Page 23 of Taken By Shadows

He took a step toward me, and I swayed in his shadows. The black coils rippled and moved me down to eye level with him.

He wiped the drop of blood from the dagger that was now back in his hand before sheathing it again. “You. It depends on you. How well you behave. How much I like your answers.”

I bit my bottom lip to stop it from trembling again. “What do you want?” My mind was racing in every direction. Run. Survive. Protect Leesha. The adamyte. Bray. The baby. I tried to clutch the shell around my neck, but my hands were pinned by loops of shadow.

Flexing his palm, he pulled me back to solid ground.

He held the ropes of shadow wrapped around his hand like a leash. It was somewhat awe-inspiring how much power he held over them. Bitterness rose up inside me like a mountain bear after hibernating for an eternal winter; furious with a craving I’d never known I needed to satisfy. He had magic. I didn’t. I knew having magic would have made things easier for me. But seeing it before me, so blatantly and so effortlessly wielded, I realised how much I wanted it, wanted to know what it would feel like to pour magic into the world.

With his free hand, he tipped my chin up. He had dipped his head so our eyes met, but he was still towering above me.

My throat went dry. My heart was like a barrel in a rapid river, battling to stay afloat and not drown.

“I want to know why you wouldn’t give in to those thugs. Maybe they’d have let you go if you played nicer. I don’t think they even knew what your faebane was. They were just greedy. Taking what didn’t belong to them.” His voice hardened into flint, threatening to strike a spark. “They weren’t thinkers. They didn’t attack you for nothing. They thought there was easy money to be made. But they were cowards. I know their type.” His jaw was tight as he spoke.

“So different from your type?” I ground out, pulling my chin from his fingertip.

He straightened, seeming to weigh something up as he looked at me.

“I’m asking politely where you got the faebane.” His voice smoothed out, and his head tilted, like he was puzzling me.

I scoffed. “You’ve kidnapped me! How are you any different from them?”

He stood to his full height then. “I did ask you to tell me before I had to resort to this.” His shadows spooled around me, forming another band around my arms. “And believe me, things will get much worse if you don’t tell me now.”

But I couldn’t tell him. There was no way I could without endangering Leesha. He had just sliced through a man. Would he cut down anyone who got in his way to reach the adamyte—faebane? I thought of the little round bump Leesha had cradled so protectively before I left.

“I-I can’t trust you,” I stammered.

“Whoever said anything about trusting me? I just need the faebane and maybe I don’t trust you.”

“Again. You kidnapped me. You don’t get my trust,” I snipped.

Something flashed across his eyes as he examined my words.

“Why?” I tilted my head up and bit my lip in thought this time. “Why do you need it? You don’t look like you’re hurting for riches.”

I eyed his attire. It was cut to perfection. Sharp. Rich fabrics and supple leathers wrapped around his body like it was all made for him.

He regarded me for a minute. As if shocked I would ask at all.

“It’s valuable,” he said dismissively.

“I know. That’s why they wanted it.” Did he think I was stupid? “But why do you want it? Really.” I knew it had been used in the war. How, I wasn’t sure. But it was clearly valuable. It occurred to me that I had gotten incredibly lucky with the merchants I had dealt with over the years, that I hadn’t been attacked before this. I had also never waved the shards in a tavern before either. But in my attempts to get free of the place I’d grown up in, to finally find my family, I’d gotten more desperate, more brash. I had dug up more crystals, bigger, higher in the Banes, than ever before. And now I was here.

Something strange settled in me. Like the fear was something I was accepting. My heart was still pounding in my chest. But my body had somehow accepted its fate, and my terror had slowed to a simmer in my blood. I was steadier, bolder, as I tried to understand him.

“It’s valuable in more ways than one. It, as I’m sure you know, can render a fae magically bound. Or dead, in the right quantities.”

My body went cold in his shadow grip. He did want to use it as a weapon. The war was over, it had been for over twenty years. So what could he need stores of faebane for?

“I should have known. Of course, you want to use it to kill something,” I spat out.

He chuffed. “Not quite.” He paused for a moment. “Are you worried I’ll use it on you? Is that it?” He folded his arms, but the shadows kept flowing. I swayed a little in his noncorporeal bands of magic as he moved. “Trust me, I don’t need faebane to overpower you.”

I wouldn’t mind some adamyte right now. Faebane. Whatever.

It didn’t matter what I called it I suppose, he’d taken it from me.