radiated from my spine, but I didn’t think I’d broken anything.
I pushed myself up. When I looked around, I noticed grave markers jutting out of snow. We’d fallen into a cemetery, and if I hadn’t had Skalei, I might have plummeted right into my own grave.
Ancient tombstones sprouted from the ground around me like giants’ teeth. Above my head, the boughs of an elm reached into the night sky, frozen and twisted like gnarled fingers. An ancient stone chapel—built by humans—lay in ruins.
In a whorl of darkness, the prisoner rose before me like a ghost. The shadows in his eyes had faded, leaving behind clear blue.
He took a step closer to me, movements smooth and unnerving. Though he shifted like a phantom, his body had been solid as the Citadel walls. Despite his strangeness, there was something oddly seductive in his movements, in the way he moved so assuredly. And his magic… that dark, smoky magic caressed my skin, warm and sensual.
Beneath the shadows, I caught glimpses of tattered gray clothes, threadbare over a muscled physique. Fiery runes glowed on the body of a warrior. The wind whipped at his dark hair. When I looked down, I realized he was barefoot. He must have been freezing, but he didn’t seem bothered at all.
I looked down at the vergr stone in my left hand, my stomach churning at the sight of my missing finger. My mouth felt watery, like I was about to throw up.
I could toss the stone across the cemetery yard and try to escape this stranger—but like the High Elves’ wands, the stone needed time to recharge its magic. I’d seen how fast this man could move. He’d be on me within moments.
So, I held out my right hand, muttering, “Skalei.” When the dagger appeared in my palm, I pointed it at him. “What do you want from me?”
He took another step closer, pale eyes twinkling like I delighted him. But when I spoke, he winced, nearly imperceptibly. I had the sense that he liked how I looked but hated my voice. In any case, my own freezing feet were quickly pulling my attention away from him. I was only wearing socks in the snow.
Even if I could escape, I wanted to find out what the deal was with this guy. Could he help me avenge my people, perhaps?
I lifted the dagger higher. “Stay where you are.”
But Skalei, I realized, was a stupid threat. Stabbing him hadn’t slowed him down before. The curve of his lips told me he knew this, too. Amusement flickered in his eyes.
He took another step closer.
Blood trickled from where my finger had been severed, staining my palm and wrist. My mind raced, internal alarm bells ringing loudly, telling me to run.
But he’d been protecting me up there, hadn’t he? Shielding me from the hexes. Maybe he looked like a god of death, but he’d kept me safe, in his own way.
So far.
If he wanted me alive, maybe that was my leverage. There was only one way to find out. I pressed the edge of the dagger to my wrist. Bluffing, obviously, but I’d see if it worked.
“Don’t come any closer,” I said. “I want to ask you a question or two, but I want you to stay where you are.”
He stopped moving, shadows whipping around him. His body looked tightly coiled, like he was about to leap for me, but he didn’t make a sound.
Now, I could hear nothing but the whistle of the wind through the oak that arched over us. When the tendrils of darkness drifted from his face again, it felt like someone squeezing my heart. He really was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen, and yet there was something distinctly wrong with him.
Without making a sound, he reached up and snapped a twig off the frozen oak.
I let out a long breath and took a step back. Then I watched as he wrote in the snow, scratching the words I WILL HELP YOU.
I lowered the blade from my wrist. “With what? Who are you?”
MARROC, he scrawled in the snow.
It was an old-fashioned name, one from perhaps before Ragnarok. “Your name is Marroc?”
He nodded.
“Why can’t you speak?” Immediately, I wondered if it was a rude question, then decided I didn’t care.
I’M CURSED, he wrote.
Ah… well, that explained it. The black magic that whirled around him, the fact that he scared the shit out of everyone. Didn’t explain his otherworldly speed, though. Didn’t explain his interest in me—or what he