31

A Shadow Has
No One

I try to re-channel Tabra, gliding along beside Reven, both of us quiet now, though I suspect for different reasons. He takes me to a building at ground level that is set aside from the others. This one is different, closed in on all four sides with no windows. At Reven’s appearance, shadows creep up the walls until the entire structure is covered with thick vine-like ropes of blackness.

Why? So we won’t be overheard? Or some other reason?

He opens the only door I can see and ushers me inside. A thick wooden slab of a table is laid for dinner and sporting bowls of food that fill the air with the rich scents of roasted meat, fresh-baked bread, and exotic fruit.

Vos is already here, tucked into the far corner of the long room. Seated at the far end to his right is the girl, the one I’ve seen already. Closer up, I take in more of her appearance: younger than I am by a year or two at most, with shoulder-length white hair stark against deep blue skin that is closer to a twilight sky than navy, and narrow-set black eyes that seem to frost around the edges.

I try not to stare.

It helps that a slight movement on the other side of the room catches my eye. Horus is standing there.

He nods, and while I nod back, I’m tempted to lift an eyebrow. He didn’t mention he was one of the leaders here. Reven steps up beside me, but I get the impression he’s being careful not to touch.

He does a quick round of introductions. “Horus, I believe you spent time with today, and you already know Vos, who is, for lack of a better term, the man in charge around here. The young woman beside him is Tziah. She is…”

“With me,” Vos supplies.

The rigidity in his voice is a warning that this girl is under his protection for whatever reason. Only I don’t sense a romantic bond. Curious.

Tziah nods.

“She hasn’t always been blue, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Vos tacks on, almost defensive.

Actually, I’d been busier trying to figure them out. “I assumed she must have something supernatural in her. An ice sprite, maybe?”

After all, humans come in all shades, shapes, and sizes, and there are many creatures in this world, like sand nymphs, who are mostly human but bear their own unique coloring.

“No.” That’s all Vos says. Which says a lot. There’s a story there, I’d bet.

“She’s from Mariana,” Horus offers, and Tziah nods. I study her, trying to see anything of a Marianan in her. A maritime people, they live around a protected bay the Devourers can’t get into. It makes up a majority of the dominion.

“She can’t speak,” Reven tells me quietly. “When she opens her mouth—”

Tziah does so, her lips seeming to form words, but only a terrible noise, like a den of snakes but a thousand times louder, emerges from her lips. My skin crawls, and I find myself inching closer to Reven until she closes her mouth, cutting the sound off so abruptly, the silence is almost loud.

“If she holds out long enough, she can incapacitate those around her,” Reven says.

I shiver at the thought of that noise used as a weapon. Are the people he’s set up as leaders here all Imperium? It would make sense to try to put their powers to use.

“How do you prefer to communicate?” I ask Tziah directly.

She smiles, her face lighting up with it like I’ve done something right—even Vos smiles. Then she holds up both hands and points with one to the other, which she uses to wave hello. I nod my understanding and wave back.

“Tziah’s heart for the people in the Shadowood is what keeps this place alive,” Horus says.

The girl’s cheeks deepen in color, which I’m guessing is a bit of a blush. Already I like her. She’s the kind of person who radiates a delicate sort of sweetness, reminding me a bit of Tabra.

“There are a few others,” Reven continues. “Hakan from Savanah. You met Bina earlier today at our library. She’s from Tropikis.”

The librarian is part of this leader group, too? “Where are they?”

“Busy,” Vos says, and his tone this time isn’t playful but serious.

Okay… I’m definitely not in the circle of trust here yet. Not that I would expect to be.

“Horus is my best fighter,” Reven says after a beat.

“Really?” Vos drawls from his corner, suddenly back to what I’m starting to realize is his natural state of whimsy. “Horus is your best fighter? My poor heart, wounded twice in one day.” He covers a small cough with his hand.

“I am Vexillium. I have no power,” Horus says, ignoring the other two men. Not apologetic. Closer to daring me to scoff and carrying a fissure of underlying resentment.

I can relate to resenting the station or circumstances birth landed me in, and I already know part of his story, which only adds to my empathy, so my smile is easy, or at least I try to make it so. “Worth doesn’t come from an inherited ability.”

Horus relaxes. The time we spent together today probably helps him realize I’m sincere, so I dare a grin. “Some of the most powerful Imperium I know are useless pricks.”

A tiny choking sound comes from Vos while, beside me, Reven just shakes his head, but at least he loses some of the starch in his posture.

I cross my arms, trying to hide a smile as I give him a measured look. “You’re surprised? I’m still on the fence about lumping you in that category.”

Horus’s expression turns so pious I’m surprised a halo doesn’t appear. “This man saved us—”

“She knows.” Reven stops him. “She’s teasing me.”

“I wouldn’t call it that,” I murmur. Then, to the rest of the room… “He’s gotten used to me. I’ll grow on you.”

“Like a fungus,” Reven mutters.

Was that him teasing?

The way Horus snorts tells me he’s equally surprised by Reven’s response.

