Sure, my prison was luxurious. Strangely so. But it was still a prison. Fancy sheets and golden bathtubs could only mask the truth for so long. Whenyouwere the one responsible for betraying the empress of this empire, someone you had the balls to call afriendeven as you shoved the metaphorical knife in her back…you deserved worse.
Ideserved worse.
Fates, that had practically become my battle cry at this point.
I still didn’t understand why Nox kept me here. What was his endgame? To let me die alone up in this tower? Until he thought I’dlearned my lesson? It seemed like all I did now was wait for the other shoe to fall.
I gnawed on my lower lip, which had grown chapped in the dryness of Drakorum. Even being stuck in this tower, I could feel it. The brittle air forcing its way through the cracks in the stone, sucking out the warmth and replacing it with a chill that settled into my bones with every breath.
Winter in the Veridian Empire was very different from back home in my kingdom, if I could even call it that anymore. I supposed the green, vibrant life of Mysthelm had never truly been myhome.
A home was somewhere you could call your own. Somewhere thatfeltlike yours. That welcomed you back again and again, no matter how long you were gone.
I had no home. Nothing to call my own. No friends, no family, no one to care.
That was all I had ever wanted.
Grabbing my glasses from my bedside table, I picked up the book that had toppled to the ground. I watched Rebekah over the top of the pages as she flitted around the room, tidying my dirty clothes, folding the blankets on the bed. When she stepped on hertoes to dust the top of the armoire, I spotted a wrinkled piece of paper sticking out of her pocket.
With my glasses on, I could make out dark, messy script with the words “from your Milo” and a little heart next to it.Hmm.A love interest?
I wanted to ask her about this curious sweetheart of hers. It was the closest thing I had to entertainment in this dreadfully dull tower. But before I could, she gave me another curtsy and exited out the door, as quick and graceful as a bunny.
Andthatwas the most exciting thing that would happen to me all night.
She was usually the only other person I saw, besides the strange horses and their riders barging onto the grounds beneath my tower at all hours of the night. Sometimes, when I was up late reading by the window, I’d hear hooves and look down to see newcomers dismounting, small figures making their way to the front of the mansion and out of sight.
I liked to pretend they were spies. Maybe assassins, sent by some far-off villain. Or workers from a brothel coming to pay Nox a visit in his mysterious lair. My imagination often ran away with me. That, paired with my annoying curiosity, used to get me in trouble at the orphanage.
I turned my attention back to the book in my lap.From Peaks to Palaces: History of the Veridian Empire. Real riveting stuff.
But it had helped me learn a lot about this mysterious land I was stuck in.Drakorum. One of the six provinces in the Veridian Empire, each home to a unique kind of magic I had yet to discover. Drakorum was where Nox and anyone with a Shifter bloodline originated from.
Shifters were evidentlymassivelyloyal creatures. It came from their innate wild nature, since they had the power to shift into whatever their animal form was. I’d only met a handful so far—Nox, of course, as well as Rebekah. And Clarissa, who was a fox Shifter.
Fox.
The image of those dead eyes, the bloodied fur, the limp body slammed back into me.
Your fault.Traitor.
I took a deep breath and squeezed my eyes shut to banish the feel of its fur beneath my fingers, then looked down at the book.
While Drakorum was where I currently resided, it wasn’t the province that captured my curiosity. One word rang out in my mind.
Tenebra. The province just west of here, home to the Shadow Wielders. People who could turn darkness into weapons, who could control and conjure shadows from nothing.
My guilt morphed into something else. A deep, quiet, hesitant yearning. The only emotion that could distract from the shame, the only desire strong enough to outweigh my need for absolution.
Tenebra was the province that held the most intrigue for me because, as I’d only discovered three months ago, it was where I was born. It was where my realfamilycame from.
And I knew absolutelynothingabout it. Only that I’d been torn from whatever life I might have had and flung onto the shores of Mysthelm as a baby, with no recollection of my magic.
My magic. Against all odds, beyond my wildest dreams…I wasn’t just an orphan from Mysthelm. I was a Shadow Wielder.
Knock.
The harsh rap on my door echoed for half a second before it slammed open.
