Curse of Shadows and Thorns (The Broken Kingdoms, #1)

by L.J. Andrews

“A troubled heart,” she said. The room went silent. The girl stepped closer. “Release the past and trust those undeserving of it.”

“What your heart desires, there your fate lies.” She lowered her voice to a rough whisper. “When you see the beast within, let him in to let him go. Only then will he bring the change you seek.”

The nurse came for the girl, but before she left, once more as she did at my manor, the girl gripped my wrist. A steady thrum of heat pulsed along my skin. “The tomb. Open it. Change it all.”

“Everything,” I admitted. “Tomorrow traitors to my king will die, and I cry for them. I’m the weakest kind of Timoran. I hate that I feel this torment inside, how I love my people and hate them all at once. How I love Ettans but stand above them. How I’m fascinated by fae but fear them. The weight of it is crushing, and tomorrow I will be expected to sneer, to shout, to hate. “The king will execute them not only in his name, but mine. What if he asks me to speak? How can I look condemned men in the eyes, who were not to blame for what happened to me, who fight for their land that was stolen from them? How do I look at them and feel nothing?”

“I was told once, each decision we wrestle in our minds, each consequence we weigh, is how we gain faith in our final choices. We take time to decide who we are and when we choose, as you said, we stand by those choices fiercely.”

“I ask how I am to give you to some fool because I do not know how. How am I to accomplish anything I set out to do here when my heart burns to have you for myself?”

For a drawn pause we held each other, unwilling to move. At long last, Legion lifted his head. He pressed another needy kiss to my neck. “Gods, Elise. This . . . you mean everything.”

A red mask that looked . . . The truth came like a rod to the skull, a slice at the gut. I fumbled back as Legion took the final piece of his puzzle from Bevan. My sweet, Bevan. He held out the two black axes, at ease, as though they were sacred and not deadly. Weapons cursed by the hells. Weapons I knew too well.

Legion was the Blood Wraith.