“No.” Although I did receive another just this morning. A ring the king wishes to cause temporary blindness to the wearer. The request is unsettling in and of itself, but it infuriates me that I have no idea how his servants are getting into my Lair. The thought sears like grains of salt pressed into a wound. “I’m just tired.”
“We can stop for today.”
Heaving a sigh, I let myself sink onto the stump of a stone column, exhaustion dripping from every pore. Callow returns to my side, her tawny body brushing my shins.
“You are strong, Alyce.” Kal slips through the shadows and sits beside me. “It will not be much longer until you can escape this place. Your Vila magic is progressing nicely. And soon you will be able to hold a decent Shift.”
I hope he’s right. Although leaving Briar doesn’t quite feel as cathartic as it used to. I don’t wish to remain as the Dark Grace and the Briar King’s secret puppet. But Aurora. My skin tingles, recalling the smoothness of her palm. The apple-blossom scent of her hair. The soft curve of her neck as it meets her shoulder.
Dragon’s teeth. I realize I’ve been staring at Kal, picturing the crown princess. Mortification burns up my chest and I try to focus on something—anything—else.
But then a line of red on Kal’s neck snares my attention, and my brow furrows. The Shifter is shades of black and white. A creature carved from smoke and alabaster. I’ve never seen him wear color. Without thinking, I put my finger to the slash beneath the collar of his high-necked doublet.
There’s a chain hidden there.
“What is this?” I try to tug it free.
Kal angles away from me. “Nothing to concern you.”
But that will not do. I reach forward again, but his frigid grip catches me. “No, Alyce.”
“Show me then.”
He opens his mouth to refuse, but I stare him down.
“As stubborn as your mother.” He grumbles something else, but I can’t make it out. He yanks open the onyx buttons of his doublet, exposing the too-pale skin of his chest.
The chain I felt rests against his collarbone, ending in a medallion the size of my palm. The jewel, if it is a jewel, is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Like a rough-cut, smoky emerald. Light and darkness writhe inside it like tangling snakes. I press closer. Raise my fingers to touch it, but Kal’s close around them.
“No.”
“What is it?”
A muscle in Kal’s jaw works. “It is”—he takes a breath, every word a struggle—“what binds me here.”
The sea breaks against the base of the tower with a roar, sending spray through the gap in the wall. Callow complains when a shower of seafoam lands on her back.
“What binds—” I focus on the pendant, watching the sifting movement of the liquid jade and indigo inside it. The colors bend and dive and whorl. Exactly as the shadows do around Kal. And suddenly I realize, it is the same magic. A collar, holding him inside the tower.
Foreboding spiders its way along my scalp.
“Much more effective than iron chains, as it turns out.” Kal’s smile is grim.
“You can’t remove it?” The question sounds painfully weak coming out of my mouth. Of course he’s tried. He shows me his hands, palms up. Scars I never noticed before stretch in a horrible lattice across his skin, silvered and about the width of the chain. Burn marks, faded with time. Centuries. My stomach twists.
“There are measures in place.”
“But why did it…？” I motion toward the blistered skin beneath the medallion.
“That is what happens when I try to step into the sun. Or when I attempt to leave the confines of this tower.” Kal’s hand drifts toward the chain, then drops. His shadows spike and coil. “A few days ago, part of the roof caved in and my leg was pinned under a beam. I managed to free myself, but not quickly enough to evade the sunlight.”
I swallow. This tower is nothing but a skeleton. How long before the rest of it tumbles into the sea? As if in answer, a stone rattles loose from the upper floors, the resulting echo like a death knell.
“You’ll burn,” I whisper. “The enchantment—it’s meant to kill you.”
He studies me closely, a thousand emotions flickering over his features. “I am not your responsibility.”
But it feels like he is. Both he and Aurora, on opposite sides of an ancient war, depending on me to survive. I want to save them both, but I can’t help but feel that by allying with one, I’m damning the other. Beyond the gap, whitecaps churn as the dark, heavy underbellies of the storm clouds heave toward shore.