We both wanted the same thing: to take down Scarven. But there was so much we still held against each other. I betrayed his best friend, and he kept me locked up for three months. How were we suddenly supposed to work together?
My body was confusing adrenaline with desire, that was all. My mind knew better. Nox Duma was a fuse waiting to be lit. All that restraint coiled beneath his charm, begging to be released.
I just needed to put distance between us.
I hung back with Arowyn the next day, our second-to-last full day of travel. Everett and Nox talked strategy up ahead. They would occasionally bring us into the conversation, which felt like an improvement from the cold shoulder I got on the way to Tenebra.
It was wild how much things had changed in two and a half weeks. I stared down at the reins, watching as my little shadows pulsed into view, wrapping around my fingers the way they liked to. It was as natural as breathing at this point. Thecae was right—they were part of me. Not something to control, but to complement. And after they saved us without a thought in the carriage accident, I trusted them implicitly.
My own shadows were probably the best friends I ever had. I couldn’t decide if that was profound or tragic.
I knew they would help me with this mission. I hadn’t been able to shadow melt ever since the sparring session with Nox, but I’d been practicing shadow whispering. I’d done it before—subconsciously back at the Keep, and then again in the training grounds before we left.
Nox’s whispered confession still rolled through my mind. I knew he would never want me to admit I’d heard it.
“I didn’t think it was possible, but you’re becoming one of us now.”
The words wrapped around me, warming the chill from the cold Drakorum air. I’d never been part of something like this. Something so important, so meaningful. I’d searched for this feeling in all the wrong places, hoping one day the answers to my past and my family would be that solace for me.
I was beginning to think that maybe there was more than one kind of family.
“What are you smiling at?” Arowyn asked as we trotted along.
“Nothing.” I tucked my grin away. “So when are we stopping for the night?”
Idreamed of a rocking ship.
Waves rolling under a dark blue sky, stars reflecting off the crests like little diamonds. A blue blanket wrapped around a smiling baby. Shadows twirling and dancing between little fingers. It was one of those moments where Iknewit was a dream,knewmy body was lying in a tent in Drakorum, but I didn’t want it to end.
Then whispers broke through the dream, carried on a dark cloud over the waters.
“No, please!”
“Not her. Take me—kill me?—”
“Help me.”
I thought it was part of the dream, until a familiar snarl burst from the shadows.
I jolted awake in my bedroll. Sweat dampened my brow, but the flap of my tent had come loose, letting in a chill.
“Help me.”
That voice echoed again, along with a groan. My shadows circled my feet and twined up the blankets covering me. Something was wrong.
I hastily shoved off the blankets and grabbed the nearest cloak, throwing it over my shoulders as I crawled out of the tent. Tendrils of darkness unfurled toward the tent furthest from me, across the campfire that had long since dwindled.
Nox’s tent.
The whispers grew louder as I approached. There was a silhouette of a candle still burning inside the tent, illuminating it with a golden glow. I hesitated, then reached out to undo the buttons of the opening.
When I poked my head inside, I sucked in a breath.
Nox lay in his bedroll, thrashing in his sleep. His pillow and blanket were shredded all around him. Silver talons extended from his fingers, scraps of fabric caught on their tips. Faint lines that looked like scars faded into his skin with every passing moment, as if he’d clawed himself in his sleep only to heal and do it all over again.
Without thinking, I rushed forward to kneel at his side and placed the back of my hand on his cheek. Fates, he was burning up.
I tried to keep my voice soothing. “Nox, if you can hear me, please?—”
