Shaw
Where is she, where is she, where is she.
The words run a familiar rhythm through me, and it serves me right. I dragged Mirren into the Dark World, embroiled her in shadows and violence, and my penance is being destined to lose her, over and over. It’s deserved. But this knowledge doesn’t ease the slimy membrane of fear that coats my heart as I will the skiff to move faster.
My arms burn by the time I reach the dock and I don’t bother to tie the boat off before hurtling up the manor path. Where would she go? The wood behind the manor is vast, before giving way to the granite cliffs, and finally the endless Storven Sea. How far did she get?
If only I’d confessed the truth sooner. I should have been brave enough to cut the tip from the weapon of my betrayal so that it could never be used to divide us.
Desperation seeps into my chest as I reach the manor. Whoever orchestrated this has been thorough, watching and gathering information patiently. They will have planned this down to the second. Calculated how long it would take me to extract the truth from Jayan and to ensure the deed was done long before that. And I’ve already wasted so much time.
If you don’t picture victory, you’ve already lost.
My father’s words. Normally, I would battle against them, but now I let them bolster my resolve. Mirren is not dead. I would know. I feel the truth of it in my bones. Her will to live is unmatched. She still breathes. She still fights.
I dip into the abyss and let the fire burn in my stomach and veins, clearing through the fear and leaving only clarity behind. Mirren is too smart to wander the unknown in the dark of night. She would go somewhere familiar. There are only two places on the manor property she’s acquainted with. The training grounds, to the left. And the pond, to the right.
The pond, with its sparkling droplets that I brushed from her lips with my own. Her electric touch shooting through me like starlight and crackling through every dark corner of myself.
I think of how that same touch disappeared as soon as Jayan revealed the ugly truth of me. How her eyes glistened, hot and bright, with unshed tears of hurt. She wouldn’t go to the pond. She wouldn’t go anywhere that reminds her of me.
I steel myself and turn left toward the training grounds.
* * *
Mirren
I don’t make even make it to the last willow when a searing pain rips through the muscles of my calf. I cry out and fall to the ground, the palms of my hands scraped raw, saving my face from a similar fate. My leg burns in agony as I rear up, fighting through the red haze of pain, but the assassin is already on top of me.
He yanks the dagger out mercilessly and a ragged scream erupts from my throat. He flips me over as though I weigh no more than a feather and presses me into the dirt. Another wave of pain rips through me and hot tears spring to my eyes. Oh gods,oh gods.
The stranger studies my dagger. Blood coats the blade, running down its intricate hilt and I know it will be the last thing I see before I die. Easton is across the continent and my mother is dead and my father is captured. And Shaw, by the Covinus, Shaw is not coming. I will die alone.
Alone, as I have always been.
I squeeze my eyes shut as the stranger brings my own blade toward my heart.
ChapterTwenty-Eight
Mirren
“Mirren!”
My name, but so far away. As if it has risen through mist and blood and shadows to reach my ears a millennia later.
I shy away from it. I am unmade and my name only serves as a painful reminder of what once was. What can no longer be. What was weakness and loneliness and failure.
Mirren.
My name echoes again and this time, it’s not the distant call of an ancient creature. It is intimate and familiar, a soft purr of sonorous syllables.
Shaw.
He shouts my name again, his voice closer this time.
I want to tell him it’s too late. I’ve been alone so long and now, I will die here, too. It’s impossible for him to reach me through the thick glass walls the universe has constructed around me. I am destined to die just as I lived; forgotten and uncared for.
But you’ve never been alone, have you?The voice sounds in my head, both foreign and familiar; a part of me but wholly outside myself.I have always been here, sleeping in your heart and running through your veins.The voice is ancient and raw, sounding somewhere halfway between dreams and wakefulness.I soothe you and empower you, and now, I would save you. If only you’ll allow it.
