Page 42 of Tower of Tempest
I reeled back at her observation, at the truths about myself she was throwing at me.
Harmless flirting I could do, only because it made her smile, brought out a fire in her that I liked, and that I suspected she liked too. But this felt wrong, unloading on her like this when she already had so much to deal with. But she was looking at me with such earnestness in her eyes, I couldn’t say no. She wanted me to tell her, so I would.
I exhaled. “Almost a year ago today, my brother Mal woke me in the middle of the night and told me we needed to go. I didn’t ask any questions, just followed him out of our castle, down to the shoreline below, and into the sea. I was used to these middle-of-the-night wakings from both my siblings. We liked to adventure, to explore, to sneak out and do stupid things. But I quickly realized this was different. He explained as much as he could as we used our water magic to ride the waves. Our boys had been taken, he’d told me. All of them. Every single boy of Apolis. Kidnapped in a single night. Right from under our noses.”
Her nose wrinkled. “Taken? All your boys?”
“Yes, by the pirate lord of the Dark Seas.”
She rubbed her arms. “He sounds fearsome.”
“He is. Mal made the plan. We snuck onto his ship, hiding out, planning to emerge when we got to wherever the pirate lord was taking our boys. We’d hoped to overpower the pirates and commandeer the ship back to Apolis.” I swallowed, remembering how it had all felt like adream at the time, and I kept waiting to wake up. “The ship finally arrived at our destination, and Mal and I watched as the boys marched off onto the island like they were in a trance.”
Poppy’s nose wrinkled. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It didn’t to us either. Until we followed them into the jungle and realized where we were: the shadow court.”
She sucked in a sharp breath.
“All of our shadows got taken, and escaping the island is almost impossible. The shadows guard the perimeters of the jungle, ordered to keep anyone from leaving. I watched boys try to escape and get torn apart.” My muscles tensed at the memory. “We were there for eight long months, just trying to survive, to take care of the boys and keep their spirits up. Well, Mal took care of the boys, and I kept their spirits up. I told them stories, teased them, played with them, made them laugh and smile and sometimes even forget that they’d been kidnapped from their home.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” Poppy asked.
“Eventually, my sister Gabby came. With the pirate lord.”
Poppy gave me a wry smile. “Ah, yes. Leoni mentioned her relationship with him.”
“It had been a shock to me and Mal. We saw him as a villain, not someone good enough for our sister,” I said, still remembering seeing Gabrielle kissing the pirate through the thick foliage, how angry I’d felt in that moment. “It turned out the pirate wasn’t at fault for any of his actions. He was under someone else’s control, the same one who took all our shadows.”
Poppy’s eyes searched my face. “Who?”
“The shadow king.”
A look crossed her face that I couldn’t decipher, like she was trying to solve a puzzle.
I tugged at my shirt collar, almost feeling those blue lines writhing underneath. “My sister pulled it off. She managed to rescue us all, the boys, me, Mal... But my shadow got left behind.”
Poppy’s eyes shone with sorrow. “Gran told me being separated from one’s shadow is painful, that you can no longer use your magic, that you feel like you’re missing a part of yourself.
I hesitated, wondering why her gran had never told her the worstpart about getting your shadow taken. I could tell Poppy the truth, that I was dying a slow death, and if I didn’t either get to the island where I was bound or get my shadow back, it would be my end. But that felt like too much to unload on her in this moment. I didn’t need her taking on my problems when she had her own. She was so selfless. I’d seen it over the last few weeks in the way she insisted on taking care of everyone else. She would insist I forget about her gran, about her mission, and go after my shadow. She’d insist I forget about her. For some reason, I wasn’t ready to do that.
“It is like you’re missing a part of yourself.” I tapped my chest. “That’s what the blue lines are. They signify that I don’t have my shadow.”
All true. Just not the whole truth.
She studied me for a moment, and I thought she might argue, but she didn’t. “The shadow king,” she said slowly. “He’s the one who took your shadow? Who is he?”
“I don’t know. No one knows. He’s someone who’s risen up on the island and is collecting shadows for a dark purpose. But we couldn’t figure out why. Our best guess is he’s planning on waging war against the rest of us, that he wants revenge because of what happened after the Shadow War. My brother is calling a conclave soon, maybe has already called one, and he plans to bring all the courts together to discuss this very thing.”
Poppy chewed the inside of her cheek, something she did a lot when she was nervous. It made me smile.
She scowled. “Why are you smiling?”
“Because you always do the same thing when you’re nervous, and it’s cute.”
“Prince Lochlan.” Her voice had warning to a it.
“Yes, Poppy?”
