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

of a Grace. My insides wither at the thought of his golden Fae eyes and bark-like skin, brown and grooved like that of an oak, and that same pain from Hilde’s shop resurfaces. This time, I can’t help but press the heel of my palm into the place on my middle.

“She appeared human. More so than you do,” Kal adds quietly, as if worried it will offend me.

“Is that why she never came back for me? Because it was easier for her to hide?”

“They killed her.” He grinds his teeth. “The beasts. It was just after she attempted to sever my bindings. But the power of the enchantment was too great. She went back for you. We would try again another day. I was watching her return to Briar as I always did, and they intercepted her. I do not know how they knew she was here. Or how they determined what she was. There was some kind of argument, and then they threw her into the sea. These abominable shadows rendered me powerless to stop them. And you—I thought you were dead, too.”

“Beasts? Who do you mean?”

It couldn’t have been Endlewild—then there would have been no questions about my origins when I turned up in the Common District. And I doubt it was the king’s men. But Kal’s mouth just opens and closes, the bones of his neck straining as he struggles to speak. Callow screeches outside, and it seems to knock a dose of sense into me.

I have no reason to trust this man. No proof that what he says is true. “This is too much. I have to go.”

“Wait! I can help you. I know the power that runs in your veins. The gift of the Vila.”

I pause mid-step. “The curse, you mean.”

His dark brows knit together. “Is that what you think? What they told you?”

Against my own instinct, I find myself rushing on. “What else can it be? All I can summon is ugliness and pain.”

“Alyce.” I’ve never heard my name spoken that way before, with compassion, and it almost hurts. “You are so much more than that.”

“What am I?” The question is barely more than a whisper, an aching need that’s plagued me since I was old enough to understand the extent of my otherness. “You said my mother looked more human than I do. Why? I’m part Vila, but what about the rest? Do you know?”

“I do.” A tide of Kal’s shadows rolls toward me, sizzling when it reaches the sunlight. “Are you certain you wish me to tell you?”

No. But I can’t seem to turn away, either. And so I nod.

“You are a Shifter. Just like me.”

CHAPTER SIX

I’m not sure how I got back to Lavender House.

As soon as I’d regained my senses, I fled the tower. Away from Kal. Away from the brand he seared into my back.

Shifter.

The word rings in my head, echoing off the curves of my skull until it swallows every other thought. Before the war, Shifters were one of the many creatures drawn to Malterre by the darkness of the Vila’s power. And like all the rest—Demons and Imps and Goblins and more—Shifters are bloodthirsty monsters. But Shifters are more than just vicious. They’re manipulative and cunning. They can turn themselves into whatever form they wish: beasts with the head of a wolf and body of a griffin. Beautiful maidens who lure their victims in and slit their throats.

I read one story in which a Shifter bargained with a mortal—a year of the human’s service in exchange for a pair of wings. The human was unaware that a Shifter can only change its own body. And so after the year was up, the Shifter fashioned a pair of wings out of wax and fixed them to the human’s shoulders. Overjoyed, the mortal leapt off the nearest cliff. He soared over the waves of the Carthegean Sea, but the wings soon melted in the heat of the sun, sending the unwitting mortal to crash into the water and drown.

I cannot be a Shifter.

If the prisoner spoke true, why wasn’t I killed, like all the other Shifters I’d read about? Destroyed before they could wreak havoc on the realm. Why did the Briar King let me exhale a single breath once he knew of my existence?

The questions rend me to ribbons. Corrupt my dreams when I stumble into spurts of sleep. In the swirling images, fur sprouts from my skin and my teeth lengthen into fangs. I try to run, but my legs are fins or spindly spider’s legs and I cannot move, only scream and—

Something slams into my shoulder hard enough to throw me halfway off the bed.

“Get up, you useless creature.”

I catch myself before I fall to the floor and then wince against the white blur of the morning. A shadow looms over me.

“How am I supposed to treat my patrons without ground peacock feathers?”

A petal-pink curl dangles in front of my face. Rose. She tosses a broken vial at my fingertips, and I’m barely able to jerk away before the shards lodge in my skin. I groan, hefting myself upright. That damn sack. In my flight from the black tower, my clumsy hands had dropped it more than once. I’m surprised only the one vial was smashed.

“I’ll get another.” I rub the sleep from my eyes.

“Oh no, you won’t.” Rose taps her slipper and the bells sewn onto the toes jingle. “I’ve already sent a servant. But it will come out of your wages. Mistress Lavender said.”

I doubt that, but I’m too groggy to argue. “That’s fine. Get out.”

“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” Glass crunches under her heel.

“Someone was dragged off the wrong side of the bed.”

“It’s your own fault if you’re lazy. I’ve been up for ages. Already had three patrons.”

“How’s your blood looking?” It’s a low jab, but an effective one. Twin splotches, like gilded dandelions, erupt on Rose’s cheeks. “Finding any silver specks?”

“My