“I’m here!” I scream as I fall. “Help!”
He roars again, closer this time, but every passing second adds to my momentum. My knee bashes against my temple as I somersault out of control.
Still, I try. I scrabble at whatever I can reach, my nails slicing uselessly through the moss, my pendant whipping against my face. Another bellow fills my ears, but the Shadow won’t reach me in time.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Flashes bloom behind my eyelids, pieces of a life cut far too short. I see Brynne laughing, the summer she taught me how to swim. My father showing me how to pray, his hand warm on my head as he gave his approval. A gap-toothed Evelyn, sneaking me a piece of honeycomb while begging me not to tell. And later, white lightbathing our breakfast table. Carina’s joyful squeal. My father glancing to me while something died in his eyes. Then Carina, bringing me flowers the next day—a kindness that felt more like pity—and me, twelve years old, alone in the corridor while the sounds of my little sister’s Gracing celebration echoed in the dining room.
Then my father’s voice, just hours ago, cold and unfeeling.You’re late.
And suddenly, I’m falling.
The corridor drops away beneath me. Wind screams past my ears. The stars rush up, close enough to touch as I hurtle into the abyss.
A massive hand clamps around my wrist.
The momentum wrenches my shoulder, a white-hot bolt of agony ripping a scream from my chest. But I jerk to a stop, swaying in the void like a pendulum.
The Shadow's face appears over the lip of the tunnel, his eyes wild, his white hair whipping in the wind. His fangs are on full display, his clawed hand locked around my wrist. With a growl that reverberates through my bones, he hauls me upward.
My battered body scrapes against the moss as he drags me away from the edge. The moment I clear the drop, he yanks me against his chest, one arm banded around my waist.
“I've got you,” he rumbles, his voice shaking with anger or relief or some blend of the two. “You’re safe.”
I hear him, but I can’t understand, not really. Terror still crests inside me, wave after wave, and my lungs won’t reinflate, won’t?—
A sob wrenches free, then another. Somewhere within me, a dam breaks, and suddenly I’m weeping, great heaving gasps that shake my foundation.
“Oh, Princess.” The Shadow exhales roughly, his breath warm in my hair. “Sariah. Don’t worry. You’re safe.”
Goddess, I want that to be true. So very, very badly. But it isn’t.
“I don’t want to be here,” I choke out between sobs. “I don’t wantanyof this.”
The Shadow’s arms tighten around me.
“I just want— I want—” I dissolve into another wave of tears as everything crashes in at once—Amriel, the Claiming, the dinner, thatfall. This strange, terrible world where nothing makes sense and everything iswrong.
“To go home?” the Shadow says carefully.
“Yes,” I wail. “I want to go home.”
He holds me as I cry, stroking my hair, his claws tangling in my curls. His chest rises and falls beneath my cheek, and despite everything—despite the fact that he’s a heathen, that he wants impossible things from me—I can’t help but sink into his embrace. I’m raw, broken, stripped of all my defenses, and I cling to him as if he’s the only solid thing in existence.
I don’t know how long we stay like that, but it’s long enough for my sobs to dwindle and my breathing to even out. Long enough for humiliation to creep in, hot and acidic.
I pull back, swiping at my face with shaking hands. “What is this place, anyway? How can you have something so dangerous here? A corridor that just…ends?”
He looks at me askance. “It’s a refuse tunnel. We dump our trash down it.”
The explanation lands in my ears and sits there. Then, as quickly as the tears took root, laughter does. It boils out of me, violent and unstoppable.
Ishanna’s blood, I almost died. Falling down a goddess-damnedgarbage chute.
Nothing about it is funny, but I’m hysterical now, unable to rein in the billows of laughter pouring from my lungs. Or maybe I’m crying again. Who can tell.
“I think you should get some sleep, Princess.” The Shadow shifts, sliding a massive arm beneath my knees. “I’ll take you to your room.”
“No,” I manage between sob-gasps, but he's already lifting me. “I can walk on my own.”
