Malice, Heather Walter [hardest books to read txt] 📗

palace—those ancient bones still stand beside the new monstrosity. This structure was built before there were Grace and Common districts. Possibly before even the main walls were constructed—during the years in which Leythana and her first heirs allowed their subjects to settle wherever they chose. It must have been a wealthy home, if the surviving tower is only a piece of it. But it was built too close to the cliff’s edge and, over the centuries, the strong sea squalls from Briar’s coast began to chip it apart, stone by stone. It’s been abandoned for generations. Uninhabitable, except by the ghosts said to haunt its hollow halls.

Ghosts. Ridiculous.

Still, I’ve always felt a strange pull to the place. How fitting would it be, the Dark Grace living in the wretched castle tower? Not that I’d ever be allowed to leave Lavender House before my gift ran out. But once it does, the Grace Council has to grant me lodging somewhere. Out here, I’d never have to worry about visitors again. It’s a sweet enough thought to have me checking the angle of the sun. Calculating how long it would take for me to get to the tower and back. And then I’m on my way toward the ruins.

—

Clumps of trees patch the landscape, their roots clinging to the cliffside like giant spider’s legs. Their branches provide only the barest shade to combat the heat of the sun. Gulls call back and forth overhead, riding a sticky, slow-moving breeze that does little to circulate the cottony air. Before I’m halfway to the tower, my dress is plastered to my skin. Sweat beads down my neck and across my back. The sack filled with Rose’s order is heavier with each step.

But the trip to the ruins is worth it. Just before the earth drops away, the black tower staggers into the sky on its wobbly legs. Pieces of the roof have fallen off or caved in. Black vines snake in and out of broken windows like the arteries of some gargantuan creature. I love it.

The door is the only part of the tower still relatively intact. It’s made of oak, with various crests and patterns I don’t recognize carved into the silty surface. I set my sack down and transfer Callow—who has much to say about being left behind—to a fallen log nearby and secure her jesses to a limb. And then it takes three hard shoves of my unhappy shoulder to get the door to give. The rusted hinges scream an iron-laced peal. Even then, I achieve only a hands-breadth sliver of space between the door and the frame. I suck in my breath and angle myself through.

The chamber within might as well be a tomb. A crumbling stone staircase hobbles up the side of one curved wall. Judging from the mezzanines, the structure has three floors, their railings furry with moss and draped with cobwebs. Tattered banners still hang from the beams, the shredded hems billowing in the sea breeze. And there’s a perpetual echo of the roar of the ocean, which is plainly visible through a wide, gaping hole in the far wall, where a hall must once have connected the tower to the rest of the manor.

Movement to my far right snags my attention, coupled with a sound too heavy to be a rat or a snake. It seems I’m not the only one who thought the black tower looked inviting.

“Who’s there?” I fight to keep the tremor out of my voice. I have no elixir ready to use in my defense. Even if I did, the Grace Laws forbid it. And the people of Briar would string me up if I harmed one of their own. I’d be at the bottom of the sea before sunset.

I squint in the gloom and take one step forward. Two. I think I can make out the shape of hunched shoulders. The sheen of dark eyes.

“Please.” The voice is raspy, as if it hasn’t been used in some time. It’s a man’s, I think. And the accent is strange. Clipped and clean despite the scrape of gravel in it. Perhaps even foreign. “I mean you no harm.”

Adrenaline hums through me. “Come into the light, then.”

“I…cannot.” He wheezes, choking on his own tongue.

“Why not?” I pick up a rusted iron bar and test its weight.

The darkness shifts, churning like the waves of the sea outside. A man’s shape begins to emerge. Tall and lean. Peeled from the darkness, as if the very shadows had cobbled him together and given him life. Tendrils of black unspool from his arms, from his hair, like a child’s unruly curls. Even his eyes are a bottomless jet black, haunting and desperate.

My heart thunders against my ribs as I scramble backward. But the floor is slick with brine and my feet slip. With a yelp, I tumble onto my backside, pain lancing up my spine as the iron bar clatters against stone.

“Forgive me,” the stranger says. “I did not mean to frighten you.”

He moves closer, still refusing to step into the sunlight, and his features begin to solidify. Broad shoulders, strong jaw, chin-length hair falling in inky waves around pronounced cheekbones.

One unnaturally pale alabaster hand reaches out as if to touch me and I scuttle away on all fours.

“Are you…real?” His throat bobs.

It’s not the first time someone has asked me that question—typically drunken imbeciles I encounter at night. Anger quickly replaces the panic sawing through my lungs. I shove myself up to stand, rubbing at the sore spots on my elbows and palms. “Of course I’m real. What kind of question is that? You can see me, can’t you?”

“Yes, but—” He swallows and it looks like it hurts him. “It has been a long time since I had a visitor. Nearly twenty years.”

Twenty years. Something scratches at my brain. “That’s not possible. I’ve never heard of anyone living in the tower.”

A ghost of a smile tugs at his lips. “I was put here to be forgotten.”

Liar.