Bride of The Shadow Lord

the rain

sed to think it was a coincidence. A cruel joke the sky played on

as f

like the gods were angry. I was curled beneath the table in my aunt's kitchen, barefoot

idn't

, dripping with rain and silence. I tried to run, but my aunt just stood there, pale,

one of them said, a

ready raw from days of cold. I screamed, kicked,

village help

rsed. That I was marked. That the Shadow Lord wo

a sky split by lightning, and shoved me into a carriage as

voice-soft, from somewhere

wait

My fingers tremble

n kept

n't s

he only sounds were hooves hitting wet earth, the crack of distant thunder, and

Drip

ven when you stop shivering. My wrists ached where the rope had rubbed

one to hide fro

fortress was built into the cliffs themselves, carved from black stone b

lieved t

the sky was whispering instead of screaming. One of the guards opene

tside made my

all towers and spires, its walls crawling with vines that looked like t

Below it: nothing. A sheer drop into fog and darkness. M

opened, I was s

lit by torches that cast shadows like moving arms. I

we st

tall, silver-haired, eyes the color of frost. She l

he girl?"

he rain chose," t

k. "Bathe her. Dress her. T

as no longer a person.

ld me this was j

f a painting on the wall, faded, and cracked. A woman in a black gown

exactly