He hesitates. “Sometimes. It’s not logical. I can’t control anything. Sometimes, it’s like I’m trapped in the back of my own mind. Caged there. No matter how hard I try, I don’t have any say over my own actions, myrage. But I’m still watching, in a way.”
“Oh. That sounds awful.”
“It is.”
My chest squeezes. “But the curse doesn’t hurt you, right? You’re not in pain, like Amriel is?”
“No.”
“How come? If you’re separated from him the same way he is from you?”
The Shadow reseats me in the crook of his arm. “I don’t know. Maybe because if you cut a man’s heart out, it’s not the heart that hurts. It’s the man.”
The words land in my gut and sit there. Despite my fury with Amriel, I don’t relish the thought of him in anguish any more than I relish the idea of passing through this forest.
But I suppose I don’t have much say over either.
“And things have always been like this?” I say. “Since Alanna first cursed you?”
“Alanna.” Her name sounds sour in his mouth, like he’s trying to pronounce it without letting it touch his tongue. “Yes. Things have always been like this. She was very intentional about what she did.”
I absorb that. “Would you tell me about it? Her? What happened?”
He goes quiet for a moment, the silence measured by steady footfallsand crackling leaves. Something chitters at the edge of our violet bubble, but the Shadow issues a warning growl, and the shine of its eyes recedes.
“She just showed up one day,” he says. “From the Wildwood. She had a retinue with her. Advisors, diplomats. She said she’d come to make peace between humans and the fae, that the two kingdoms shouldn’t ignore each other when they shared a border. That we shouldn’t continue to be a mystery to one another.”
I nod. At leastthatmuch is true. At least the history books didn’t mislead me entirely. “What was she like?”
He hesitates. “She was…beautiful.”
I stiffen. I shouldn’t, but something hot and sharp bristles inside me at the thought of another woman tempting him. And not just any woman. My own many-times-great-grandmother.
The Shadow must read my thoughts, because a baritone laugh rattles his body. “Tempt me? She didn’ttemptme, Princess. I’m a goblin. No woman can tempt me but you. But Alanna was beautiful, which is important because it was the sort of beauty that made her trouble. I knew it from the moment she showed up.”
“Oh,” I say, my posture easing.
“Especially because…” His voice tightens, the tendons in his shoulder tensing. “She took one look at Amriel, atme, and got this look in her eye. She’d decided she wanted me, and I could tell she was the sort of woman who was used to getting her way, and that things would probably end badly if she didn’t.”
Despite the cloying stench and the sinister shadows teeming around us, I hang onto his words. “And? What happened?”
He sighs, so deeply it seems to start in his toes. “She proposed a marriage of alliance. One that would unify the races, the kingdoms. But it was mostly so she could have Amriel, I think. Me. Which I realize must sound arrogant.”
“Not really.” Heat creeps up the back of my neck. “I mean, I’ve seen him. You. I get it.”
He chuckles, deep and resonant. “Youdidcall me beautiful, once.”
My neck burns hotter. “I did.”
His laugh tapers off. “Alanna must have thought so, too, because she kept harping on the idea of marriage, how strategic it would be. AndAmriel didn’t discourage her right away. He said he’d think about it, that she and her advisors could stay in Velindra for a while, learn about the fae. And Idoblame Amriel for that part, because this all happened in his form. He wouldn’t shift around her, wouldn’t let her meet his goblin side. Because he knew what I’d say, if he did. He knew he couldn’t lie to her in this body. That he’d only end up insulting her.”
A frown bends my mouth. “So he led her on? Using his fae form?”
“Not exactly.” Another creature slinks from the dark, and the Shadow pivots to roar. It scrambles back, dead leaves spraying as it retreats. I don’t catch more than a shadowy swirl, the glint of too many eyes, but I shiver.
The Shadow clutches me tight. “You have to understand that Amriel can mislead himself in ways that I can’t. As long as he stayed in his fae form, he could consider Alanna’s proposal. Or he couldtellhimself he was. But really, deep down, he was waiting for you. He’s always been waiting for you.”
The sentiment wedges its way through a crack in my heart, making a home for itself there.
