Page 72 of Curse of Thorns
“Was it truly murder?” the wraith says in a sing-song voice. His smoke dissolves and drifts right over me. I shiver but continue my march, eyes examining the trees as we walk.
He forms in front of me, but I do not falter and walk right through him again. Leave it to me to get the most annoying tagalong ever. Who even gains a damn side-kick inside hell?
“Because I heard you were simply defending yourself.” He sounds so damned pleased with himself.
“Do you not talk about things you do not know,” I spit, repeating his own words. Yes, Reahgan was an ass. Yes, he was the kind of fae to enjoy hurting someone else. Yes, he would have hurt me if I hadn’t fought back. But one doesn’t feel the kind of pleasure I got the moment Reahgan’s life left him unless they’re bad to the very core.
“I know quite a bit more than you think, my dear.”
“What is your intention, wraith?” I stop hands on my hips. “In helping me.”
“What’s in it for me, you mean?”
“I don’t much care what a wraith wants. No. Whose will are you completing? Who do you work for?”
His smoky lips curl into a grin. “I am working directly for the Shadow Court Queen.”
I narrow my eyes but continue walking down the dirt path through the forest. “What does she intend to achieve by helping me?” There is an obvious answer, but I still question it.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he slurs his words. “She wants you to be her successor. You, my dear, are the strongest shadow fae in centuries. With you, our court has a chance at reestablishing our lost heritage. With you, we can rebuild.”
“We,” I repeat.
“I was once a Shadow Court king, did you not know that?”
My eyebrows pull down. He’d claimed the Shadow Court as his own before, but king?
Don’t let him distract you, I remind myself. His story, his history, is of no consequence. He may not even be telling the truth.Do not trust a wraith.
“Right.”
“She did not want to stick her hand too deeply into the trials for fear of disqualifying you. But she’s been hoping you’d come to see her in the Shadow Court. She’s been waiting for you.”
My heart aches. I don’t trust the wraith, but I do love my court. And I had wished to visit. I’d wanted to give them a boost of my power. What little I could give for the temporary time I’d been allowed to stay. But I never made it.
“I planned to do just that. It just... didn’t happen.”
“Your mate lured you into his clutches. I know. It’s happened many times to many promising young ladies. It’s how they continued to weaken us, you know? My own child was forced into marriage in the Flicker Court.”
My eyebrows rise at his confession.
It’s well known that shadow fae have been forced to join other courts. Sometimes male, but often it’s the strongest females of the Shadow Court that are targeted. My own parents discussed the possibility of sending me away as an adolescent.
After generations, it left us with only weak pairings and, therefore, weaker children. Our magic slowly siphoned out of our lands.
“I didn’t fall into his clutches. There’s no hope for Rev and me,” I say, my voice hollow. “But he needed my help. And I couldn’t abandon him.”
“In the same way, you couldn’t leave him to his own devices on his own quest? You sacrificed yourself—again. Was that always your plan?”
“No,” I whisper. Shadows shift past the trees as we pass them. I narrow my eyes. “What was that?”
“Nothing of consequence,” the wraith says, drifting around me. “Why did you come here then, child? Was your life so terrible you decided to end it early? You obviously have no sense of value for your own life.”
“No,” I say again. I blink and turn to watch my boots stomping on the uneven path. We are moving rather slowly. “Once I learned the Night Bringer was setting a trap for Rev...”
The wraith cackle laughs. “That’s what you heard? From what source?”
I purse my lips. Again, another shift in the forest outside the pathway.
