“Our own dead, yes. These aren’t ours.” Malachi scowls, glancing down.
I step to the nearest body, inspecting the insignia on his chest—the mark of Vaelier.
“They’re Wilder’s people.” My chest tightens. “Does he know?”
“They’re filthy rebels in their proper form.” Alasdair spits on one of the bodies, and my stomach turns.
The rebels have done nothing but take from Lyrichia. They’ve killed, pillaged, and probably done much worse. I’ve never had sympathy for them. Until I watch Alasdair circle the room and sneer at the corpses like they’re nothing.
Like they aren’t still Wilder’s people, dead and dismembered, and he has no idea they’re just beneath his feet.
Shoving that thought down, I tug at my dress, trying my best to keep it from soaking up the blood on the floor. “How is this a present?”
“Greer says you’ve yet to summon a flicker of magic.” King Malachi paces the room, keeping his distance from the dead. His tone is flat and unimpressed.
“She has me training with blades.”
“I’ve heard. She has her own methods. But until they work, I thought it might help for you to have a little motivation.” The king stops at a body, glancing it over. “This one. See if you can bring it back.”
My eyes widen. “You want me to resurrect them?”
I glance around the room again. At the rotting corpses. Some can no longer be considered flesh and bone. Wherever their souls are, they’re notamong us.
“You resurrectedhim.” Anger laces King Malachi’s tone. “These simple creatures should be nothing. They’re not even powerful Fae. Most had weak affinities.”
The way the king disrespects the dead makes my teeth clench. But it’s how he discredits some because they only had affinities that stirs the anger in my chest. Maybe these Fae did horrible things, or maybe they didn’t. For all I know, these could be pawns of their own king, fighting a war to save their families back home.
“I can’t.” I swallow hard. “It’s unnatural. They’re already rotting.”
King Malachi clicks his tongue on the roof of his mouth, pacing the room in a slow circle back to me. He lifts a finger to the point of my chin, slowly tracing the line of my jaw until his nail presses below one of my freckles. I feel it burning—glowing—as his gaze meets mine.
“You can be very important to me, Elorie Vale. Or you can be nothing at all. Do not forget that you are the daughter of a prisoner and a human. The only reason I don’t hang you by this pretty throat is that you have proven yourself useful once, and you could be of use again. But only if you can help me save my kingdom.”
His hand drifts until he’s gripping the front of my neck, applying just enough pressure to prove his point.
“Do you want your people to live as badly as I want to save mine?”
“Yes.” It comes out slightly strangled.
He releases my neck, taking a step back. “Good. Then I expect better news soon.”
At that, King Malachi turns and walks away. But Alasdair doesn’t. He waits, watching me slowly walk toward the body the king pointed out.
I have no idea how to summon my magic. It’s been proven time and time again in training. But with Alasdair keeping watch to report back, I have no choice but to try. I rest my hand on hischest as I did with Wilder in the prison, finding the body stiff and cold.
He’s missing a hand, along with half his face, but I don’t dare ask what happened. I close my eyes, and Isearch.
There’s no flicker in the air. There is no path like I saw when I held Wilder. There is no light. I close my eyes and try to see that darkness that became a part of me when I was in the prison, but I’m met with something else. A spiderweb of shadowy threads curls through my thoughts. They weave along my fingertips and travel my arm. A ghastly whisp prickles my skin. Darkness slithers up my chest, biting me with a sharp sting.
I nearly fall backward when I stumble a step, and my eyes fly open.
“Did something happen?” Alasdair eyes me intently.
“Yes.”
Except that wasn’t life I felt. It was death.
Chapter 16
