Page 116 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

Her light chuckles tickled over my skin. “I adore your voice. Even when it makes me afraid.”

“Adore, huh?”

“Yes,” she whispered even more quietly. “I adore you, Malik.”

I needed her to tell me something else. “I’m not a puppy.”

Her gentle fingers moved back and forth the scruff on my jaw. “No, you’re a big fluffy dog.”

“I’m going to let this go and pretend you were really drunk.”

She pressed her lips to my cheek. “But I love big fluffy dogs.”

There, laying in my arms, she looked so fragile, so soft. She was the most precious thing I’d ever held or touched, and I was not used to being let to touch or hold precious things. I had not the slightest clue how to handle her. How to touch her without tarnishing her.

“Put your hands where you want to, you coward,” she murmured, drifting away to sleep.

“I need you to repeat that again for me when you’re sober.”

Thora had just fallen asleep when bells rang through the castle. She sprung to her feet, looking around confused until her eyes found me, her breathing calming down despite the commotion outside. “Attack. It’s an attack signal from the Academy. It can’t be.”

“Put on a gown,” I said, pushing from the bed and throwing clothes on, grabbing her the second she was covered, and fading us outside.

Elias was leading a bunch of guards down and my dead followed right behind. “It’s the academy dorms,” he shouted, disappearing between his men.

Thora’s eyes were wide. “My wolves are with the kids. They would have warned me. No, I warned her. Iskyla couldn’t have—”

Chapter twenty-seven

White Asphodels

Malik

The snow falling was stained with grey and crimson, it was like the skies were burning and bleeding as the whole grounds ahead had. I could feel it, sense every soul walking out of the gates of the living towards the Otherworld. I could feel the presence of the Guardian of Death reeking in the air and filling our world with despair.

The heavy scent of craft lingered in the air, signalling to what had been the one to deceive us and slip past my guards.

Thora stepped ahead. Nothing was written on her face. Nothing at all. Such emptiness that I had even seen on the dead. She rose a hand forward and the stained fog of death cleared to reveal a warm graveyard. Bodies lay slain on the ground that was no longer white, that would never be white again after today. Her white wolves lay lifeless beside them, almost protecting them in death, too.

One slow step after the other, she crossed the academy dorm gates while her soldiers fell to their knees, some sparing one lone prayer and others simply distraught, given up, and pained.

The bottom of her gown dragged along the puddle of blood, soaking in it. She knelt before a young body that was beyond saving, one of the first to have crossed the invisible gates of death. She braced both hands on the crimson ground, her fingers staining red, her head hung low and her shoulders rising fast with her heavy breathing. I didn’t need to see her shadows to know she was on the verge of losing it.

Turning to Elias, I asked, “Where are the rest of the students?”

“Some were injured fighting off the Crafter and the others have been taken to their homes. The kids,” he continued, struggling to speak, “they’d tried to fight back. If they had only remained inside, maybe we would have gotten to them in time.”

“Elias,” she quietly said. “Cancel your trip to Solarya. I need you to remain in Tenebrose for the foreseeable future.”

He shot me a panicked look before asking her, “Why?”

She didn’t answer him. “Oryn, gather the court and wait for me to return.”

It was the old Crafter’s turn to shoot me a helpless look. “Let’s think this through, child.”

“Let’s,” came her bored answer.

“If you attack Iskyla now—”