His mouth tightens. “Maybe. We’ll try.”
My heart wobbles as he sweeps me up, one arm beneath my shoulders, the other beneath my knees. I loop my arms around his neck and tuck my face into his chest, breathing in the smell that makes my belly curl tight and my eyelashes flutter closed.
For a while, we don’t speak.
We don’t need to.
Darkness falls. The sky turns the color of irises, then of the ocean’s depths. We pass through a door and into the shadow place.
Of course we do.
The Shadow rearranges his grip, cradling me closer while an army of eyes amasses in the darkness. I burrow into him, letting his glow eclipse everything else.
That sweet stench wafts around us. Dead leaves snap underfoot.
“I wish you could’ve met my mother,” the Shadow rumbles. “You would’ve loved her. She would’ve loved you, too.”
It’s an obvious attempt at distraction, but it works. I peek up into his face, struck by his tone. “Your mother? She’s…?”
“Dead.”
A pang stabs through me. “I’m sorry.”
He pads along in silence for a while. Then, “Thank you.”
I lay a hand against his chest, my fingers curving against his skin as if I can capture his warmth and keep it in my palm. “Can I ask what happened?”
He lets go of a long breath. “It was a long time ago. Almost a hundred and fifty years. It was…well, I’d say ‘an accident,’ but she knew what she was doing. She was trying to break the curse. To go into the Wildwood by gyre.”
My whole body stiffens, but…of course. That day in the solarium, when Amriel told me the Wildwood doesn’t tolerate magic, his voice wavered.
I should’ve realized right then and there. Because for him, that’s as good as a confession.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, then frown. “But the Wildwood? Why would she go in there? Aren’t I the only one who can break the curse?”
“Yes, but…” A dismayed laugh catches in his throat. “She was a mother. She couldn’t stand seeing Amriel suffer. Me. Us. She went to the hourglass every day for years, trying to smash it, and when that didn’t work, she tried the Wildwood. She thought maybe if she ran the whole thing, if she tried hard enough, if she loved deeply enough, she could overcome Alanna’s curse. But she couldn’t. She transported herself, andpoof. The end.”
An icy weight settles in my chest. “That’s horrible.”
He doesn’t answer, but I feel a pit open inside him, filled with heartache and hatred and loss. With a grief that has festered for centuries.
My chest hollows out. “I wish I wasn’t related to her. Alanna, I mean. I wish I didn’t share blood with someone so vindictive.”
His jaw works. “You’re nothing like her, Princess. You’re everything Alanna wished she could have been. The best of your line, the best thing Aethrolia’s ever made. The most deserving, the most worthy.”
A wet sting saturates my eyes, but I blink it back. Ishanna’s blood, how I’ve longed to hear those words. From my sisters, my father, anyone.
I never dreamed they’d finally arrive from a goblin’s mouth. “You think I’m worthy?”
He glances down his cheeks at me. “I think you’re the only thing in the world that truly is. So. Like I said. My mother would’ve loved you.”
At that, I can’t hold my flood of emotion, and I nuzzle into him again, swiping at the tears that slip down my cheeks. He sees them, of course. Even if he didn’t, he can still feel them through the bond, but he grants me some semblance of privacy, his gaze aimed ahead while we weave between the shadows.
When I finally regain my composure, I say, “What about your father? Is he…?”
“Alive,” he says, “but broken. He’s at the Cloisters, but he hasn’t spoken a word since my mother died. They were mates.”
My heart squeezes at his despondent tone, at the knowledge pulsing through the bond. He never understood, before, how much his father lost when his mate left this world.
