CHAPTER FORTY
Aurora’s lips are chalky against the dull wax of her skin. Her veins are showing through her cheeks, blue-black and brittle. Her limbs are stiff. Her heartbeat faint. I crush my mouth to hers, again and again, begging the magic that broke the first curse to work again. She doesn’t stir.
Not even when I reach my own power inside her, searching for Mortania’s curse, trying to call it back. I command the Vila’s magic now. But it doesn’t budge. It’s as Kal said, Mortania’s intent was death. An intent stronger than iron. Stronger even than my own desire to wake Aurora.
“Please.” A sob works free of my lungs. “Aurora, please.”
“What have you done?”
A new voice rumbles through the chamber.
Endlewild lurks in the doorway. The light from his staff swirls with streaks of russet and the scar on my middle aches. His knife-sharp gaze assesses the room. The smashed furniture. Kal’s lifeless body.
“You broke the enchantment.” It isn’t a question. “I sensed it in Briar. The heart of our bonds breached and the Vila loosed.” His attention cuts back to me. “You killed the Shifter.”
So Endlewild had known about him all along. Kal hadn’t lied about that at least. The Etherians really did chain him to this tower. And I wonder that the Fae lord didn’t suspect my alliance with the Shifter long ago—especially after I attempted to free Kal the first time. But then, I hadn’t destroyed the enchantment that night. The magic had fought me off. I cannot think of that now. I hiccup through my sobs. “Aurora. Please, she’s dying.”
“The crown princess?” It is the first time I hear something like surprise in the Fae lord’s rushing-water voice. He steps closer, eyes widening when he realizes the woman on the ground is Aurora. “What is she—”
But the next gale hammers into the chamber, setting the spinning wheel in motion. It clacks away. A faint halo of green still clings to the spindle. Endlewild stares, openmouthed. And then he descends like the storm itself, ripping the flywheel away and breaking it over his knee. The spindle glistens with my blood. And Aurora’s. He snarls at it, picking it up and hurling it through the window.
“What did you do?”
“It wasn’t me.” I’m rocking back and forth, Aurora’s limp hand cradled in mine. “I didn’t know. He tricked me and lured her here.”
“Worthless half-breed.” He kneels to press his knobby-boned fingers against Aurora’s temples. The hollow of her throat. “Did you not think there was a good reason that he remained in our bindings?”
“I didn’t know they were yours! And even if I had known, why should your magic have kept me away? All you’ve ever done is torment me. And he—he—” But the rest crumbles. Kal loved me? Protected me? It was all lies. “I didn’t know what he was.”
“You know well enough now.” Lightning flashes, glinting off the laurel leaves of the High Court’s sigil on his doublet. “When it is too late.”
“No.” I bring Aurora’s frozen hand to my lips. My tears roll down her wrist. “You must save her. She is the heir to the throne. You are bound—”
“I need no schooling in my duties from you, beast.”
The insult makes me cry harder. Because it’s true. I’m the one who brought Aurora here. Released her killer. My magic coated the spindle that cursed her.
“I should kill you where you stand.” His pointed Fae teeth gnash together. And I brace for the impact of his burning staff on my heart, the scar on my middle blazing. But it doesn’t come. He shoves me away from Aurora and folds her into his arms. “I lack the time. You will come with me. Later, I will decide this matter. It is clear enough you are more than you seem.”
The unspoken threat sends a shiver racing across my shoulder blades, and every instinct begs me to run. But I will not leave Aurora. And so I follow close at the Etherian’s heels, down the stairs and out into the storm.
Endlewild’s Fae steed is waiting. Aside from his staff, the horse is the only bit of Etheria that the ambassador is permitted to keep in this realm. Its massive silver hooves paw at the ground, sparking where they meet the rain-slick rocks of the cliff. Its mane is waves of liquid moonlight. Its hide glowing, so much so that it hurts to look. Though the storm rages, the Fae magic in the creature’s blood protects it from the torrents of sleet and snow, which roll off its flank like rivers of oil. Endlewild positions Aurora over its back, climbs up afterward, and tosses me behind him.