Vos, meanwhile, clears his throat. “Hakan, when you meet him, can’t be touched. He’s Hylorae. His gift is lightning.”

“Good to know.”

“Bina is like Horus, though,” he tacks on, again sounding defensive—but of the people not in this room, who he seems to assume I’m going to judge for being Vex.

It strikes me, in that small moment, that these people must be friends. The ties that bind them have history. A history I don’t know and can only guess at. But it hovers there, in the looks that pass between them and the way they treat each other, even the absent ones. Equals.

Something I’ve never been. Not as a princess. Not with Cain and the Wanderers.

“Anyone else?” I wonder aloud, glancing at the door.

“They wouldn’t know what to do with more of us,” Vos tosses out, and the room seems to ease with the words, each of them amused. Well, Vos grins. Horus allows himself a small quirk. And Tziah rolls her eyes.

Reven, however, instead of trying to answer the questions I’m sure he can see in my eyes, takes a deliberate step farther away from me. “Now that you’ve been introduced, I’ll go. Give you time to talk.”

He’s out the door before I can squeak a protest, and the group in the room takes a collective and obvious breath. Which tells me something new—they are friends. He is not. The Shadowraith stands apart.

He also left me alone. Again.

“Damn Shadowraith.” I go after him.

Straight out the door into the night, I stumble at the sight of him not ten feet from the door, half man and half shadow, made even more stark by the streaming light of late afternoon all around us. Intimidating and animalistic.

“Oh no, you don’t.”

The swirling form of shadow goes stone still, which looks strange stuck like that, and he turns a half-transformed face my direction. “What?”

Guttural and yet silky, that voice slides into my soul.

“You are not leaving me to face your people on my own,” I inform him around the clenching of reaction happening inside me. “Not again.”

After a beat, the shadows swirl again, only this time re-forming into a man. Then he’s directly in front of me, expression hard, uncompromising. And yet I get the impression that he’s thrown by my demand that he stay.

“Those people have been voted in as leaders here. Speak with them, leader to leader.” He’s back to ordering. “Tomorrow I will show you the proof I promised.”

Confusion feels like his shadows churning in my mind. “I thought you were in charge here?”

A pause, then a single shake of his head. “I bring people to the Shadowood. I keep them as safe as I can. But I can’t be more than that.”

“Won’t, you mean.” I say it slowly, not as an accusation but a realization as I study his features.

His eyes turn flinty. “Can’t.”

I search his expression for the truth I know is hidden there, and it comes to me softly. He holds himself apart for a reason. I’ve seen it in the surprised or even wary reactions of the people when he joins them. I’ve seen it in the way he can’t get away from them fast enough. I see it now in his refusal to be part of them.

He knows he’s dangerous.

I glance away. I have to. Otherwise, I’ll give in to the sudden urge to wrap my arms around him. Kiss him like he did me this morning with the intent to give comfort and show him that he’s not alone.

But he is alone. Even with those things inside him.

I cross my arms and look him in the eyes. “Well, I can’t speak with your leaders without you there.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he mutters. Followed by, “Why?”

Because I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t even know who I am—not really. Not anymore. I want to hurl the words at him. Instead, I drop my gaze to my feet and admit something I didn’t even realize myself until this moment. “I’m not used to being around others. Not alone.”

Even among the Wanderers, Cain was always with me. When he wasn’t, things had a tendency to happen. Not good things.

“What do you mean?” Reven looms closer to demand. “You are a princess of Aryd.”

“Who, until a few weeks ago, was never in a room without one of my viziers or the queen to help guide me.” Or even Omma, for that matter. I shoot him a glare from under my lashes. “And if you tell anyone else I said that—”

“I won’t.”

A surprisingly gentle finger under my chin lifts my gaze to him. His expression is still hard, though. “You really mean it.”

I frown at the strange tone of his voice, as if he’s angry about that somehow. I don’t know why he would be.

“Don’t leave,” I say. Not a plea but a command. Maybe I’m absorbing a bit of Reven after being around him nonstop for days.

He glances over my head at the low building, brows drawing low over his eyes, reluctance tilting his mouth down. “All right. But they won’t like it.”

“Why not?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he drags his gaze from the building back to me, and all that harsh beauty transforms into something softer. Understanding. He runs his thumb along my jawbone.

I should pull away. Walk away. But I want to lean into it. Despite the tangle of knots in my stomach.

“So brave with a kidnapper in a forest but scared of a few outlaw leaders of rabble,” he murmurs, suddenly at his silkiest.

“They’re not rabble,” I say, frowning, oddly defensive of people I barely know.

He huffs a short chuckle, eyes crinkling. “You’re right.” Then he shakes his head—more at himself, I suspect—and drops his hands from my face.

But I don’t get even a second to breathe a little easier, because he puts a hand to the small of my back. More touching. “Let’s go, trouble.”

All I can think as I let him lead me back inside is that he didn’t call me princess, and that maybe having him around while I probably answer more questions might not have been my smartest move.