Page 6 of Thief of Souls
“Well, fuck.” I stare down at my bodice. Clots of soft goat cheese are spattered across my breasts, and leaves of thyme cling to my skirts. The fig is nowhere to be seen. I haven’t been that clumsy since I was a girl.
“That’s all you have to say?” Keir looks amused. “I’ve just offered you the greatest quest of all time and this is your response? You could be famous.”
“Or dead,” I point out. “The answer is no. No, I will not steal your cauldron—”
“I don’t need you to steal my cauldron,” he purrs. “I just need you to find it for me, and to do that, I need you to get your hands on the Horn of Shadows.”
More myths. “The horn that leads the Wild Hunt?”
He leans toward me, every inch of him fixed in predatory intent. “The hounds of the Wild Hunt were born of the cauldron. They can find it. But to control them, I need the horn.”
There’s a moment where I consider pushing my chair back, climbing onto the railing, and diving into the water far below.
And right now, I hate water with a passion.
Maybe I can appeal to the Goddess of the Sea? Maybe she’ll make me disappear too?
But this is his realm.
He’ll probably simply pluck me out of the sea. There’s no escape there.
“The hounds of the Wild Hunt make Wyrdhounds look like a child’s bedtime story,” I grind out. And one ofthemnearly killed me three months ago. “To blow the horn means binding your soul to it forever.”
“’Til death,” he corrects. “Only one fae can blow the horn at a time. Once bound, the horn becomes useless to anyone else. Unless the blower is killed.”
“There’s an easy solution to that problem, Your Highness. If you get your hands on that horn, every prince in the land will make it their personal prerogative to slit your throat.”
“Worried about me?” There’s a slight quirk to his lips, and his eyes flare gold as he lets his glamor slip, just for a moment.
I don’t know how I never saw it before.
The dragon peers back at me, smoldering in golden flames.
My heart skips a beat. “You can still die. The fae managed to kill the rest of the dragon kings. Even you can’t survive the removal of your heart.”
“Did they?” Another faint smile.
I stare at him.
Keir sips his wine. “Some of my brethren chose to fight. Some of them chose to sleep. And some of them… chose another way to live.”
He’s not the only dragon out there?
“How many? Who?” Because surely they wouldn’t be masquerading as lowly peasants. No, they’d be kings. Princes.
“If I tell you that, my love, then I will either have to kill you or capture you.”
“Capture me?”
His smile holds all manner of sin. “Bind you to me forever. Lock you away in a tower where you can’t ever escape me.”
On second thought…. “Keep your secrets then.”
“Aren’t you curious?”
“Notthatcurious.”
“About the horn,” he whispers, a dangerous hint of smile tugging at his wicked mouth. “About the cauldron. An ancient prophecy states it will be reborn, Merisel. Someone’s going to find it. Don’t you want to be the one who does?”
