Chapter 35

Chapter Thirty-Five

I was barely holding onto my nerves as I dried off. The bath had helped tremendously, cleaning off the remaining dried blood and washing away the worst of the memories from the prince's study. Now that I had a moment alone to process everything else that happened afterward, I was practically vibrating from my skin.

Tallon was something I'd never anticipated when I entered the gilded walls of Castle Auretras, and yet he'd burrowed under my skin. I knew it would be an exercise in futility to try to excise him now, and I was not sure I even wanted to try in the first place. He said I made him feel alive—the entire reason he'd made the bargain with King Gavriel. It was a heady feeling to know that I was enough for someone like Tallon.

And he made me feel alive, too—that was the problem. I'd entered the gates of Castle Auretras content that I would likely die inside those walls. Emyl and Rhyon had shunned me, and though I had always planned to do whatever it took to get both money and treatment to them if I could, I'd not entered expecting to find a reason of my own to live.

But now, beyond that door, Tallon awaited. And together, we were going to burn Castle Auretras to the ground. We would figure out everything else between us after.

Wrapping the towel around my torso, I took another fortifying breath and stepped back into the bedroom. I was curious what dress he would have for me, and how he had gotten a dress at all in such short notice.

Tallon looked up from where he was bent over the bed, arranging a mass of crimson fabric across his dark sheets. He was dressed already, once again in a black silk shirt and tight-fitting black pants, and while I much preferred the look of his bare skin covered by the swirling Death marks that bound us together, I couldn't deny how my mouth dried at the sight of him now.

At the sight of me, still damp from the bath, his gray eyes turned molten. "You have no idea how tempting you are, do you?" he asked.

I swallowed hard. "I could say the same to you."

The smile across his face was so genuine, and it made my heart squeeze. "Better you don't, or I might keep trying to convince you to forget about all of this and stay here with me forever."

"You know I cannot do that," I murmured. Though I had to decline, it did fill me with a warmth that he continued to say that, that he continued to want me like this. Still, I could not bear to bring my gaze to his, to see the want in his eyes and the disappointment at my words. It was tiring, disappointing everyone, in one way or another. I tightened my hold around the towel and fingered the mass of fabric. "Is this for me?"

He cleared his throat. "Yes, yes. Put on the dress itself and I will help you finish."

"Finish what?"

There was the smirk. "There are multiple parts to the dress beyond just this, Odyssa."

Before I lost the nerve, I dropped the towel and pulled the mass of crimson and black fabric over my head. Tallon groaned behind me, but he did not move as I settled the dress down around my body.

High-necked, sleeveless, and an entirely open back. It hugged my torso and hips down to mid-thigh before it flared out into a dramatic skirt the darkest shade of black. A slit in the left side revealed my leg nearly all the way up to my hip bone. I felt the back gaping and despite the collared neck, the dress felt entirely too loose.

"It's…"

"Ah, I told you there's more." He lifted a golden expanse of metal and held it out for my inspection. It was fashioned in the shape of a spinal column, with tendrils of gold reaching out from all sides. "This goes on your back."

Wordlessly, I turned and lifted my hair off my neck for him to attach it. The metal was cold but warmed quickly between my skin and Tallon's. His fingers lingered along my bare back as he affixed the piece to the sides of the dress, pulling it taut along my back. It fit much nicer now.

He turned me around to face him, running a finger down my cheek. "Gorgeous, my wolf."

"Why do you call me that?" I murmured, letting myself get lost in his reverent touches.

"The first night you saw me, when you looked at me… I could sense you. All that duty, responsibility you had been burdened with. The fierce loyalty and intelligence behind your eyes. Your curiosity," he continued. He pressed his lips to mine. "Your bravery."

Tears pricked my eyes. "You truly believe that?"

"With every fiber of my being, Odyssa." Another kiss, this one lingering. "You need shoes still."

Instead of the normal satin slippers we wore with our veils, he set out a pair of sturdy, low-cut boots that looked remarkably like his own, yet were clearly made to go with the dress. Black so deep it absorbed all the light around it, yet lined with crimson gems. "How long have you had this outfit for me?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I don't believe you are quite ready for that answer, my wolf."

I narrowed my eyes, hearing the words he would not say, that he'd had this for far longer than he should have.

"You are breathtaking, Odyssa. I wish we had more time, but I promise you, after all this business is handled, I will take great pleasure in removing this dress," he said. His finger ran down from my neck all the way along my arm, leaving warm sparks in its wake. When he reached my hand, he dropped to his knees, drawing something from behind his back and shifting the slit of the skirt aside to reveal my thigh. "This is a bloodstone dagger," he explained, pulling the red-bladed knife from the sheath he wore at his back. My eyes widened, remembering when I'd held that very knife to his own neck just days ago. He grinned and reached to strap the sheath around my leg. "It can kill anything, even a Soulshade." He looked up at me, eyes flashing silver. "Use it."

