Chapter 51
A solemn mood gripped me, persisting through dinner and casting everything in a melancholy light. After I readied myself for bed that night, I went to the window and rested my hand against the chilly glass.
“Thorne,” I whispered, hoping he might somehow hear me, “be well.”
The black expanse of the Darkwood made no reply, the salting of stars overhead bright and unwinking. With a sigh, I crawled beneath my covers and waited for sleep to take me, so that I might awaken a year older than when I’d closed my eyes. I was too wise now to hope for a sudden awakening of magical powers. Such dreams were for children, and I was a young woman now, on the cusp of my sixteenth year.
Crackling flames. Pain.
I groped myself upright up in my bed, agony burning through me. The castle was on
