Page 161 of Curse of Darkness
“You can come forth, you vile thief.” She lifts her voice mockingly. “I know you’re there.”
Thiago’s shadows materialize at my side, and he steps forth from them, his face as cold and hard as hers is. “Then you know why we’ve come.”
“You said you have Theron,” I say. “Where is he?”
Mother turns toward us, and instantly, Thiago steps forward. The way they look at each other says that nothing exists outside the two of them, but I catch his sleeve.
This is my fight.
My ghost of resentment to bury.
“Mother?”
“You’re right. I have something you want,” she purrs, gesturing with her hand. “And you have something I want.”
Warriors rise from the ground, tossing aside their cloaks of sewn-together leaves. Dozens of them lie camouflaged amongst the leaf mulch. They’re clad in gold-plated armor, Mother’s circlet of thorns etched onto the pommels of their swords. Her Deathguard. Raised from birth for one purpose and one purpose only: To destroy her enemies.
One of them has Theron bound and gagged in front of him, his clothes streaked with blood. Shoving him to his feet, he puts a knife to Theron’s throat as if this was planned. I catch a glimpse of the guard’s ruined face behind his helmet. Halvor. The fae I burned when he tried to kidnap me. His eyes promise vengeance.
I’d thought him dead.
An ambush.
A trap.
One I walked into willingly.
Mother snaps her fingers, and part of the nearest oak reforms itself, a broken branch shifting into a throne of sorts. She sinks onto it, her eyes burning through me like acid. “Well, aren’t you going to say something, Iskvien? Why don’t you start with begging me for mercy?”
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“Mercy? Why bother begging you for something I know you don’t own? I thought I’d let you play your hand first,” I tell her, swallowing down the lump in my throat that appears whenever I see her. “Maybe gloat a little. I do know how you like to gloat.”
Mother’s eyes narrow. I’m not reacting the way she expected me to react.
“What can I say? That you caught us by surprise? Oh no, it was a trap. What a shock.” Making a great deal of easing off my gloves, finger by finger, I survey her warriors. The bandage across my palm is still bloody. “You’re always so predictable.”
Malice flares to life in her eyes. “Where’s the crown?”
“I didn’t bring it.”
“You…what?” Her nails dig into the oak. “What do you mean you didn’t bring it? What did you intend to bargain with?”
“What makes you think we came to bargain?” Thiago asks coldly. “Perhaps we came to take back what is ours.”
Theron lifts his head as if he can’t believe we were so stupid as to risk ourselves for him. His eyes settle on my face, fury etched between his brow, and as our gazes meet, I see the moment when his magic manages to pierce the glamor Thiago cast over me.
The one hiding the starshine singing in my blood.
Yearning fills me in that moment. Hunger. The land reaching for me, its desperate pleas begging me to take it from my mother, to set it free from her hold—
Theron’s eyes go wide as thorns push through the soil behind my mother, creeping over the grass toward her, and then he abruptly looks down at the ground before anyone can see that shock.
Stop it.Sweat breaks out on my forehead as I try to hold it at bay. Goose bumps erupt over my skin. It’s like being on the edge of orgasm, trying to hold it back, trying to keep that wave from crashing over me….
I need time.
Time to usurp her power.
