“I tried getting Selected the last two years. I was worried if I waited longer, it wouldn’t happen.” I swipe sweat from my forehead, baking in this heat. My gut seeps in dread as we circle a truth I’ve avoided. “If there was a year to throw it all on the line, it should be this one.”
“You’re not being fully honest with me. I looked into you.” He swallows, eyes narrowed. Of course he did, he’s too clever to not have. “You’d moved on, fought for your new title, a new life. Five years at the Lord of Westfall’s side, his star pupil, his protégé rumored to inherit it all one day. But then you burned down his manor, left him a bloodied mess, and ensured you’d be Selected. So why now?”
His gaze is narrowed, but there’s a vulnerability in the question that I deduce means he’s still wondering if he’s been the target of a different game. A pawn on my board.
“When my mother was taken, our house was burned to ash.” I let the sweat drip down my back. “I had nothing. No house. No money. Not even a spare set of clothes. Just these boots and what I had on. At first, I begged on street corners for food. Then I stole. I became pretty good at picking locks and pockets. When the Winter Ball arrived, I posed as a servant and slipped into the Lord of Westfall’s manor. I made it into his vault, but then a serving girl spotted me. If I’d have killed her … my life would’ve been different, and I would’ve had the money to start fresh. But … I couldn’t, and she alerted the guards. The Lordof Westfall found it amusing.” Despite the heat, chills run up my arms, my legs, as I remember his dark laughter. “He spun me a choice. To shut me in that vault until my skin rotted away, or to work for him. I chose the path of survival.”
“The Lord of Westfall, that’s Thane Blackwell, right?”
“Yes.” His name sends shivers up my spine. “He used his parties, at first, to send me to a man, to devour his secrets and gather the blackmail like building a nest of thorns, and when the Lord of Westfall was ready he could send one of us to impale them on it. There were a few of us who worked for him like that. His Shrikes. He broke us against each other, and his Blades trained us to fight. But soon the other girls became more family than anything; all of us had come from the same damn places. There was a final test, for a chance to become his Wraith. It was coveted, a Court position, and we’d be spared from the worst aspects of the job. He called the rite the Hunting Grounds. The best entered. Nobody realized the goal was for only one of us to walk out of it. He told me later he designed it all for me, so he could be sure I was everything he’d made me to be. Spies and Shrikes were more common than fleas in a place like Westfall, but only the best could be his Wraith.”
Draven’s eyes turn a deep, haunting blue, but he stays blessedly silent.
“Working for him is where I met Kiana.”
I notice the slight twitch in his brow, recognizing her name from our nights in bed, from the echo of her in my thoughts. He knows this story ends in tragedy, but he doesn’t speak, only gives me room to breathe it into the world.
“We survived it all together, and she made it all bearable. We dreamed of escaping, moving to the Isle of Riches. But when the position for Wraith came up, Thane kept insisting I try. He favored me, we all knew it, but I wanted to get away from him,not closer. At the last minute, Kiana entered, so I did, too, thinking I was protecting her. It came down to the two of us. I refused to kill her.” I drop my gaze from his, but it doesn’t stop the tears flowing over. “So, she took her own life just to spare mine.”
The feelings I’ve tried to hold back from that day pour out now, and for just a moment I let them consume me, like oil catching fire. I grit my teeth and force out the rest. “I didn’t want to spit on her sacrifice. I let him use me. I became his Wraith, nothing more than a phantom trapped in my own body doing his bidding. I was a shadow of my former self. He was abusive, controlling. He grew obsessed with me.” My hands twist in my lap. I take a deep breath, letting the heartbreak rise like a swelling tide and then release, dragging all those heavy emotions with it.
“The master and apprentice relationship grew increasingly twisted. I still don’t know if he saw me as his prodigy, adoptive daughter, or something darker. He was impossible to read, his mood fluctuating in mountains and valleys. But he resented that I blamed him for Kiana’s death. I always will. He knew I’d attempt to be chosen in the Selection again and tried to convince me to stay by bringing her little sister to his manor. He presented her to me like a pet.”
My heart hammers, body trembling as the rage ignites in my chest. The same fury I felt that day when I finally snapped on Thane. My teeth grind together until I finally glance at Draven, his knuckles white as he clenches the back of his chair.
I growl, “I cut open his face like a six-pointed star and left him in a pool of his own blood, burning that gaudy fucking manor to the ground. I smuggled Kiana’s sister to Fenn, and when Reapers called for Westfall to be in the Selection, I returned, desperate to be chosen.” I meet his indigo eyes, wondering if he’ll damn me the moment I’m done talking. “There was nowhere left for me to go. I was willing to burn down the world just to feel warmthagain. The only people I had left were over that Wall, and the only way back to them … was forward.”
Slowly he stands up, and to my shock extends his hand. “Don’t surrender that fire just yet.” His eyes travel over me. “I’m still owed a partner.”
Relief releases in my chest as my palm slides into his and he lifts me to my feet.
“Even if I somehow find my mother and brother and save my father … there’s nowhere for us to return to. If I go back to the mortal realms, we’d have to leave the continent to escape my bounty.” It would likely still follow me. There’s no place in that world I’ll be safe. My chest tightens as we breathe in each other’s air. “I should’ve told you all of it when we made our pact.”
“It’s okay. We all have our pasts. You can bring your family here. They’ll be safe so long as I hold my crown.” There’s a softening between us. “I’ll never force you to … be any of that to me. I’m not Thane. I meant what I promised. At the end of this … you can walk away.”
“What if I don’t want to?” The words fall quickly.
A twinkle sparks to life in his eyes, shifting them magenta. “Then when that day comes … stay.” He blinks, tucking his dark hair back behind his ear, running a tongue over those canines. He teases, “But as for now, I’m still pretty pissed.”
“Then I’ll have to figure out how to stop you from hating me tomorrow.”
He shakes his head, a begrudging smirk lifting his lips. “You might be the only person in this world I don’t hate.”
23Alfheim
The elves burrow their cities beneath the mountains, lining their subterranean homes with diamonds broken from the earth at their whim. They are the wealthiest of the four kingdoms, and by far the most vain.
—A History of Arcadia
THE NEXT MORNING,I wake to Magda sweeping through my room, throwing open the curtains. I sit upright in bed and yank the comforter to my chest, realizing I’m just in a loose shirt of Draven’s and my underwear. We weren’t yet warm enough with each other to share a bed again, so instead he gave me this, and my bra is discarded over the nearest armchair.
Magda crosses over to it, but I fly out of the bed, grabbing it first, and stuffing it away.
“Please don’t feel like you need to do my laundry,” I say quickly. “In fact, you don’t need to clean my room at all.” If she doesn’t, maybe Draven will stop finding spying crystals tucked all over it.
“Trust me, girl, I’d rather I didn’t have to. But the king insists his son and Draven’s ‘royal pet’ have a tidy home whilst he’saway at school.” Magda grabs the basket of dirty clothes, looking put out, but I’m too busy feeling scorned by her words to give a damn.
“Is that his name for me, or yours?”
