The Shadow City. Ryan Wieser
whatsoever. She had said a quick goodbye to Mar’e. The Kuroi girl was angry at Jessop’s distance and even angrier that she was leaving. She had barely looked at Falco except to grimace at his fresh scar.
“Are you ever going to come back?” Mar’e had asked Jessop.
“I hope so.”
“Or maybe I’ll find you one day.”
“Maybe you will.”
Jessop rolled on her sleeping mat. Falco rested several feet away. Though they were in complete darkness, her vision was keen and she knew he did not sleep.
“Yes, I’m awake.” Once again, he knew her unvoiced thoughts.
“How do you do that?”
“I can just hear you.”
“Can you hear everyone?”
She saw him roll onto his back, resting his arms under his head of dark hair.
“Not Dezane. I have heard it spoken about in the Blade—no one can seem to enter the man’s mind.”
She thought of Dezane and felt unsurprised. If any could resist some mystical power, it would be him.
He moved again, turning to his side to stare in her direction. “I know Dezane told you that you could stay here.”
She didn’t know if he knew it from reading her mind or if Dezane had told him. It mattered not. “He did.”
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t stay.”
“I won’t. I want…” She began, but she let her voice trail off.
“You want what?”
She knew he could just hear the thought if he wanted to. He wished to hear her say the words aloud.
“I want to be where you are.”
She knew he kept his gaze fixed to her. “I want that too, Jessop.”
CHAPTER 4
Azgul
Present-day
Jessop ran down the hall, her linen robe beating about her knees. She rounded the corner, just in time to catch a glimpse of his golden eye and silver, star-shaped scar. She tried calling his name but her voice caught in her throat. She ran after him, tearing down the corridor. She needed to tell him—she needed to tell him he was bleeding.
“Jessop.”
Jessop woke to the sharp tug of Falco’s hands on her. Instinctively, she clambered back in the sheets, freeing herself from him. He raised his hands away from her slowly. Sweat greased her skin, her hair stuck to her face and neck with a stickiness that stung her. It was the middle of the night.
Falco slowly reached for her, resting his hand on her shoulder. “More nightmares?”
She nodded, sweeping her hands over her face, pulling her hair back from her hot skin. “I need you to find him, Falco.”
He lowered his hand from her slowly. “Kohl.”
The room was perfectly dark but they saw one another with ease. It was chilly, and yet she felt on fire.
“I broke his heart…he wants vengeance, I can feel it.”
She pulled the damp tunic off her body, tossing it to the ground as she moved to the side of the bed. She let her feet rest on the smooth floor and enjoyed the cool sensation. Falco readjusted to sit beside her. He held his hands together, leaning forward to regard her carefully.
“He is no threat to you.”
She kept her eyes trained on the ground. “He nearly killed me.”
“He caught us off guard. We both know he is no match for either of us. He will bring you no harm.”
She snapped her head up to face him, studying his gray eyes in the cold darkness. “Then why do we hunt them? Him, Hanson, the others. Why must we find them if they pose no threat to us?”
The question was rhetorical, but she asked it to remind Falco that she knew his thoughts, as she knew these men. One-on-one, or even three-on-two, they were no match for her and Falco…but that did not mean they bore no threat. They were the fallen rulers of Daharia, and they had many skills and many allegiances.
At his silence, she spoke again. “You have told me many times to not underestimate them. We did just that, the day you arrived, and it nearly cost me my life. We cannot do it again. I want them found and shackled.”
He held her stare for a long moment. His gray eyes appeared icy to her, cooler than usual. “You mean you want them found and killed, right?”
She said nothing. She saw Hanson’s face from that day on the terrace, paralyzed, betrayed. Hydo deserved death; he had murdered her family. But Hanson…she did not know if she could truly sentence him to the same fate as his friend. Despite all he had done, he was no murderer.
“Jeco will never be safe around him. Hanson will always be loyal to Hydo,” Falco spoke, answering her thoughts.
She quickly stood from the bed. “Don’t do that, Falco.”
He stood, throwing his arms out with frustration. “I’m sorry—but what choice are you giving me? You’ve been closed off for days. Since I arrived, if we’re being honest, you’ve refused to open up to me.”
She turned from him and rifled through her drawers for fresh clothes. “After months away from my family, I nearly died at the hands of someone I—”
“Someone you loved?”
She turned around slowly. Falco knew her heart, he knew her mind, and he knew she was always only ever going to be in love with him. “Someone I betrayed.”
He nodded slowly, skeptical. “You cannot tell me he isn’t in your heart. He plagues your mind each day and night. I have known you long enough to know you feel no fear—so do not pretend that the preoccupation is because of that.”
She ran her hands over her damp hair. “I loved him as I love Korend’a.”
“You never slept with Korend’a.”
His words were a slap. She turned from him and made her way to the bathing chamber. In the illuminated room she studied the freshly twisted scar on her abdomen. It was a thick knot of mangled flesh. The sight of it, the words Falco had spoken to her, all made her want to be ill. She steadied herself against the mirror, taking slow breaths, wishing her skin were less hot, or the room less cold.
Slowly, she let her eyes trail back to the wound. She had nearly died at Kohl’s hands but she couldn’t say with complete confidence that she wanted him dead. If that uncertainty meant some part of her loved him then so be it. Whatever she felt for him, it was not the love that she felt for Falco.
“I’m sorry. That was wrong of me to say,” Falco spoke, leaning in the doorway. She watched him through the reflection, their bright eyes locking on one another.
“Sleeping with him was part of your master plan, Falco.”
“I know.”
“Had there been another way—”
“I know.”
She studied his face for some sort of sign, some indication that he truly did know her heart still, as he always had. “Can’t you understand that I feel I’ve wounded him enough? He loved me, as you do, and I destroyed him. I do not trust him to roam free, but I do not think he deserves to die.”
He nodded but he did not appear in agreement. His perfect lips were tight around his teeth. His muscles tensed as he crossed his arms over his broad chest.
“Can you not understand that he nearly took you away from me? I thought