“Dead.”
She is dead because of me,came the thought, piercing and sharp and aching. It nearly stole my breath.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
And I knew she was. They weren’t hollow words for her. I knew she understood loss. How it followed you like a constant shadow, sewn with bloodied thread to your heels.
I inclined my head in acknowledgment but said nothing more about it. Silence stretched, long but unhurried.
“You’re different than how I thought you’d be,” Millie murmured, a soft smile on herhaana-blossom pink lips. One of her shoulders lifted. “Nicer.”
Discomfort tangled like a hardened knot in my chest.
“I’m not nice,” I informed her, my tone sharp. “Don’t make that mistake.”
Her smile died. It almost made me regret the words. Almost.
“I want something from you,” I told her, pushing off the wall, knowing I needed to leave. And soon. “I’m selfish.”
“And honest,” she added quietly. “At least you’re not a liar.”
I looked at the column of her throat. I could see her heart thumping. I could practicallyfeelher warmth. I could imagine the heat of her blood as it poured down my throat, the tingle and tang on my tongue. Venom once more flooded my mouth. My fists clenched at my sides. Since when did I fantasize about feeding from aneck?
But she’d be so warm there. I’d make her gasp as I sank my fangs deep.
Vaan,I thought.
I needed to leave before I did or said something I regretted.
I walked down the shadowy alley, stepping past the corner of RaanaDyaan. Over my shoulder, I lowered my wing so I could meet her eyes.
“I haven’t lied to you yet, Millie,” I told her. Softly. Almost gently. “That doesn’t mean I won’t.”
Before she could answer, I took to the sky.
CHAPTER10
MILLIE
The Forest of Stellara was named after a warrior queen of the Kylorr. A warrior queen before the nations had been divided, before the land had been parceled and bordered. Akyrana—a blood mate—to a great warrior king whose name I’d, truthfully, forgotten.
But it was Stellara who’d brought victory during an endless war. Who was said to have felled a thousand enemy Kylorr singlehandedly.
Most of Erzos’s villagers, who lived sprawled out across the land or along the blue coast or in the woods to the south of Erzos’s keep, thought the forest was cursed.
They claimed that they could still hear the cries and roars from that war, that blood had soaked the earth beneath the shadowed confines of the black boughs and spindly branches. As such, no one ventured here. It was technically not part of theKyzaire’s keep since the border ended at his land’s wall. I’d not encountered a single soul within, living or otherwise, besides the scurrying creatures that made their homes within its quiet safety.
Truthfully, the forest was merely a place in the Kaalium where the barrier between the realms was thin, as Kythel had told me. Where Nyaan—the living realm, this realm—mingled with Alara—the after realm—and at times, Zyos—the lost realm. But the Kylorr were a superstitious people, especially those who resided in Erzos, I’d determined.
As such, Stellara was cursed. Haunted.
Yet the forest had always brought me peace. I’d found comfort within the cool embrace of her arms, under the shade of her bleeding trees after my father had been called away to Horrin. I’d found numbed calmness in the quiet after I’d learned of his death, gentle tranquility in the rustle of leaves and moss, the scattering of bark as a creature scurried up a trunk.
Stellara was the first place I’d come with my father when we’d arrived in Erzos. Still lugging our travel trunks, arms exhausted, clothes dirtied from the dust of the caravan, he’d brought me here. Not deep. Just far enough inside the forest for the village behind us to melt away, for the quiet to become loud.
That morning, I’d known he’d been remembering her, so I’d given him space.
But in the weeks we’d been in Erzos together before he’d been called away for a job on Horrin, I hadn’t known if he’d sought out the cottage on his own.