I nodded, trying to keep my focus on the knife and not on the sight of Tallon on his knees before me. "What of my magic?"

He rose smoothly, shaking his head with a grimace. "We don't have the time to teach you enough to be sure you could consistently call upon it. That would take weeks and weeks of training. But if it comes to you tonight, don't fight it. Use your instincts; they will keep you alive."

The bells in the castle tower tolled nine times, signaling the start of the ball. My stomach churned as the ringing echoed through the walls. It was time for us to go. I'd said before that the study was my last chance, but truly, this was. If we failed this time, so publicly, I doubted either of us would live long enough to even feel the shame.

"Here." Tallon's voice pulled me out of my thoughts and I took the proffered mask from his hand. He secured his own, a blood-red skull that covered his forehead and eyes and then swooped down over one cheek, leaving his mouth and the other side of his face bare.

The one he offered me would just cover my eyes and was an intricate lace pattern specked with red jewels throughout that reminded me eerily of blood spatter. It was perfect, and I couldn't help the small chuckle I let out. "You certainly know how to communicate with clothing."

He smiled as I fastened it around my head, arranging my hair carefully over the straps. "Sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all."

"Do you think Eadric will be at the party tonight? Or will he hide?" I asked. Tallon slid his own red-bladed knife into a sheath he secured at the small of his back before pulling on a black jacket with velvet brocade detailing. He looked like Kalyx incarnate rather than merely his herald. My blood thrummed just looking at him, and from the smirk on his lips, he knew exactly what I was thinking. "You're not going to show your marks?"

"He will be there. He's too arrogant not to show his face, especially once the castle tells him we've returned." He offered up the crook of his arm. "And no, the regents have already seen mine. They need to see yours tonight."

I looked down at my arms, where the expanse of the marks along my right arm were fully exposed. "They certainly will in this dress."

"Precisely the point." He ran his hand down my back, fingers catching on each of the protrusions from the corset until his palm rested at the base of my spine. "Tell me, do you not feel powerful in this dress, Odyssa? With the evidence of your strength on display for all to see?"

"I do." My voice was hoarse.

"Good." The heat in his eyes burned through my body and his eyes flicked down to my mouth, his tongue darting out to wet his own lips. His eyes shut for a moment, and when they opened again, they were bright with determination. "I know you think this— we —are a mistake, and I swear I will prove to you we are not—that I can be worthy of you, and that you are more than worthy of me—but I'd like to kiss you once more before we go. If you'd allow it."

My heart shattered there in my chest, and I reached a hand up to cradle the exposed side of his face. "Tallon. We are not a mistake. You do not need to convince me of that. It is the timing I regret, and only that. I need to prove I am worthy to Emyl first, and I have let far too many distractions slow that down. And those distractions killed Rhyon."

"You shouldn't have to prove your worth to someone who only seeks to use you," he murmured, turning his head to kiss my palm. "But I understand the sentiment, far more than you know. I will help you however you need, bargain or no bargain. I am yours to command."

"Then kiss me once more, before we dethrone the Coward Prince and save my brother."

There was no hesitation from Tallon. As soon as the words left my mouth, he was there. His hands pulled me in tightly, one still at my lower back, and the other reaching up to cup the side of my face and plunge back into my hair. It was heady and all-consuming, the way he kissed me, and I couldn't get enough of it.

All too soon, he pulled back, both of our chests heaving and our panting breaths mingling in the space between us.

"We should go," he said. It stirred a sense of pride in me, hearing how utterly ragged his voice was. I had done that to him.

I leaned up and pressed a final kiss to his lips, short and chaste compared to the previous one. "Yes, we should."

The moment we stepped out of Tallon's room in the Beyond and returned to Castle Auretras, we both stiffened. Something was wrong in the halls, and the feeling of being watched prickled at the back of my neck. A dark and heavy feeling pressed down on us, making my body feel like it weighed thrice what it should. Ahead of us, the walls rippled like they were made of water rather than stone. Ash and smoke burst across my tongue, so heavy it nearly made me gag.

"Perhaps he is smarter than I gave him credit for," Tallon mused. "He's set the Soulshades and the castle upon us."

"What should we do?" My hand trailed down to where Tallon had secured the bloodstone blade.

"Not yet," he said, casting a look down at my leg. "We should get somewhere more open than this hallway. Make your way towards the ballroom. The walls are not our friend, and the more space we have, the sooner we can handle this."

At his direction, we turned and rushed down the hall. The walls rippled alongside us as we moved, and the taste of ash was growing thicker in my mouth, but I didn't dare pull my eyes from in front of me.

"They're getting closer," I warned, feeling the weight of them against my back.

"We're almost there," he said, as we turned another corner. The space ahead opened into the large foyer just outside the back entrance to the ballroom—the one Prince Eadric usually arrived through—where three hallways split off from the center space and dispersed throughout the castle. He reached the center and stopped, turning back to face what had chased us. "Draw your knife."

