‘To make it here?’ Ezer asked.
Zey chuckled. ‘All this time you pretended to be lost, to be a fledgling … and it turns out you weren’t Unconsecrated, after all. You arehis.The Princess of Shadows.’
‘I didn’t know,’ Ezer spat. ‘Have you come to kill me?’
‘Quite the opposite. I’ve come to offer you a final chance at life.’ Zey looked pointedly at her cloak. ‘No sense hiding it anymore, Wolf Bait. Let’s see it.’
With trembling hands, Ezer reached for the small black book in her inner pocket. She held it out, wincing as she imagined Zey’s claws reaching for it.
But the darksoul didn’t move. ‘It’s not for me. The Shadow Tome became yours the day you picked it up.’ She smiled with her fangs. ‘Open it.’
‘Why?’ Ezer asked.
Zey rolled her dark eyes. ‘Because every part of me wants to rip out your throat. But as you are still on the precipice of being redeemed –’ she clacked her dark claws against one another – ‘I cannot kill you yet. Open the Tome. Read it. Before it’s too late.’
She turned to go.
‘Wait,’ Ezer said.
Zey paused and glanced over a shoulder.
‘Six,’ Ezer whispered. She could barely ask the question. ‘Is she …’
‘Safe,’ Zey said. Relief flooded Ezer’s chest, until Zey said, ‘But I cannot promise you for how long.’
She sat in the darkness for hours after Zey left. She knew that outside, the Long Day was still here, if only for the fact that the war had not resumed. She would have felt the rumble in the stones.
Beyond that, it was impossible to tellwhenit was. As if the darkness had stolen all semblance of time away.
Had the gods turned their eyes to this realm?
Had they granted their godsblessing?
Whatever it was …
The king himself had warned Kinlear that he needed to be home before the blessing was granted.
Read the Tome,Zey had said.Before it’s too late.
She didn’t want to. Everything she’d been told was to turnawayfrom the darkness, to deny the Acolyte, to walk with the Five. And on the other side, she’d seen that darkness in full. She’d seen Kinlear, a man she’d thought loved her … completely abandon her.
She was a fool to believe in him.
He’d left her for dead. Just as Erath had done to Styerra.
Butwhy?
Why would anyone …
The wind suddenly gusted through the cell, and she knew it was her mother’s doing. It fluttered past her, flicking open the pages of the Shadow Tome.
And when Ezer looked down … she saw the symbols.
The ones she’d seen in the entrance to this domain.
She slammed the book shut.
‘Stop it,’ she hissed to Styerra. ‘I thought you were gone.’
