Chapter 22

I elected not to look over the edge when I passed the waterfall. Instead, I kept my eyes firmly forward, refusing also to look at the Prince. I picked the back of the closest statue and concentrated hard, putting one foot in front of the other with a confidence made from nothing but adrenaline.

When I made it to the statues, I reached out, gripping the arm of the one I’d been so focused on.

“Thank you,” I mouthed to the statue, moving slowly around it to see its face.

I moved my head back in surprise. It had no face. Slowly, I looked around at the others. None of them had faces, the rock missing, as though it had been bashed off.

There were five fae depicted, each holding a staff. As I moved around the ring, I realized that there was one from each Court. I found myself drawn not to their missing faces, but to their staffs. There was a shadow-fae with a skull on his staff, a gold-fae with wings on hers, a male ice-fae, with spikes jutting from his staff, a female fire-fae, her staff made of rock and covered in beautiful curves, like flames, and there was an elderly earth-fae, his staff made from gnarled wood and covered in tiny delicate leaves.

There were three more statues with no staffs, and I reached up, brushing my fingers over the tops of their empty hands, where their staffs should be. One of the three statues was taller than the others, and one much shorter. Other than their height, it was hard to distinguish anything else. All of the statues were made from the same pale stone as the ones inside the trunk of Yggdrasil had been.

I looked at the Prince, who was watching me closely. “Who are they?”

“Fae.”

“And the three with no staffs?”

“I don’t know. I was hoping you would.”

I frowned at him. “Why?”

He pointed to the center of the palm. A small, circular indent caught my eye, and I moved, crouching to see it better.

There was an inscription in the ancient language. My heart thudded hard in my chest.

The copper-haired gold-giver has the key.

I looked back up at the Prince, masking my features.

In the Gold Court, knowing the ancient language was a weapon. If the fae didn’t know you understood it, they would use it around you, revealing things they would otherwise keep hidden. Making a quick decision to employ the same tactic in the Shadow Court, I shrugged my shoulders.

“What does it say?” I asked.

The Prince’s eyes narrowed. “You do not speak the language?”

“No.”

“It says that the copper-haired gold-giver has the key.”

It wasn’t too difficult to feign my confused reaction. “What key?”

“You tell me. That is why I have brought you here.”

“Where is here? Who put this here? What is it?”

“I have my suspicions. But until you prove yourself trustworthy, I have no intention of sharing them with you.”

“You think I’m the untrustworthy one?” To be fair, he was right not to trust me. But that didn’t stop me defending my honor.

“Yes. Half the words that leave your lips are lies.”

“Only to you,” I said, before I could stop myself. His lips twitched, I guessed in annoyance.

“What is the key?” he asked me.

I raised my hands, staring at him. “I have no idea. I have no idea what any of this is.”

“Then look.” He gestured at the statues.

I turned in a slow circle. “I am looking. I have no idea what this is.”

“Look harder.” There was frustration in his tone. I sought the gold-fae statue, trying to slow the questions in my head.

Was I really the copper-haired gold-giver the inscription was referring to? Confusion welled through me. How could something that felt as ancient as these statues have a reference to me?

Voror’s words came to me, as I touched the cool stone of the female gold-fae’s face. He had been instructed to help the copper-haired gold-giver.

Well, there was no point fighting it. Someone, somewhere, had a plan for me.

I switched my gaze from the fae’s face to her staff. It was as nice as anything I had ever made. If it wasn’t made of stone, then it would be beautiful. Even as I thought the words, something glinted, catching my eye.

One of the feathers in the left wing over the top of the staff was crooked. How had it glinted, though? I leaned closer, then took in a sharp breath as a golden rune floated into being.

“There’s gold here,” I whispered, feeling its power.

“There is?”

The Prince was by my side in seconds, and I pulled away as his scent washed over me. “Yes. Will you back up? I need space.”

He took a step away, his presence still looming. I leaned close to the statue again, brushing my fingers over the stone wings. Heat tingled through my fingertips. Carefully, I picked at the stone with my nail. A tiny bit crumbled away, and I bit my lip.

Gold.

I heard an intake of breath behind me, but I didn’t turn. Precisely and slowly, I scratched away another little bit of stone, revealing more gleaming gold.

“I need tools,” I said. “I risk damaging the gold otherwise.”

“I do not care if the gold is damaged. I need you to find the key.”

I turned to him. “I have no idea what the key is. But I do know that these statues are old, and I wouldn't want to risk damaging anything on them.” My affinity with the precious metal made me fiercely protective of it, but that wouldn’t matter to him. I had to word my request carefully. “The inscription told you I had the key. If you need my help, then you need to let me work as I am supposed to.” And let me buy time.

His bright eyes bored into mine, and I held his gaze. “Fine. We will return, with tools.”

