Page 85 of Lost in the Dark

She sat all the way up, legs crossed and elbows propped on her knees. “Very well, I am listening.”

Trapped us, all of us, the youngest said.

You must find us, you must set us free, said another.

“Find you?” Anna shook her head. “I don’t understand. You are here, spirits. You are all here with me, haunting my bedchamber. I’ve tried to clean this house, to make it so you can rest, but—”

No. Not our shadows.

Findus.

“Where are you?” Something lodged in her chest as she asked the question. Something more pointed than the antlers she’d cleaned. A tusked dread that told she didn’t want an answer even as she feared seeking that answer had become inevitable.

She tried to rub the chill from her arms, but knew it ran to her bones.

We are here. We are him.

Ask him, he knows.

“You…” Her voice faltered. Pressing her palm over her heart, she drew a breath. “You want me to ask Rathbytten?”

No!Their cries whipped around the room, shaking the window panes and making the last log flare in the hearth. They swirled around her bed, a circle of ghostly figures, their faces contorted with agony. Hands outstretched, as if pleading with her, the shadows of their fingers pulling at her hair.

Find us. Find us.They spun around Anna in a chorus of cries.Free us!

Then they were gone.

Bent double at the waist, Anna rested her forehead on the bed and let out the air that had been clogging her lungs. She fisted her hands in the bedspread and tried to catch her breath.Golden gods have mercy.

The spirits didn’t want to harm her, they wanted herhelp. Because, just like her, they were trapped here.

Ask him, the mora had said—they hadn’t meant his Lordship. And that left only one person who could hold the information they sought. The man she thought cared for her, the one who wasn’t a man at all.Enulf. Her stomach twisted, even as a shameful anticipation curled around her heart.

Pushing herself upright, she stared into the fire and waited for morning.

Before dawn broke across the sky, Anna readied herself for answers.

She donned her most worn gown—the one with holes in the skirts and permanent stains at the hem—and covered that with her oiled apron. Her hair was pulled back into an unremarkable bun, her face scrubbed clean. She would wear nothing soft or sweet, leave nothing welcoming in her appearance.

The garb would be her armor.

Because she had to face Enulf, and her traitorous heart insisted on tumbling inside her chest every time she thought of him.

Not to mention the rest of her.

She pressed the backs of her hands to her cheeks and drew in a steadying breath. She would not crumble at the memory of his tongue between her thighs or melt at the first sign of affection.No. She would be as firm and cold as the ice outside her balcony. Forcing her shoulders back, she marched out of her room and down the hallway.

Hurrying down the circular stairs, she marveled at how the massive trolls managed to navigate the narrow, worn structure.

But those were questions for another day.

She’d learned that Enulf’s quarters were tucked at the very back of the castle, beyond the kitchens and close to what should have been the stables, though the estate had no mounts to care for…Gods.Did they eat all the horses?

Her stomach twisted and she pressed a fist to her middle.

Strength. The mora were counting on her.

She might be trapped in this place, but she could help those spirits be free—and hopefully she’d follow them into that freedom when Rathbytten eventually crushed her beneath its boot.

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