SEBASTIAN
Luna’s eyes were wide and her face was pale as she stared at me. She knew. I didn’t know how she knew, but she did. She must have had a sixth sense about her. I shook my head, tugging on her arm as I tried to steer her away from the room.
Already, the scent of blood was filling my nose. It would be mere minutes before someone else showed up to investigate the source of the scent. “Your maid—”
“Julieta,” Luna said, refusing to move even an inch. “She has a name. Julieta. You know that. She’s not just my maid. She’s my friend.”
She might have had a name, but she didn’t need it any longer.
The moment the callous thought appeared in my mind, I flinched. Gods. I was not the right person for this job. I was, perhaps, the worst person in the entire castle to be delivering news of death and destruction and sadness. Anyone else would have been better than me.
I had been courting darkness since the day I was Made, and it ate away at my soul. Someone else should have been here. But there was only me.
Death was no stranger to me. It wasn’t something that hid in the darkness, waiting to pounce when I least expected it. Death was my companion. It was in the very shadows I wielded. It pulsed through my veins, singing a lullaby as I drifted off to sleep.
Right now, I wished it wasn’t so. I didn’t want to be the one to tell Luna that now she really was alone. And yet, here we were.
Blowing out a long breath, I shook my head. There was no gentle way to say this. No way to temper the news.
Pulling Luna towards me, I wrapped my arms around her and pressed my lips against her hair. “I’m sorry. Julieta is… dead.”
Luna stilled. “What do you mean?”
“She’s dead. The window was broken and whoever did this has left.” I shook my head. “I’m so sorry, Princess.”
“You’re wrong,” Luna said disbelievingly. “Julieta can’t be dead. She brought me breakfast this morning, and she was fine. Better than fine. She seemed almost… happy.”
“I know.” I tightened my arms. “She was fine…”
But now she’s dead.
My unspoken words hung in the air around us.
Pulling her head from my chest, Luna’s wide brown eyes looked up at me. “I need to see her.”
I balked. Wishing Isvana had seen fit to bless with the ability to read minds—that would have come in handy right about now—I tried to pull Luna away from the door. “No, you can’t.”
Shadows pulsed in my veins, eager to be used, but I didn’t give in to their call. Not yet. I didn’t want to destroy whatever fragile trust lay between us.
“I have to,” she insisted. “If she’s… I have to.”
Drawing my wings around us both, I wrapped Luna in a cocoon of safety. “You can’t go in there.”
“Please,” she whispered.
I shook my head. “There is no way in the seven circles of hell I am letting you step foot in that room.”
A long moment passed, and I thought she conceded, understanding that I was right. I was gathering my shadows around me, ready to bring her back to our room before summoning the guards, when she pulled away from my chest.
Brown eyes filled with swirling pools of grief met mine. My heart fissured at the sight. Luna raised a hand, her fingers cupping my cheek, and my breath caught in my throat.
Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but I felt every single word deep within my core. “Sebastian, Ineedto see. To believe it. If not… I just… I need to see her.”
The way her voice cracked on the last word took that fissure and smashed it, shattering my black heart into a thousand pieces.
I wished we had never come here. I should have followed the call of the wind and flown us far from the castle. We could have gone north, to my cabin.
We could have goneanywhere.