“Snuffing flames, maneuvering objects, throwing things. What else? Restraining someone?”
“I—” No, I hadn’t tried that yet, but it was a very good idea. “Not yet. They’re strong enough. I pushed your maid with them. And your soldiers.”
“How many tendrils can you summon?”
“One, I thought before tonight.” I neglect to mention how it was my fear and love for Ronan that allowed me to split the shadow. I can see no benefit to him knowing the true nature of the shadow—he’ll realize that there’s no way for him to draw it out of me, which will make him give me up. “But it’s all so new to me. I don’t know what the limits are.”
“Oh, I would love to find out.” He smiles at me with something like admiration, and I can’t help but be touched by it.
Dammit, I havegotto get over my need for my family’s approval.
Why should I care what Seth thinks of me, knowing how he is? Why can’t I let the desire to belong with them, the desire to make them proud, die?
“Can I ask you something?” I have his attention now, so it seems as good of a time as any to find out what his intentions are.
“Go on.”
“Why are you so interested? Do you know what it means?”
Seth holds up a finger, then he heads to a shelf full of books.
Gods, I pity the poor servant who’s going to have to carry all of this tomorrow.
Seth runs the finger over their spines until he finds the right one. He cracks it open, and a scrap of a page slips out. “Here it is,” he says, handing it to me. “Do you know what a palimpsest is?”
The sliver of paper is very old and thick, made of some material I don’t recognize. There doesn’t seem to be any writing on it. “No.”
“Back before we learned to make paper from our wood or Selaran reeds, we wrote on parchment. It was made with animal skins, which made it very expensive and difficult to come by. Thus, it was reused when the original texts were no longer of any use.”
“So you’re saying there was writing on here once?” I don’t see where he’s going with this, but I have no intention of stopping him.
“There is writing on there still,” he says, smiling slyly. “I used an elixir to remove the second, newer text—a tedious history of land taxation. And then I used another elixir to reveal the text on it. That elixir fades over time, and I didn’t think to bring it with me, unfortunately, but the text is still there, waiting to be revealed.”
Admittedly, I do find that interesting, but I’m still not sure what he means. “What did it say?”
“This scrap was from a book in Mother’s collection. She’s the one who taught me how to reveal it, of course. It describes a rare phenomenon involving extraordinary powers.”
Extraordinary powers. Like mine and Ronan’s. “What about them? Where’s the rest of the book?”
“Missing, I’m afraid. Likely somewhere within Pyka.” Our former home, now under control of the Orsa. “I stole this scrap without Mother’s knowledge. It had a word on it that wasn’t explained that I wanted to remember so I could find out more about it. I was still young then and thought I would be shadow-born.”
My heart thrums in my ears. “What word?”
“Shadowbound,” he says. “It said that the extraordinary magic was first observed in the shadowbound, but I had no ideawhat that meant, and Mother didn’t know either, or at least she wouldn’t tell me. But now I think I know.”
He stands and approaches me, kneeling before me. “It’s you,” he whispers.
And then I see it. I see why Seth wants this so badly. He thought when he was younger that he would be shadowbound himself, that it would mean he was extraordinary, worth far more than Adria. It was the only thing he’d wanted all his life. To best her and to be free from her control.
And then he’d forgotten it until he heard the rumors about my magic. Until he realized that if he couldn’t beat Adria himself, he could do it with me.
But not with me as an ally. Not with me as an equal, a co-conspirator. A sister. But with me at his mercy, me as his prisoner, as his servant.
As his slave.
I am no one’s slave.
But if this is the part I need to play to stay under his watch until I can free Taran and get us back to Ronan, I will do it. “If it is me, what will I do?” I say, feigning fear and awe. Acting the part of the scared little sister who needs her big brother’s comfort.