Without another word, he swept around and began striding back along the wrist, toward the boat.

I looked back at the gold inside the statue. What was it doing under the palace of the Shadow Court? I looked at the other statues. Would a flame-forger find fire inside that staff? Or a water-winder find liquid in the ice-fae statue?

I moved to the wrist, and at the return angle it was impossible not to look at the crashing water falling over the edge of the cliff. My eyes automatically moved down, to see where the fall ended, but I snapped them closed before they could. When I opened them again, I made sure I was looking dead ahead. Fixing my focus on the figure of the Prince standing at the end, I made my careful way across the arm.

We were both silent in the boat on the way back through the narrow passage. It seemed the longer I spent in this world, the more questions I had, and fewer answers.

There was something about the statues. A power and an age that spoke to me on a level only gold did. They were important, that much I was sure of. If they held a power that could be accessed by the fae then I could see why the Prince wanted it unlocked. And I could only imagine what his stepmother might do with it.

Of course, they may just have been statues. They looked and felt like smaller versions of the ones inside the trunk of Yggdrasil , and whilst those ones undeniably held power, they didn’t provide miracle access to something that could change the world. So why did it feel like these smaller statues were more important?

And why were they hidden in a pool under a mountain in the Shadow Court, invisible until revealed, and dangerously accessible over the edge of a cliff?

“How did you know to drink the water?”

We had reached the first cavern with the door back to the palace, and were climbing out of the boat onto the small beach.

The Prince glanced at me. “I will tell you when you have made some progress.”

I screwed my face up, but said nothing. It was as I expected. And he had already taken a risk showing me something so secret.

It didn’t matter to me how he found the statues. All that mattered was escaping. And finding out why an ancient inscription refers to you, and finding the fae who sent a crazy owl to help you.

I cursed the thought as it intruded. Escaping and keeping Lhoris and Kara alive was the goal. Not finding out who I was. Or why I had been sucked into a world, and a mystery, I had no idea I was a part of.

I was starting to worry I wouldn’t be able to do one without the other, though.

The Prince’s shadows swirled, and the door in the stone swung open. Before he stepped through, he fixed his gaze on me. In the low light his face looked rougher. Meaner. “I will not hesitate to kill your friends if you breathe one word of the shrine to any other living soul.”

Magic accompanied his threat, tingling and cool as the shadows swirled about us.

I nodded. “I understand,”

“Good. Return to your room and make me a list of the tools you require. I will source them immediately.”

I was splashing water on my face in my bathing chamber when I heard the fluttering of wings.

I peered around the door.

Voror was perched on the corner of the bedpost, blinking around the room.

“Good morning,” I said to the owl.

“It is not especially. I abhor daylight hours.” He blinked, managing to convey his annoyance in the slow motion. “But since humans do most of their business during the day, and I have been ascribed to help a human, here I am.”

“I see.”

“Have you learned anything new?”

The Prince’s threat loomed at the back of my mind. Technically, Voror was a living soul, so telling him about the shrine went against his instructions. But Voror had been told to seek me out by someone who must already know something about all of this.

“Do you know anything about ancient statues? Or me being the key to something?”

The owl tilted his head slowly. “No. Why?”

I told him about the cavern and the statues. “The Prince called it the ‘shrine’, and word seems pretty fitting,” I finished.

“I would like to see this place.”

“You can’t when the Prince is there. And without his magic there’s no door, and no way to stop the boat going straight over the edge of the waterfall.”

“Hmm. I will ponder this.”

“You do that.”

A knock on the door made him beat his wings in surprise.

“I thought you were a superior predator, did you not hear them coming?” I teased him.

He clicked his beak as he took off for the window. “It is obviously someone of equal stealth and might.”

“My lady? It’s me, Brynja,” my maid called through the door.

I couldn’t help the smirk I gave Voror. “My slight, and buxom, handmaid,” I told him.

Voror ruffled his feathers as he landed on the windowsill. “I must be feeling the adverse effects of being out in the day. I will return at dusk.”

“Isn’t it always dusk in this place?” I looked past him at the gloomy sky.

“Absolutely not. Your pathetic human eyes may not be able to tell, but mine are—”

“My lady? Is everything okay?” the maid knocked again, interrupting him.

“Yes, just a minute,” I called back. “We are returning to the shrine today, so try to come back soon,” I said to Voror. If there was any way of him following us, I wanted to find out. After all, he could fly through rock.

Voror gave a soft hoot, which I took as agreement, then flew through the pane of glass.

I opened the door to Brynja’s concerned face. “My lady, you have been summoned. I don’t have long to get you ready.”

“Summoned?”

“Yes. In place of last night’s dinner, the Queen wants to have lunch with you. Now.”