I tried to visualize the details. It must be important. He was not offering me irrelevant facts about his home.
My eyes centered between his shoulders, marking the tension there. I was too aware of his body. Balar Shan was not his home. From the set of his shoulders, I could see that he was almost as uncomfortable here as I was.
Perhaps he had told me some truths. He’d implied his birth had resulted from his mother’s rape by a fae male. The fact that the male was the fae king did not make it less abhorrent. Neither did truths woven in with the lies excuse him for deceiving me.
But why would he help me escape only to lie to me? Trust was different from belief. I could believe he told me the truth about the palace, without trusting his motivations for doing so. We reached another intersection, then turned. The curve here was subtle. We must be near?—
I plowed into Garrick’s back as he stopped. With only a shift between us, I could feel the full heat of him burning against my cold skin.
I jerked away. It felt too right to be touched by him now that I knew everything between us was a lie.
Wrong.
But there was nowhere to go. The corridor ahead of us narrowed to a point and then ended, a wall of brightly painted stones on one side, and a window-like wall of glass so thick it was opaque on the other.
The end of the spiral.
Questions raced through my mind. Why would Garrick bring me here? We had to get to Isanara. Was this all a game to him, a ploy to serve me up to his father? He could have just left me in the bathhouse or let his brother and his companion have their way with me.
But the expression on his face—fuck, I hated how familiar his face was, that I knew his expressions—was not malicious. It was an expectation with a hint of pride. “My magic will not help us now,” Garrick said.
He needed my power.
I turned toward the outer wall. I reached out, already knowing what I would find.
Not glass, but ice.
We’d reached the edge of the palace. There were no outer walls. Not true ones, anyway.
That was why Garrick had described the layout of the palace. I only had to get to the edge of the spiral, follow the spokes if there were any, and I would be able to get out. The foot-thick wall of ice was an effective barrier against most, but it could not contain me.
It only took a thought, and the ice began to melt. It dripped away from my fingers, cracking as veins of ice turned into water. There was no time. I pushed my power outward, now with more force. I knew it was not instantaneous, because I felt every fracture, but one moment there was a wall of thick ice, and then the next there was nothing but air and darkness.
I sucked it in, the taste feeding my soul in a way that food never could. Freedom.
A witch was not meant to be a captive. Neither was a dragon.
I turned back to Garrick. “How do we get to Isanara?”
He stepped up to the edge. This close, I could see the distinct rings of clover green and cerulean blue in his eyes. They traced over me, a ring of light glowing around the pupil, pride and such knowing shining out. He knew me, because I’d shown myself to him. Begrudgingly and then willingly. But I did not want to be seen anymore—not by him.
I jerked my gaze away.
Garrick remained steadfast at my side, leaning his head out over the edge. “We climb.”
CHAPTER 10
KORYN
We are almost there,I promised Isanara as we worked our way down the side of the palace. The once colorful stones were coated in frost and ice, their vibrant shades dimmed to dull pastels. I used the same technique that had helped me climb the cliff-face at the Mercy Gate, creating handholds of ice and freezing my palms and feet to them as I climbed down. At least there was some benefit to the fact that I was still barefoot.
Balar Shan was built into the cliff itself. Where I’d been kept, in the bathhouse, was on the other side of the palace where it met the plain. But here, it dropped down several more levels until it met the frigid, dark blue-green waters of the Northern Fate. Dark God help me, I hoped that we did not have to go below the level of the water. My ice power was water-bound. But if I were surrounded by that swirling cold, I did not know if I would be powerful enough to save myself, let alone my familiar.
Garrick could fend for himself.
He’d probably shift into a raven before he hit the water and fly away.
Not that he’d get far, with the Lifebind still inked clearly on the inside of both of our wrists. The shortened sleeves of my shiftmade ignoring it impossible, and I’d caught a glimpse of his as he gave me his hand to lower me down.
