The Shadowglass (The Bone Witch #3) - Rin Chupeco Page 0,1

spell to bring me back to life, so that my heart beats as real as yours. But she requires the First Harvest, the same ingredient she needs for shadowglass. And she’ll sacrifice herself—and anyone else—to find it.”

His anger now flared. “Tea’s changed. Sometimes I’m afraid I no longer recognize my sister.”

“Then read what she left behind for you,” Princess Inessa suggested gently. “It may offer an explanation of her motivations, though her words will not change what’s been done.”

Lord Fox looked at the princess, and I saw the similarities he shared with the bone witch. The brother and sister had the same dark eyes, the same stubborn chin, and Fox gave Princess Inessa the same expression as when Tea looked at Lord Kalen. “I’m afraid,” he said, unashamed.

“I am not.” The princess smiled. “You wanted to know why Tea left Kion. You’ve carried the answer for nearly a week now. You cannot chase after her yet hide from her own words.”

Still, the man made no move to retrieve the letters.

“She is weaker,” I interjected, and his attention swung back to me. “Every time she uses her runes, it drains her. She told me once that darksglass was not meant to last for very long.”

Lord Fox took out the thick sheaf of papers and stared at them. He looked tired and worn; his love for his sister has aged him, I realized, even if time had not.

Finally, he inhaled a long, shuddering breath. He handed the letters to me. “You were there when she began telling her story. Tell me how she ends it.”

I accepted. My fingers touched the soft parchment, noting the faint smears in her otherwise-elegant writing. With my practiced eyes, I knew these stains were not caused by faulty ink, but rather tears.

Above us, the pomegranate-colored sky gave way to darker clouds, suggesting only a few hours of brief, portentous respite before the storm.

1

I have always known darkness.

It has been my friend. Yet it has also been my enemy. Some days, it is a mist over my eyes, leaving me blind to what should be obvious. But some days, I wipe away that fog and see more clearly in its aftermath than I ever have before it.

The darkness was inside me, I think, long before I raised my brother from the dead. My silver heartsglass merely gave it a mouth, made the darkness realize that it too can hunger…

This is not Fox’s fault. This is not Lady Mykaela’s fault.

I have told the bard much of my story—all but its end. Once we leave Daanoris, it will be far too dangerous for him to travel with Kalen and me. And so I write the rest of it now, with the clarity it deserves. I write while the fog is lifted. While I can see.

I am sorry about many things, but I am not sorry about this.

I start with a happy memory. They are so few nowadays. As I write, Kalen patrols the city with my azi, and Khalad is hard at work with his forging. It is a lonely vigil tonight in the Santiang Palace, with none but my own thoughts for company.

My brother always asks me to be candid, though I know it sometimes makes him uncomfortable.

Let me be candid now.

• • •

On the day we were to leave for Istera, I woke up later than I intended and with every desire of prolonging the hour. With a low grunt, I rolled onto my stomach and pressed my face against the sheets, content to breathe into the mattress. The bed was harder than its downy counterpart at the Valerian, but I preferred this. The bed in my asha-ka didn’t have his scent on the covers, and his warmth was better than any blanket. He was the only place I could rest my head and dream without nightmares plaguing me, as they had for the last three months.

I felt the bed dip beside me, felt his lips ghost over my skin. “You need to get up,” Kalen murmured, his voice husky from sleep, but the rough fabric against my shin told me he’d already dressed. I squinted in the direction of the windows. It was a little past dawn. Of the two of us, he was the morning person. I no longer needed to attend classes in the Willows, but with many mandatory nights spent entertaining visitors at the asha-ka, I frequently crawled into his bed a couple of hours past midnight.

I muttered something inconsequential and burrowed my head