Reign of Shadows by Sophie Jordan

chatting like a magpie.
    â€œSivo always worries about straying too far from the tower.” She sighed as if someone worrying about her safety too much was her greatest grief.
    She reminded me of Bethan in that moment, blissfully unaware of all the dangers in the world. Blissfully unaware that I was her greatest threat.
    I kept going, lightly touching a fallen log and vaulting over it, biting back the reply that Sivo should worry. She should.
    I didn’t call back a warning, but Luna somehow knew it was there. She lifted one leg over the log, then the next, carrying on indifferently.
    I adjusted my quiver of arrows hanging on my shoulder and faced forward again. Sivo worrying was probably what kept them alive so long.
    The tower was safe, virtually undiscoverable within the thick press of trees, far from any road or path. If I were a different manner of person, I could try to steal the life they’d carved for themselves. It wouldn’t be too difficult. A cut to Sivo’s throat while he slept. Perla presented no threat. The only other real threat was Luna. I’d seen her at work.
    She reminded me of a flower that used to bloom in Relhok. The scarlet buds once dotted the hills outside Relhok City. They were wrapped up in my earliest recollections, tangled amid memories of sunshine on my skin. The flower had faded fromexistence a few years after the eclipse, like so many things since then.
    From the moment I could walk, my nurse had taught me to avoid them when we went outdoors. I would lie in the tall grasses surrounding the castle, directly beside one such flower, and study the red petals. So beautiful and delicate in their seeming harmlessness. I would hover a fingertip over a petal, tempted to touch for myself, to delve into the deeper darkness nestled at the root of those petals. One day I did.
    It was only the slightest brush of my finger, but the burn had been swift like a wasp’s sting. My hand swelled and my nurse had clucked at me, shooting me fearful glances as she applied a salve to the injury. It was not that she thought the sting would kill me . . . but that I would kill me—a boy who had to touch and see for himself what danger felt like.
    Luna was like that flower: innocent on the outside, but dangerous to anyone who got too close. Even me.
    She kept up, following me as we ascended a steep crest. When we reached the top it would plateau to the exact place I had spotted the nisan weed. Was that only yesterday? It felt like a good deal more time had passed since I first met this girl.
    â€œYou’re taking a long, dangerous journey based on rumors.” Her words circled me like an insistent gnat. She didn’t know when to quit. “What if you cross the continent and find it’s not even there—”
    â€œIt’s there.” My steps hit the ground harder. “You talk too much.”
    â€œYou’re angry,” she announced, her tread quickening to match my pace.
    â€œNo.” My tone and brevity didn’t seem to affect her.
    Usually a scowl worked. Or a look. It was something in my eyes. When I left Relhok City, Govin, the bowman who trained me and the only person left I felt compelled to say farewell to, had told me that my eyes were dead.
    I’d seen a lot of dead eyes over the years. It was impossible to understand unless you witnessed it happening—the moment life departed and slid away like a wisp of smoke. The light in one’s eyes, a light you didn’t even realize was there, faded to nothing.
    She’d never have to witness that. Scowls and dead-eyed stares were useless on her.
    She pressed on, blithely unaware. Or indifferent. “What if it’s not as you say though? What if dwellers are there?”
    I stopped and faced her. “Then it won’t be any different from any other place, will it?”
    â€œExcept you will have gone so far. . . . What about your home—”
    â€œI’m trying to forget where