The Shadow Prince

by Bree Despain

  He holds the glass up. It smells like fermented weeds. My stomach churns. I shake my head. “Is there a place I can put my things?”

  “Oh yes, yes. I forgot to show you to your rooms.”

  After that, Simon escorts Dax and me up the stairs to our bedchambers. To my surprise, my room is much larger than the one I had been reassigned to in the palace after my father expelled me from the royal living quarters.

  Simon names a few of the things in the room, and then with his most enthusiastic expression yet, he says, “This room is fantastic. The best room in the whole house. I trust you will be comfortable waiting here while Dax and I finish our arrangements?” His smile is so wide and his teeth gleam so white, I almost don’t catch the true meaning of his words. I am being ordered to stay here and wait, something I am not comfortable agreeing to.

  “But when can I get started? How do I find this Daphne girl?”

  “Be patient,” Dax says from behind Simon in the doorway. “Lord Haden, I know you feel anxious. I know you’re eager to begin your quest, but it’s imperative that you don’t do anything until the arrangements have been finalized. Take this opportunity to rest from your journey. Wait here.”

  Simon’s eyes narrow slightly as he looks at me. “Say yes,” he says in a way that makes me feel compelled to agree whether I want to or not.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Fantastic!” he says. “You and I are going to get along just peachy.”

  He closes the door behind him and Dax. I hear the distinct sound of a key turning in the lock, and panic wells up inside of me. The feeling increases with every moment that passes. I listen by the door for some time. At one point, I hear Simon escort Garrick to his own room across the hall. A few minutes later, I hear another voice in the house that sounds distinctively female. This sets me to pacing the floor, from door to window and back again. At another point, I think I hear Dax and Simon leave the house.

  But when will they be back? How long will these arrangements take?

  I find myself pacing again, biting my fingernails—another trait of my mother’s that I unfortunately inherited. It feels as though several hours have passed since Dax and Simon left me. I have done as I was told. Heeded Dax’s warning not to be impulsive. But every moment that passes and I am stuck in this room is a moment that I am not working toward accomplishing my quest. Waiting is not acting. And not acting is akin to failing. How can I wait anymore?

  I clutch at my hair and sit on a chair in the room. There’s a bed here, too. Dax told me that I should take this opportunity to rest. He knows I didn’t sleep last night. Rest is a luxury. Being alone is, too. Especially in the middle of the day. I guess I could collapse on the bed. Let myself stop thinking, for once. Take pleasure in a few moments of solitude—of not being watched or judged by anyone. No one expecting me to do anything for the moment. Rest is what I need. I should give into the fatigue that pulls at my body. I should let it all go for now.…

  But I don’t know how anyone can sleep when it’s so cursed bright.

  The sun has shifted much higher in the sky, causing the light that pours in through the window to grow even brighter. I have to wear the dark glasses even inside the house, which should be a deterrent to wanting to venture outside, but the muscles in my body ache from inactivity. The queasiness that plagued my stomach before has shifted into a weight that sits in my gut like a heavy stone. It feels as though I have been waiting for hours, but I have no idea how long it has really been.

  It strikes me that I do not know how time moves here in the mortal world, compared to the Underrealm. What feels like hours to me could be mere minutes. Or perhaps days? Could the rising of this sun signify the passing of whole days before my very eyes? Why didn’t Master Crue cover this in my lessons? What other gaps are there in my education? Perhaps I am even less prepared than I thought I was.

  I have been told that I have six months to complete my quest, but what if, here, six months are a matter of weeks in comparison?

  I know that if I am patient, I can ask Dax or Simon to explain how time works here, but I can’t bear not knowing how much time I have left, nor how much time has been wasted—by waiting.

  I can think of one way of checking the time. The gate is supposed to be active for twenty-four hours. If I can trace my way back to it and it is still active, then I will at least know that it has only been hours. Not a whole day or possibly even a week—or maybe more—that has been wasted.

  I go to the window and find that it opens. It’s a two-story drop, but that doesn’t hinder me. Neither does the idea of being seen.

