficulty killing wraithenborn today, considering my sister is walking free.”
Oh, yes, he’s definitely still feeling the weight of losing to Soraya.
We circle each other, and he chokes down the emotion lighting bonfires in his eyes. “Who was your mother?”
It’s an old hurt, but it lances through me like an arrow to the chest. “I don’t know.”
“I overheard Keir call you Zemira,” he says, sauntering toward me nonchalantly despite the wraith blood dripping from his knife. “What’s your real name?”
“You want myname?” I blurt. He’s got to be joking. My father’s the only one who knows my three names, and the giving of such a gift is merely another manacle to shackle myself with.
“Did your mother name you?” Falion demands.
“That’s none of your business.”
“No?” He gives me an evil smile as he spreads his hands. “You walk the shadows. There’s only one fae bloodline that can do that.”
“Two,” I point out. “The Court of Shadows and the Court of the Moon and Stars.”
“One,” he says coldly. “The Court of Shadows took one of our Shadow Walker’s as queen long ago, but her bloodline has long-since died out. I would know. My people kept immaculate records. Youshouldn’texist.”
And then he disappears.
I’m so used to being the only one who can do that, that I hesitate a fraction of a moment too long.Idiot. I spin, driving my knife toward where I expect him to appear, but it merely cuts through the air harmlessly.
Instead, something swipes across the back of my calf.
I scream as I fall, my shadow bleeding across the floor in some amorphous shape. He didn’t cutme. He cut through my shadow, and now it’s untethered and leaves me feeling dizzy.
“You wraithblighted asshole,” I growl.
Falion suddenly reappears, flipping his dagger from hilt to blade and back again as he circles me. “You’re a Shadow Walker,” he confirms, “but you barely know the basics. You’re barely a baby.”
I hiss and lunge toward him, ungainly and heavy in my flesh.
He vanishes again, but this time so do I, even if it’s like clawing my way through quicksand.
The world turns to shadows.
I try to Sift, but something grabs me by the hair and then I’m staggering back into cold, merciless arms.
“You know nothing,” Falion says in disgust, his voice an odd echo in my ear.
