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I flinched, Jude seeming to materialize at my side. “Nothing.” An obvious lie. “I’m just overwhelmed,” I added when he raised a skeptical brow, the moon casting a generous glow on his face. Was it my imagination, or were his scars even darker than before?
“Tell me,” he pressed. “I know you’re hiding something from me.”
“I told you nothing is wrong. I’m fine. I’m alive, right? That’s all that matters.”
There wassomuch wrong. So much I couldn’t explain.
“You’re pale.” Jude tenderly placed a hand to my forehead as if I had a temperature. While his touch remained warm, it didn’t burn as badly as before.
An unreadable look flashed across his face. “We need to get out of here. More will come.” He scanned the woods with clenched teeth. “And you need to rest after…”
After I’d supposedly died? Yes, I could easily agree it was time to move on.
Jude hesitantly turned his back to me, his steps unhurried as he waited for me to follow. I knew this wasn’t the end to our conversation, but we had to find shelter before we dove into that mess.
As I took my first cautious step, I felt a noticeable weight pressing against my ribs.
It wasn’t the profound unease stemming from my dream—or what had come before—but something physical. Heavy.
Reaching into my coat pocket, I curled my fingers around aged leather and worn pages. I didn’t need to see it in order to know exactly what it was. I released the tome as if it had scorched my skin.
Jude’s book.
The last time I’d seen it had been when I’d packed it in my bag and left the palace with Starlight. My throat constricted at the memory of her bleeding out on the ground, her pained whinnying echoing. I blinked away her image and focused on the tome currently weighing down my jacket.
“You need to finish reading the book. You’ll find the answers you’re looking for inside.”
And now, it had mysteriously found its way back to me.
It could only be magic.
I wondered how I could find truth in something that belonged to the man I supposedly couldn’t trust. I mean, he’dgivenit to me.
My legs worked hard to catch up to Jude, who made a strained effort to take the pace easy. From the corner of my eye, I caught him stealing glimpses from beneath his hair, yet he didn’t speak. For some reason, those glances held a different type of fear, one that wasn’t a result of masked men and ungodly mist.
Even if I didn’t wish to learn them, whatever answers I sought had to be within those pages. And as soon as Jude fell asleep this evening, I’d find them.
It was time to figure out what the hells was going on.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jude
I am beginning to see why you are concerned about him. As he grows, the boy loses more and more of his humanity every day. I pray the damage can be undone.
Letter to Aurora Adair from unknown recipient,
year 44 of the curse
One of the bastards had sliced my shoulder. Deep, but not too deep. Just far enough for it to be a pain in the ass. But there were much bigger things to consider than some insignificant wound.
I’d almost lost control. Nearly allowed the rage to take over entirely. And Kiara would’ve borne witness to the monster I kept locked away. She had likely seen too much as it was. In the future, it might escape, but for now, I wanted to bask in her admiration just a little while longer. To revel in the warmth that shone in her eyes whenever she took me in.
But my time was running out.
Before, the thought of dying hadn’t frightened me. I’d been prepared for death’s welcoming embrace since I first took my oath. Life had never been kind; not that I was going to sit there and whine about it, but cruelty had a way of burrowing into your soul and making a home. For people like me, death would be a relief.
But now?
