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I stared out to the sea where its glimmer beckoned me from the horizon, thinking back to how badly I’d wanted to fly away as a child. Somewhere far away from all this. An exotic place with strange wares and even stranger languages, but…
“My gift,” I whispered.“Is it in the amulet?”
“Your parents must have found a thief to steal most of it, leaving you with little to be detected, so it wouldn’t reveal itself and put your life at risk,” Marla said. “Where it is, I cannot say.”
It had to be inside the amulet. But hadn’t Malyr told me the salt crystal had been empty? But why carry an amulet across the lands if it was worthless? Why would my father have died just to see it delivered to Malyr?
No, it was in there.
I was certain.
Another blare of the horn had me glance back over my shoulder, the walls of Tidestone brightly illuminated. “I cannot leave without it.”
Not when I was this close to piecing myself back whole. For the first time in my life, everything was coming together, forming a picture of who I should have been. Who I was!
“If I don’t find it, it might very well get lost in the attack,” I said. “If Lord Brisden were to escape, he might even take it with him, and who knows if it will ever be in my reach again. I have to find it.”
“You might die.”
“I would rather die knowing who I am than continue to live, wondering,” I said, and reached her my hand. “Go. Fly back to your mate.”
“I cannot—”
“Go!”
Marla stared at me for another moment. She must have seen resolve in my gaze, because she intertwined her fingers with mine. Shadows followed, forming five sets of black wings that carried her out to the ocean before her unkindness drifted along the cliffs and toward safety.
I turned away, all but running back toward Tidestone. My soles slipped off the slick rock stairs on my way up to the port gate, wild energy fluttering at my core. I needed to find that amulet, but where could it be? Lord Brisden hadn’t worn it since—
I slammed into a dark figure at the top of the stairs, catching hold of the low wall before I looked straight at the man himself. “Lord Bris— Father…”
He eyed my curtsy from narrowed slits. “Guards reported they found you gallivanting the beach. Not a sight too strange, given how you always had the tendency to… wander as a little girl.”
I swallowed so the dread clogging my throat wouldn’t turn my voice too high-pitched. “I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to watch the waves.”
“With a sack slung over your shoulder?” His balance shifted sideways, his inquiring gaze confirming the sack’s absence. “Now that, dear daughter, is a strange circumstance… given the fact that my Raven prisoner somehow escaped the dungeons, having all of Tidestone up in arms.”
I sucked in a gasp. “So, Prince Malyr isn’t attacking?”
“Not yet,” he said and took a step toward me, towering at least a head over me. “The gods know you were never good for much, but do not let me find out you were behind her escape.”
Never good for much.
That rage at my core rekindled. “Like you just pointed out, Father, I continue to prove quite the disappointment. I’m certainly not capable of something as elaborate as helping a prisoner—”
Slap.
Pain exploded on my left cheek, spreading into my molars until their roots throbbed. My head jerked sideways and my balance toppled, making me sidestep until I crashed my temple against hard rock. It bit into my skin until my eye watered and everything blurred.
“Should I find out that you helped her escape,” he growled low, “then I will personally string you up by the gallows for treason. The only reason you are not dangling there yet, Galantia, is because we happen to need the rope for the net catapults. Now go to your chamber. Your mother will lose her wits if she hears you have been wandering.”
A shaky curtsy, then I hurried around him and sprinted back toward the keep. I needed to find this amulet. And once I found it? I needed to get the fuck away from Lord Brisden.
ChapterSeven
Malyr
Present Day, Malyr’s personal library
