Part One
The Secret in the Shadows
TAMRA SILVERSPUN - FIVE NIGHTS AGO
Chapter 1
TAMRA SILVERSPUN
With every hateful word I prepare to speak, I wish I could separate from my body.
I need, desperately, to distance myself from the pain I have to cause my sister if I’m going to protect her.
Asha’s face is already strained. The strands of her previously silver hair are tarnished nearly black, like a silver pot that got too close to the fire.
Her skin, where it’s visible around the black evening gown she’s wearing, is discolored, as if she has been painted with gray ash, a dark contrast to the love that shines from her eyes.
Unbreakable love for me and Gallium, who is our brother and also my twin.
It was love that caused Asha to give up her freedom and wager her life for ours.
For ten years, she sacrificed her freedom so we would be protected from the humans who would have killed us. She shielded us with her ferocity and her audacity to hope that we might one day be free.
Now it’s my turn to protect her.
Gallium has already stepped toward her, pulling her into an embrace. “The Vandawolf said it was safe to hug you.”
“It is.” The tension in Asha’s shoulders visibly eases as she accepts Gallium’s hug.
The way she closes her eyes tells me how much this moment means to her. How much she needs to know that we won’t judge her for what has been done to her.
How much she needs to know that we don’t fear the strip of black metal that has adhered to her left hand.
It’s metal that once belonged to the cruelest Blacksmith, Malak Ironmeld, and now it’s part of her body, appearing so deeply embedded into her palm that it sits flat across it.
We’re located in the throne room of the fae monarch, Queen Karasi, where we were all summoned to dinner.
Only two days ago, we finally escaped the human city situated within the land that the fae callVadlig Odemark—theCursed Wasteland. We were separated from Asha at the start of our journey. She went back to help the Vandawolf fight a monster that had risen from the ash. Gallium, Thaden, and I were forced to continue on without her, traveling into the mountains, where the fae found us.
They gave us no choice but to present ourselves to their Queen.
Since then, Queen Karasi has done everything in her power to keep us separated from Asha.
She’s finally left us alone.
We arefinallyreunited, and now…
I must tear us apart again.
Oh, my heart.I must become a cold-hearted villain because it’s Asha’s love for me that I need to use against her now. To stab at her with my voice as sharply as I can and make her believe that I despise her because of her power.
To keep her safe, I will turn myself into her enemy because the real threat… the danger she doesn’t yet know about… is standing right beside me.
And she trusts him.
Just as I did.
Thaden Kane casts me into shadow where he stands over me. I’ve remained sitting at the dinner table, and his tall, broad-shouldered, muscular frame is an undeniably powerful presence.
