Page 78 of Beyond Those Gilded Walls

“Here.” Tallon’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts and I took the proffered mask from his hand. He secured his own, a blood-red skull that covered his forehead and eyes and then swooped down over one cheek, leaving his mouth and the other side of his face bare.

The one he offered me would just cover my eyes and was an intricate lace pattern specked with red jewels throughout that reminded me eerily of blood spatter. It was perfect, and I couldn’t help the small chuckle I let out. “You certainly know how to communicate with clothing.”

He smiled as I fastened it around my head, arranging my hair carefully over the straps. “Sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all.”

“Do you think Eadric will be at the party tonight? Or will he hide?” I asked. Tallon slid his own red-bladed knife into a sheath he secured at the small of his back before pulling on a black jacket with velvet brocade detailing. He looked like Kalyx incarnate rather than merely his herald. My blood thrummed just looking at him, and from the smirk on his lips, he knew exactly what I was thinking. “You’re not going to show your marks?”

“He will be there. He’s too arrogant not to show his face, especially once the castle tells him we’ve returned.” He offered up the crook of his arm. “And no, the regents have already seen mine. They need to see yours tonight.”

I looked down at my arms, where the expanse of the marks along my right arm were fully exposed. “They certainly will in this dress.”

“Precisely the point.” He ran his hand down my back, fingers catching on each of the protrusions from the corset until his palm rested at the base of my spine. “Tell me, do you not feel powerful in this dress, Odyssa? With the evidence of your strength on display for all to see?”

“I do.” My voice was hoarse.

“Good.” The heat in his eyes burned through my body and his eyes flicked down to my mouth, his tongue darting out to wet his own lips. His eyes shut for a moment, and when they opened again, they were bright with determination. “I know you think this—we—are a mistake, and I swear I will prove to you we are not—that I can be worthy of you, and that you are more than worthy of me—but I’d like to kiss you once more before we go. If you’d allow it.”

My heart shattered there in my chest, and I reached a hand up to cradle the exposed side of his face. “Tallon.Weare not a mistake. You do not need to convince me of that. It is the timing I regret, and only that. I need to prove I am worthy to Emyl first, and I have let far too many distractions slow that down. And those distractions killed Rhyon.”

“You shouldn’t have to prove your worth to someone who only seeks to use you,” he murmured, turning his head to kiss my palm. “But I understand the sentiment, far more than you know. I will help you however you need, bargain or no bargain. I am yours to command.”

“Then kiss me once more, before we dethrone the Coward Prince and save my brother.”

There was no hesitation from Tallon. As soon as the words left my mouth, he was there. His hands pulled me in tightly, one still at my lower back, and the other reaching up to cup the side of my face and plunge back into my hair. It was heady and all-consuming, the way he kissed me, and I couldn’t get enough of it.

All too soon, he pulled back, both of our chests heaving and our panting breaths mingling in the space between us.

“We should go,” he said. It stirred a sense of pride in me, hearing how utterly ragged his voice was.Ihad done that to him.

I leaned up and pressed a final kiss to his lips, short and chaste compared to the previous one. “Yes, we should.”

The moment we stepped out of Tallon’s room in the Beyond and returned to Castle Auretras, we both stiffened. Something was wrong in the halls, and the feeling of being watched prickled at the back of my neck. A dark and heavy feeling pressed down on us, making my body feel like it weighed thrice what it should. Ahead of us, the walls rippled like they were made of water rather than stone. Ash and smoke burst across my tongue, so heavy it nearly made me gag.

“Perhaps he is smarter than I gave him credit for,” Tallon mused. “He’s set the Soulshades and the castle upon us.”

“What should we do?” My hand trailed down to where Tallon had secured the bloodstone blade.

“Not yet,” he said, casting a look down at my leg. “We should get somewhere more open than this hallway. Make your way towards the ballroom. The walls are not our friend, and the more space we have, the sooner we can handle this.”

At his direction, we turned and rushed down the hall. The walls rippled alongside us as we moved, and the taste of ash was growing thicker in my mouth, but I didn’t dare pull my eyes from in front of me.

“They’re getting closer,” I warned, feeling the weight of them against my back.

“We’re almost there,” he said, as we turned another corner. The space ahead opened into the large foyer just outside the back entrance to the ballroom—the one Prince Eadric usually arrived through—where three hallways split off from the center space and dispersed throughout the castle. He reached the center and stopped, turning back to face what had chased us. “Draw your knife.”

From all sides, Soulshades poured out of the walls.

Tallon’s presence was a pulse of strength beside me. He’d yet to draw his own weapon, but the aura that radiated from him was terrifying in its own right. As the first Soulshade neared, his marks erupted from his body, coiled and ready to strike down those malevolent spirits that surrounded us. At my leg, a cold spot told me Sylviana had also joined our fight.

With a shriek that pierced the very marrow of my bones, the first Soulshade lunged forward, its bloody face contorted with rage. I raised my dagger, and slashed towards it. I wasn’t sure what I had expected the bloodstone dagger to do, but it caught against the Soulshade’s chest as if they were a solid form, and—with another piercing scream—the Soulshade dissipated, leaving room for the next one to take its place.

Tallon leaped into action beside me, his magic slicing through the air with deadly precision that sent the Soulshades recoiling away. I mirrored him with my knife. Beside us both, Sylviana had grown into her human-sized form without me noticing and was swallowing her own portion of Soulshades.

But for every Soulshade we vanquished, another took its place. Soulshades surrounded us like a cocoon, to the point I could hardly see the walls of the castle around us. Sweat dripped from my brow and slicked the handle of the dagger.

As the battle raged on, the line between reality and nightmare blurred, and time seemed to stretch into eternity. Still, we fought on. But it wasn’t enough, I knew, as my eyes took in the scene before me.

Sylviana had retreated to her normal size; her sides heaved with exertion. Tallon was quickly being overpowered by four Soulshades snatching at him, and his marks had faded into mere whisps of smoke. My own energy was fading quickly, and my arms burned from the demanding slashing motions with the knife.

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