I urged Dargan forward, keeping us close to the tree line as I scanned the fields, looking for a likely spot to hide.
“You said your ‘shadows.’ So that’s your glamour then?” Raewyn asked a few minutes into the ride. “You can cast shadows and cloak yourself in darkness?”
I gave her a noncommittal hum. The shadow power was a recently acquired thing, bequeathed to me when its original owner died.
That had been the second most shocking thing about it—the first was that I’d been able toborrowhis glamour in the first place without his permission.
It had happened during an altercation with the guards posted outside of Stellon’s chambers. I hadn’t even intended to siphon the guard’s glamour.
We were in the heat of battle, my own glamour kicked in, and the next thing I knew,Iwas controlling his shadows. Then the guard had taken his own life, leaving me in possession of his shadow-wielding abilities.
I thought at first it might have somehow replaced the Gleaning glamour I was born with, but I’d used my inborn gift several times since then. It appeared I now held them both equally.
“You know about glamours, do you?” I asked Raewyn.
Clearly she knew next to nothing aboutme. I guess I couldn’t blame Stellon for not spending his private time with her these past two weeks discussing me.
Raewyn sounded contemplative when she spoke again. “I’m not sure why you’re so ashamed of it.”
“What?”
“I asked Stellon about your family’s glamours,” she said. “He wouldn’t tell me about yours. He said you were private about it because you found it shameful—the way he finds his shameful.”
“I think his is magnificent,” she added.
I was shocked to know that while Stellon hadn’t shared my glamour with her, he had shared something so deeply personal about himself. I’d never told anyone apart from him and Mareth how I felt about the Gleaning glamour I’d been born with.
As far as I knew, Stellon had never discussed his own embarrassing Exalting glamour with anyone but us.
Until now.
“Yes, well you really know nothing about it, do you,” I said, sounding more irritated than I’d intended.
And then I added a barb meant to irritateher. “... being amerehuman and all.”
Raewyn’s spine straightened in offense, and her gasp was so loud I could hear it over the noise of Dargan’s trotting. I couldn’t help it, I laughed out loud.
“You’re awfully cheerful for someone who just took four lives,” she snapped. “I shouldn’t be surprised you are unaffected by the brutality of what occurred back there. Did you really have to kill them all?”
“Yes,” was all I said.
How could I explain to her the madness that had overtaken me as that lecherous Dryad had touched her—when I couldn’t explain it to myself?
In truth, I’d had no choice but to slay them all. If one had escaped and alerted other Dryads, we’d have soon found ourselves surrounded by an army of vengeful tree people.
But that wasn’t the whole reason.
I’dwantedto do it.
The minute they’d started looking at her with lust and violence in their eyes, my blood had begun to simmer. Their obscene comments about her had turned up the heat further.
The frightened sound she’d made as the leader grabbed her had tipped it over into a full boil.
At that point, I could barely think anymore.
I’d had just enough presence of mind to send her and Dargan out of there toward safety, and then I’d let the frenzy overtake me.
As someone who was renowned for his self-control, the experience had left me shaken.
