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A… human?
Darien knelt before me and gave David an encouraging pat on the back. “Show Her Highness what I taught you this morning.”
David took a deep breath.
With focus carved between his brows, he extended his arms in front of him. With a flick of his wrists and a graceful curling of his fingers, mesmerizing swirls of white fog emanated from his fingertips. The plumes danced in the air, twirling together into threads of the most radiant silk I’d ever seen. It wove together right before my eyes, its surface so luminous, it caught and reflected the sunlight streaming in through the windows, casting a softer, brighter glow across the room.
A gasp escaped me. I looked at Malyr, finding his eyes already on me, a smile curving his narrow lips. And then he did something I hadn’t expected his muscles capable of.
He winked.
The lightness of the gesture sent a ripple of warm elation through me, and for a moment, treacherous flutters settled into my stomach too intense to be ignored. And why would I? With my name washed away, my identity revealed, our souls bound, and no more hate to keep us apart, what stood in the way of our hearts?
Nothing.
When David swayed on his tippy toes in an attempt to weave a white sleeve over my dissolving black one, I knelt down and offered him a smile. “I thought I was the only white Raven.”
His eyes gleamed. “You’re a white Raven, too… um… Your Highness?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never seen another white Raven,” he said as Darien pointed out where exactly he needed to continue with the swift movements of his hands. “Actually, I’ve never seen any other Raven before. Not until yesterday.”
I frowned at that. “What do you mean? Where did you come from?”
“My father has a farm, but he’s human,” he said with a shrug. “My mother, too. But now we live in Valtaris. Prince Malyr said that I need to be close, or I can’t be Darien’s apprentice.”
My eyes flicked to Malyr, searching his face for some explanation, some sign that I hadn’t heard correctly. All he offered was a playful tilt of his head and an arched brow that seemed to mimic his renewing smirk.
Something unfurled deep within me, a tight knot loosening in my chest before I returned my attention back to David. “Did you teach yourself how to weave like this?”
He nodded. “What is your gift?”
“I’m a thief.” At Malyr’s reprimanding cough, I added, “But that’s our little secret, yes?”
David’s eyes widened, making it clear his adoptive parents had taught him about our kind. “You can steal gifts?”
“In theory.” Given the slow progress I made on tapping into other’s shadows and wielding them, I had no hope in stealing anyone’s gift anytime soon. Even then, I would nevernotreturn it—something I read in a book was possible, same as storing them within salt like mine had been. “Did you read about thieves?”
David’s hands seemed to have long stilled, his eyes fixed on something behind me. No, not something.
Someone.
I looked back at Tjema, the girl shifting from one leg to the other with the wooden box in hand as though she didn’t quite know what to do with the boy’s attention, so I helped her along. “That’s Tjema, my maid. Tjema, why don’t you say hello to David? You look to be about the same age.”
Tjema dropped her gaze, shyly shoving the tip of her boot over the dark red carpet. “Hello.”
A motion twitched in my periphery.
David had tilted his head in much the same way Malyr had done it the day in the forest, his eyes wide, but not with shock at her appearance. “Hello.”
“That will do for now,” Darien said, who’d been busy taking my measurements with threads of woven shadows. “The boy has been practicing since before the sun was up… He even skipped his porridge. I’ll have David work on the frame until his weaving is accurate enough to work on the finer details.”
Malyr moved to sit on one of the intricately carved, velvet-upholstered chairs that adorned the room, the dark wood standing in stark contrast to the ease of his soft expression. “If I wanted nothing but white shadowcloth for the entire dress, how long do you believe it might take?”
“My Prince,” Darien said with a respectful bow, “if you can give us thirty days, we will create a gown more breathtaking than any before.”
“I give you twenty.”
