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Tipping his head to the side, he studies me, his movements dripping with feline curiosity. “Valeria…”
My heart skips. My name has never sounded so beautiful, sosinister, nor has it ever been spoken with such grace.
“Do you have a last name, Valeria?”
I tense, eyes darting from his.“Just Valeria.”
He’ll know I’m lying, but if I tell him the truth, there’s no good way this will end. My engagement was meant as a distraction. My father knew the King and Queen would need to give their blessing in order for my betrothed to be sworn in to the Court of Lords upon his death. Without their blessing, as his only heir, I would be appointed.
My father would much sooner roll in his grave before that ever happens.
We saw elven ships break away from ours, it’s what left us vulnerable when the beasts attacked. I’d known my father was up to something, but using his only living child as a distraction is low, even for him. The moment those ships left us and headed away from King’s Cove, I knew.
They’d had cannons and weapons of magical destruction strapped to every available surface of those ships. It didn’t take a genius to know that they intended to attack Ogre’s Landing, the only major port east of the mainland.
There are some ports farther north, but not even my father is mad enough to go there with anything short of a fleet. The seas in what used to be the Realm of Monsters, are far more deadly and it’s not just the monsters of the deep they’d need to worry about. Pirates in the outer realm own the water. The demonsmight be savage brutes, but the pirates there are much more ruthless.
Regardless, if anyone found out my last name, it wouldn’t end well. Who knows what my father did to that port. It couldn’t have been anything good, and for all I know, he might’ve declared war on the demons by now.
How much would the king and queen pay to have their enemy’s daughter in their clutches?
Would they use me as bait?
Would they send my head to my father in a satin-lined box?
No one can know. Not here. Not in this realm. Not ever.
Here, I will be anything other than a Nightborn.
“Well, then. Don’t tell me.” The man tips his head toward the dark forest, all hints of the flirtatious smirk gone, as if it never existed. “Over the wall with you then.”
Incapable of doing or saying anything more, I give him a curt nod and stroll off into the dark.
7
Valeria
The morning light burststhrough the tree canopy above me, and I squint against the onslaught. Birds chirp from somewhere high above me, their songs filling the silence…The silence I’ve become so accustomed to.
Come to think of it, this is the first time I’ve heard birds since washing up on the mainland.
With a groan, I unravel my cloak and push back my hood as I lift to a sitting position. Large tree roots curve up alongside me, large enough that they almost form a cave. I slept here last night. It was enough protection in the dark that most things slipped past me without knowing I was here. It was the best I could do on short notice. I didn’t trust myself to sleep in the trees. Not after knowing how much it hurts to fall out of one.
Wiping the sleep from my eyes, I crawl over the leaves until it’s clear for me to stand up. Though, I don’t get that far, not before a rough, tired-sounding male voice hits my ears.
“Good morning to you, too.”
My head lolls to the side as I meet his gaze. His bare back is pressed against the trunk of the tree, right beside the root I sleptunder. Dark circles hang beneath those otherwise bright amber eyes. Though, where the blood had been splattered is now wiped clean, revealing layers upon layers of scars. Some of which, in the light, make symbols.
I’ve seen those symbols in the keep's apothecary. They’re etched into the stone with crystal slabs, but I haven’t been able to derive their meaning yet though. They’re Enochian, I think. The language of the angels and demons. The elves don’t see a point in learning it, but I had tried during my time at the keep, just to no avail.
“Tell me, do you always sleep out in the open where anything and everything could pick your bones clean if they wanted to?” His head slumps forward, his eyes narrowing on me slightly.
“No.” I don’t play into his hand, keeping my face blank as I cross my arms over my chest.
“What do you call this then?” He tosses a hand at the tree roots. “A luxury castle?”
“I call it being evicted from my home an hour before nightfall.”
