“Good job. She’s doing well.”
“She’s a natural,” Thecae replied.
“Did you see that?” I asked Thecae, brushing dirt off my leathers. “Did I shadow melt?”
“More like shadow stumbled,” Nox said, but it didn’t hold asmuch of his usual bite. It was almost…teasing. When I shot him a bland look, his face was impassive.
Thecae chuckled. “Yes, I saw. I think you’re ready to start working on some new techniques.”
“Tonight?” I asked eagerly.
“No, not tonight. You need rest, girl.”
“Maybe you two old men need rest,” I mumbled, but the words turned into a yawn. I realized how exhausted I was, both physically and mentally. My shadows were fainter as they slunk back into my skin, settling heavily in my bones.
Thecae bade us goodnight, and I started to follow him into the base when a voice stopped me.
“I was handling something for Scarven,” Nox said. “That’s why I was gone.”
I turned to face him. His shoulders were slumped, his features weary. That fire of his dragon had slipped away, leaving him raw. Open. Tired.
I nodded in understanding. He told me when we were traveling that Scarven had sent him to “take care of” a growing rebellion against Drakorum. But he’d also told me how he did everything in his power to help Scarven’s targets. To give them a chance to get away and start a new life. If Scarven ever found out the truth, Noxandhis sister could pay the price.
For the first time, it struck me how incredibly brave this infuriating man was. And he had trusted me with this knowledge, knowing I could ruin everything. That thought alone made my stomach flutter with unexpected emotion.
I licked my lips and swallowed. “But you’re back now?”
He stepped forward and handed me my dagger. “I’m back.”
His fingers brushed mine as he pulled away, then strode out of sight.
25
Nox
Fine. I was impressed. Devora was doing rather well with her shadows. I made a mental note to tell Kieran that perhapsIshould keep making the plans going forward, considering this was my idea.
I watched hour after hour, day after day as Thecae trained Devora in her shadows. Arowyn and Everett occasionally jumped in with their striding or illusions to give her practice dealing with other kinds of magic. Even Calyra, Thecae’s spritely mother, would commandeer Thecae’s sessions to discuss some of the deeper elements of shadow wielding with Devora.
“You know, neither your motherorfather could shadow melt,” she said one evening, two nights before we needed to head back to Drakorum. She wagged her finger at Devora over a bowl of stew. “But Ceres was the best shadow marker I’ve ever met.”
“Shadow marking? What’s that?” Devora asked, adjusting her thick glasses on her nose. She didn’t wear them when she trained. She said she was worried they’d get in her way. When she wore them, it made her look…softer, almost. Still fierce, but with this edge of vulnerability hidden behind the lenses. Either way, it was hard not to notice how beautiful she was. When?—
I jerked my head to the side at theintrusive thought. Fates, what kind of a monster was I to have thoughts like that about the woman I’d kept captive in my own home? The woman I was training to send off to spy on mybrother?
Something tightened in my stomach every time the impending ball came up. When I first devised the plan, I thought it would be easy to put her in certain danger. If she was willing, so was I. We had nothing to lose. She was a traitor to my empress, which effectively made her a traitor to mypeople. She meant nothing to me other than being part of the mission.
But now, it was almost as if I wasanxiousfor her. I knew what Scarven was capable of, and the thought of her being in his clutches…
The lines were blurred. Things weren’t as black and white with her as they were three and a half months ago.
“Shadow marking is where you leave a bit of your shadows behind,” Calyra was saying. “Almost like an anchor to help you find your way back.”
“Sounds kind of like my magic,” Arowyn mused with a bite of stew in her mouth. “I can summon things to me if it has some of my essence connected to it.”
Calyra nodded. “We may possess different magics, but it’s all from the Fates, isn’t it? Runs through each of our veins.” She patted Devora’s hand, who was gazing at her with quiet admiration.
“What else is there?” Devora asked.