From all sides, Soulshades poured out of the walls.

Tallon's presence was a pulse of strength beside me. He'd yet to draw his own weapon, but the aura that radiated from him was terrifying in its own right. As the first Soulshade neared, his marks erupted from his body, coiled and ready to strike down those malevolent spirits that surrounded us. At my leg, a cold spot told me Sylviana had also joined our fight.

With a shriek that pierced the very marrow of my bones, the first Soulshade lunged forward, its bloody face contorted with rage. I raised my dagger, and slashed towards it. I wasn't sure what I had expected the bloodstone dagger to do, but it caught against the Soulshade's chest as if they were a solid form, and—with another piercing scream—the Soulshade dissipated, leaving room for the next one to take its place.

Tallon leaped into action beside me, his magic slicing through the air with deadly precision that sent the Soulshades recoiling away. I mirrored him with my knife. Beside us both, Sylviana had grown into her human-sized form without me noticing and was swallowing her own portion of Soulshades.

But for every Soulshade we vanquished, another took its place. Soulshades surrounded us like a cocoon, to the point I could hardly see the walls of the castle around us. Sweat dripped from my brow and slicked the handle of the dagger.

As the battle raged on, the line between reality and nightmare blurred, and time seemed to stretch into eternity. Still, we fought on. But it wasn't enough, I knew, as my eyes took in the scene before me.

Sylviana had retreated to her normal size; her sides heaved with exertion. Tallon was quickly being overpowered by four Soulshades snatching at him, and his marks had faded into mere whisps of smoke. My own energy was fading quickly, and my arms burned from the demanding slashing motions with the knife.

Icy arms gripped me from behind, and then Soulshades were on me. At least half a dozen of them, piling on as I stumbled and fell to the floor. I slashed and stabbed, but still more surrounded us. I couldn't breathe, couldn't see, and without a doubt, I was going to die.

Warmth battled back beneath my skin, and then my marks erupted. The magic unfurled like a broken wing and grew, shifting and multiplying until it surrounded me and all the Soulshades in the onslaught. They staggered away from me, fearful eyes on the undulating mass of black that surrounded them.

At last, with a final, desperate effort, I pushed all the intent I could at the magic, screaming at it in my mind to help us, to destroy the Soulshades and get them out of the castle for good. The magic responded, growing ever larger until it blacked out the entire rotunda and I could not see anything, not even the hand in front of my face. My chest heaved, still begging the magic to continue, to not falter in the face of my exhaustion.

Finally, the magic struck. The mass of black expanded ever so slightly more and then collapsed back into my chest with a rush that sent my head spinning. If I'd not already been on the ground, I'd certainly have fallen. And when all the mass had cleared, the room bright by candlelight once more, we were alone.

The Soulshades were gone, and the eerie feeling of being watched from the walls had vanished, too, dissipated into the night like smoke on the wind. Breathing heavily, I glanced at Tallon, our eyes meeting in silent acknowledgment of the horrors we had faced and the fight still yet to come.

"Odyssa, my wolf, what in the name of the Beyond was that ?" Tallon asked, struggling to catch his breath.

I looked up at him with wide eyes. "I was going to ask you the same. Did you know I could do that?"

He shook his head, hauling himself to his feet and straightening his jacket. "I certainly did not. Though I'm not even positive I know what it is that you actually did, to be quite honest with you."

"You can't do that? How did you banish the Soulshade who tried to possess me then?"

He shook his head again. "It wasn't a banishment, not like what you just did. I can dissipate them, but it's temporary. They always come back. When I commanded those out of you, I hardly used any magic, merely a threat of it."

My mouth fell open slightly. "You threatened a Soulshade to stop possessing me, and it listened ?"

"Well, yes."

Hysteria was bubbling up in my chest but I pushed it back down, taking deep breaths to calm my racing heart. My hands trembled as I straightened my dress and mask. "I'm sure I'll have far more to say about that later, but we're likely short on time."

"Yes, that did take far longer than I was expecting it would," he said with a sigh. The bells began to toll, signaling midnight, and Tallon's face transformed, a wicked smile pulling at his lips as his shoulders melted down his back. Chills echoed down my spine. This was Eadric's Tallon—the version of Tallon I'd come to associate with Eadric, at least. And it meant nothing good for the Coward Prince, now that he no longer held the reigns of Tallon's magic. "Are you open to a slight change in plans?"

The panic that had been cresting subsided with this casual confidence exuding from Tallon now. It was a mask, I knew, but knowing that he was choosing to become this Tallon for me … Something in my body trusted him, even if my mind was not always so quick to do the same. In any case, this I did trust him with implicitly. Our goals were the same. "Do what you think is best. You know him far better than I."

"We should get to the ballroom then, before the bells finish."