  Stealth is one of the things I have been trained in. I excel in it, actually. Out of necessity to avoid Rowan and his cronies, not to mention the prying eyes of the Court. I know I can find my way to the gate and back without being detected. Just stick to the shadows cast by the sun. I can be there and back before the others return.

  No one will even know that I was gone.

  chapter ten

  DAPHNE

  I don’t need Marta’s map to find the grove. I follow the path on my bike, finding my way by sound. Like the grove’s song is calling to me.

  Most people would say that sounds weird. Or obsessive.

  That’s how most people would describe my relationship with music. Many of my teachers did. A group of doctors had. I am always following some sound or song, trying to find the source. That time I crashed my bike on Canyon Road and ended up in the hospital in Saint George, the doctor had looked at me like I was crazy when I told him I was chasing a song and didn’t realize how fast I was going down the hill.

  “Chasing a song?” he’d asked. “Like you heard someone’s car radio?”

  “No, it was a Joshua tree. It was singing at the bottom of the hill. Its song was so pretty, I wanted to find it.”

  “The tree was singing?” His eyebrows drew together. “Do other things sing? Do you hear them all the time? Do you hear music now?”

  I nodded, thinking he was the crazy one. I never understood why other people didn’t hear the things I did. The different tones, sounds, melodies that came from living things. The doctor himself had a harsh, high-pitched tone, like the repetitive ting of a triangle. I didn’t care for it. He sent another couple of doctors to talk to my mom and me. I didn’t like their tones, either. And before we left the hospital, they’d diagnosed me with something called musical OCD. They said my connection with music went beyond interest or talent. They called it an obsession. They said I shouldn’t hear the things I heard. They said I was so obsessed that I didn’t know how to relate to the world around me in any other way than through sound and music. So, therefore, in order to cope, I attached musical notes and tones to everything around me.

  They said the music wasn’t real, that it was all created by my dysfunctional brain.

  They recommended therapy and medication. To this day, I still don’t know if my mom curtly refused their diagnosis because she hated the idea of taking me out of Ellis twice a week for therapy, or because she believed my insistence that the music was real. Either way, I am glad she didn’t let those doctors try to medicate the music out of me.

  I use the sounds I hear to navigate my life. I use it to pick my friends. I am always drawn to people with warm, inviting melodies. I love grouping together the things and people whose tunes best complement each other. Like composing my own little symphony of friends. And it helps me read people’s emotions based on the shifts in the tones they put off. I use music to discover favorite things and find my favorite places. Even the earth itself has a song that I can hear when I am being very, very still.

  That’s the real reason I want to rehearse in the grove. I want to be wrapped inside the grove’s song, and add my own music to it.

  I cross the footbridge that leads to the grove on the smaller island of the lake. I get off my bike and walk it through the ring of tall poplar trees, which border the grove. They remind me of spires, stretching up as if in homage to the heavens.
Smaller aspens and laurel trees fill in the center of the grove, creating a thick canopy of darkness—even in daytime—that must have been what kept others away. Normally, I am not keen on dark places, but the grove’s melody draws me in.

  I leave my bike propped against a poplar tree and then settle onto the ground with my guitar. I lean my back against a strangely shaped laurel tree that reminds me of a tuning fork: the way its trunk is split in the middle so it grows upward in two separate curves. I pull my guitar from its case and run through a few bars without singing. I need three songs for the audition this afternoon. Two of them, I am sure about, but I am still wavering on what to do for the third. Should I choose one of my own songs so the music director would see that I’m interested in songwriting, in addition to singing? Or should I stick with popular songs that everyone will know and feel connected to?

  I guess I could sing Joe’s star song, since it would cover both options. That bitter thought trickles through my mind before I can stop it. I shake away a flood of additional thoughts that try to break through the floodgates. I’ve already lost too much time to Joe today, and I need to focus on rehearsing.

  I run through several voice warm-up exercises, and then after some thought, I pick a song I wrote for my mother. I play it a couple of times on my guitar, and then start it again. This time, I join in with my voice after the intro.

