Titus lunges forward. I strike out at him, but my dagger hits chainmail. He came in armor.
He grabs my wrist and squeezes it hard, forcing the dagger from it.
“She told me you might say that,” he says as he grabs me, throwing me over his shoulders and carrying me kicking and screaming down the hall, towards the throne room.
Chapter Forty-One
My shadows won’t come to me, even with Titus carrying me to my doom, and I suddenly realize why.
Ronan isn’t here. Every time my shadows have taken form, Ronan has been nearby.
That has to mean something, but I don’t have time to contemplate what. I have to find another way out of this situation.
And I have to stop Ronan from following me. If he follows me to Adria, she’ll kill him.
I have to let him think I’m okay.
I let my body relax against Titus’s back. I force my heart back down my throat. I breathe deeply, trying to think of anything other than everything that’s happening right now.
I think of Ronan. I think of him in the library, recording all my dreams into a book. Making a list of them, making a promise to me to fulfill them.
“I didn’t think you’d give up so easily,” says Titus. “Adria said he’d poisoned your mind. You should have stayed with me that night. None of this had to happen.”
I don’t react. I don’t hear his words. I’m with Ronan, on the back of the griffin. I’m with Ronan, leaning against him, my headon his shoulder. I’m with Ronan, feeling him kiss my hair when I say something cute.
I can’t warn him not to come here. He’ll never listen.
But maybe, if he thinks I’m safe, he’ll stay in the fight outside.
Which terrifies me too, but his chances are better out there than with Adria.
Titus carries me into the throne room, and I do my best not to react to the smell of smoke and blood, to the bodies on the ground.
“What’s wrong with her?” says Adria as he puts me down. I don’t move from the spot on the dais where he drops me, taking my sword from my belt. I look at her, my sister, her blonde hair slicked back, her armor covered in blood and soot, and I feel nothing.
“I don’t know. I didn’t do anything to her. She just went like this.”
“What are you doing? Why aren’t you fighting?” She slaps my face, and it stings, but I don’t react.
I’m with Ronan, in the bath as he washes me. I’m with Ronan, beside him in the theatre. I’m with Ronan, watching him from across the carriage, watching him smile when I catch him looking at me.
“I see what this is,” says Adria. “You think he won’t come for you if you’re like this. Well, there’s something we can do about that.”
I don’t react as Adria summons a flame in her hand.
“Tie her up,” she says to Titus. She grabs my wrist, holding the flame near my face as he pulls a rope from a bag they have hidden near the throne.
I keep my mind as clear as I can as I lower my shadows. I can’t make them take form, not now, not without Ronan, but I can make it harder for them.
Or so I thought.
“That won’t work on me,” says Titus.
He’s shadow-born.
He walks over to me, seeing me perfectly in the darkness. I breathe deeply, trying to stop my pulse from racing. I can’t let them tie me up, but I can’t run either. And I can’t fight them. I have no weapons. I have no shadows.
I let Titus bind my wrists. I can’t see another option. The longer I can make it without reacting, the longer I can keep Ronan alive.
