Above, the veins on the leaves of the tree darkened. A few fell. Just like the tree in Valrun had been before we found the Frør Crown. Like the trees all over the land. My skin tightened. This fae was the cause of this. The cause of the blight too?
Stop!I screamed.Please! Stop!
For a price.
More leaves fell. Had they even been there at all? Healthy and alive? Or was this glamour? Panic flared at the realization that reality might not be real at all.
Name it!I said.
I wish to touch the magic of your line.
You want us to . . . open ourselves to you?
Only fora moment.
As I’d appeared conflicted when Thyra wished to touch the tree, now she seemed worried.
You swear not to hurt us?I asked again.And to stop harming this tree?
On the dead gods. On my people. On my blood.
With every new leaf that fell, here and elsewhere, it grew colder out. More fae were dying. More being born with mangled wings or bodies because things were out of flux. If he would not harm us, it seemed worth the risk.
Yes.I answered.
The leaves ceased to fall, and the blackness in their veins lightened. Real? Not real?
Thyra?He asked.
She swallowed. Nodded.
The Shadow King smiled, the effect full of malice and greed, and before I understood I had, in fact, made a dire mistake, shadows swirled. Climbed my legs, my torso.
I managed only another breath before darkness overtook me.
Chapter 45
VALE
My heart skipped a beat as Neve and Thyra slumped to the ground, their hands still on the tree, seemingly adhered there. Shadows pulsed around the twins.
I took a step closer, ready to carve answers from this Shadow Fae if need be. Thantrel mimicked me, and the others began to close in behind us.
The fae held his palm out. “Stay where you are. I’m not hurting them.”
“Then why are they like that?” Thantrel growled, his eyes ablaze.
“I’m feeling,” the fae said. “And I’m already done.”
Before we questioned him further, the shadows fell away, as if they’d never been. Neve’s eyes fluttered open first. Then Thyra’s.
“What did youdoto me?” my mate rasped, as her hand went to her heart. “I feel—I feel, I don’t know.Wrong.”
“Like you’re meant to, granddaughter.”
Granddaughter?Dread swirled inside, matched by the identical expressions of horror on the Falk twin’s faces.
“That can’t be true!” Thyra stood fluidly, a hint that the fae had not, in fact, hurt them, and when Neve followed, equally strong, I breathed my first sigh of relief.
