Page 105 of Malice

“Well.” Kal shrugs. “I already know Mortania is alive inside you. It is merely a matter of bringing her out. And I will find a way. Until then.” He snaps his fingers, attempting to summon the shadows. Frowning as they refuse to budge. Because I hadn’t just freed myself. I’d obliterated their magic.

Cold understanding bleeds across Kal’s features.

An exquisite rage builds behind my breastbone. Beats in time with my Vila heart. Dark laughter that is not quite my own bounces against the curves of my skull. Kal watches me, sensing the danger.

“Alyce.” He holds up a hand, gaze flitting to the door behind me. And some feral part of me hopes that he runs. That I can chase him down. “You are upset. But what is one life when they took thousands of ours?”

We do not need him,Mortania’s voice crows.

Confusion ripples through me. Kal said the Vila was his lover, and yet I sense nothing of affection in the jagged edges of her spirit. Did she love him? Or did that love fester and decay in the centuries she was locked inside the medallion, consumed with her own hatred and rage? Had the Shifter become a means to an end—the same as I was to him?

“I must thank you, Kal.” He stumbles over a splintered chair leg as I advance. “You really have given me more than my mother ever could. More than anyone.”

His back hits the opposite wall, chest working quickly. “You will consider what I offer? A new realm for us?”

I have considered. Listened and trusted and hoped. Let myself be leashed and controlled and manipulated. And look where it got me.

“I will let you die quickly.”

My Vila power responds like a warhorse, the scent of woodsmoke and damp earth mixing with rich, heady wine and molten steel. The tang of charred iron fills my mouth as my magic careens into Kal. His eyes bulge, hands going to his neck. I could laugh at how simple it is. Mortania laughs with me, the peals warping as they collide with the sounds of the storm.

I take one last look at the Shifter who killed Aurora. Who used me and lied and pretended to love me. But all he ever cared about was himself. And so I find the treasonous heart of his power and smash it beneath the heel of my own.

Kal sinks to the floor in a boneless heap, not even uttering a cry.

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—”