Page 16 of Thief of Souls
My shoulders straighten. “I will find the Horn of Shadows. I will not fail you again, Father.”
I do not dare.
Even if I have to betray Keir in order to do so.
4
Torn between a vicious king and a powerful prince.
I sigh as I stare at the ceiling of my bedchambers at the inn I’m staying at. All I really need right now is to throw my treacherous sister into the mix, but she’s missing.
And the Lord of Mistmark’s name keeps being mentioned in relation to Soraya. My sister was sent to kill him and for the first and only time, she failed.
I know how she played the ruse.
From what little I know of the Lord of Mistmark, he’s powerful, dangerous, and rules his own lands, separate from any court. She tried to seduce him and something went wrong, for she either couldn’t kill him, or she didn’t have theheartto kill him.
Until this moment I wouldn’t have thought her tohavea heart, but I taunted her about him once and she nearly put a knife in me. I saw the look that crossed her face. Just one fleeting, unguarded second of pain. It was a look of lost hopes. And dare I say it, broken dreams….
And now he’s marrying another and my sister, who was sent to steal the horn he has in his possession, has vanished into the winds.
The Court of Blood is one of the most dangerous of the Blessed courts. It’s ruled by King Aswan, but his son is hungry and ambitious, and his nieces no less so. They’re gifted in the art of poison, and it’s said that some of them mix torture with sex. Narcissa, one of Aswan’s nieces, was one of the potential brides summoned to the Court of Dreams three months ago, and although she died, I wouldn’t have liked to have crossed her.
Why would the Lord of Mistmark want to marry Belladonna?
Why would he want to marryanyof the Court of Blood?
They’ve been passed over for centuries—one of the reasons Narcissa was so desperate to capture the Prince of Dreams’ attention—and if sweet little Belladonna is as poisonous as her sister, then it would be like bedding down with a viper.
If Mistmark caught a glimpse of my sister’s face, then he might be responsible for her disappearance. He’s definitely at the top of my suspect list, though certainly not the only one on there.
I need to get into the court to find answers.
But I don’t have an invitation to the wedding.
The Court of Blood will be locked down tighter than my sister’s heart. With so many of the Blessed courts in attendance, the guards will be thick and alert. Servants will be known and vetted. I could kidnap one and glamor myself to look like them for short periods of time, but that’s a dangerous route to take. One must have time to study one’s prey and their mannerisms.
But several princesses saw my face three months ago. They knew me as Merisel of Greenslieves, and while my skills of glamor are good, they’re not good enough to completely change my appearance. It’s a twist of the cheekbones here, a slip of the nose there…. You’re constantly working to hold the glamor in place, because different angles change perspective. Too many people would look at me and wonder why I seem familiar.
Who knows what kind of traps and glamors the Prince of Blood has laid over his court? He didn’t earn that moniker because he’s a kindly soul.
The answer to my dilemma is clear: I can’t get into the Court of Blood in disguise.
The only way to get in is if I’m invited.
Or more to the point, ifMeriselis invited. And there’s one fae whoisn’tinvited, but will be welcomed all the same.
Pushing upright, I scowl.
Sometimes I hate the twists my mind takes.
Fate trails her icy fingertips down my spine.
I cross to the fireplace, pour myself a goblet of wine, and stare into the flames. I’ve never tried to contact Keir but I can feel the link between us, etched into my skin with his magic. Four hundred and thirteen days I owed him—a year and a day—and now roughly three hundred and fifty marks remain. They’re invisible to anyone other than myself and Keir. Each day a little tingle shivers through me as one of the runes vanishes.
“Hello?” I whisper, stroking the mark on the inside of my wrist. “Can you hear me?”
There’s a moment of silence and then a foreign awareness turns toward me. I don’t know how to describe it. One second the room is empty, and the next I can almost feel an enormous body brushing against mine, his breath whispering over the back of my neck.