  The laurel tree I lean against seems to tremble at the sound of my voice. Its vibrating hum joins my song. It feels as though the grove comes to even greater life as I sing, sending the echo bouncing against the branches and leaves of the trees. The aspens create a quaking, clattering rhythm that keeps up with the melody of the song. Birds chirp, dragonflies buzz, and even the wind feels as though it is keeping harmony with me as it swirls my long hair around my face while I sing. I’d known there was something extraspecial about this place before I’d entered. I could tell by the way it had called out to me. I’ve always loved singing with nature as my audience, but I’d never before had nature join in with me like this.

  Perhaps this experience really is a symptom of a dysfunction in my brain—but there’s no way I would classify it as a disorder.

  I stop playing the guitar abruptly. The grove quiets in a way that reminds me of the intake of a breath, anticipating the next note. I sing the last line of the song without the guitar accompaniment, while the trees reverberate around me. The vibration of the tuning fork–shaped tree tingles up my spine and into my arms. When I finish the song, the grove falls silent again. Followed by the sound of a very real gasp …

  I jump up, almost dropping Gibby. Somebody else is here. I can feel someone’s presence, even though I can’t see anyone, and I know I hadn’t imagined that human-sounding gasp. The grove is still quiet—too quiet. Shouldn’t it have taken up its own song again by now? What is it waiting for?

  “Who’s there?” I ask.

  Only silence answers, but I know I’m not alone.

  Perhaps there is some paparazzo lurking in the bushes. Marta said that they couldn’t get past the security gates, but I’m sure someone unscrupulous and crafty enough can figure out how to sneak past the guards. Maybe this one had gotten wind of Joe Vince’s prodigal daughter and was looking for a photo op?

  “I know you’re there,” I say. “So you might as well show yourself, get your picture, and get lost.”

  The air grows warmer around me, and I can feel someone coming closer. I shiver despite the budding heat.

  “How did you do that?” a strangely accented voice asks from somewhere in the dark of the grove.

  “What?” I look in the direction of the voice, but I can’t see anyone. “Who’s there?”

  “What was that you did with your voice?” It sounds as though the questioner has moved even closer. “Just now. I heard you.”

  I put a hand to my throat. “You mean my singing?” I reply to the darkness.

  “Singing. Is that what you call that?”

  “Excuse me?” My cheeks flush with heat. I step closer to the location of the voice. “Listen, jerk, I don’t know who you are. But if you came here to make fun of my singing, you can go …”

  The leaves of one of the aspen trees silently quiver, and someone appears out of the shadows—almost as if he materialized from the darkness.

  I step back, uncomfortable with the seclusion of the grove for the first time. The person is cloaked in shadows, but I can tell he’s a man. Or perhaps a boy. But definitely male. He steps closer and his features come into view. I take him in from head to toe. It would be impossible not to. He’s tall, even taller than me, and I tower over most of the guys I’ve ever met. His black jeans look brand-new, and his black shirt still carries the creases from sitting on a department store shelf. Both hug his fit body in a way that makes me take in a quick breath. While his clothes seem expensive and refined, the rest of him looks untamed in a way that reminds me of a wildcat.… Or more like a pirate? His cheeks and jaw are hard and muscular, and his thick hair, the color of ebony, falls in chunky, uneven strands, like somebody took a raw blade to it, just above his shoulders. Long black bangs hide his eyes.

  “I’m not here to create amusement,” he says and steps even closer, closing the gap of safety between us. My heartbeat kicks up a notch.

  “Um … what?”

  “I just wanted to know what that was you did with your voice. And with that.” He gestures at my guitar. “I’ve never heard anything like it before.”

  I’m confused. Does he mean that he’s never heard the grove’s acoustics before, or that he’s never heard music before? I am about to ask when he brushes his dark hair out of his face, revealing eyes the color of jade, except for the bright swirls of amber radiating like flames around his pupils.

  My throat feels tight as I try to speak. I can’t recall what I was about to ask. This boy, with fire dancing in his eyes, intrigues me, but at the same time, he reminds me of why I used to be afraid of the dark. Back when I was younger, I thought monsters lived in shadows and could only be seen out of the corner of my eye.

  I should be wary of this stranger. But I’m not. I stand motionless, returning his gaze, as transfixed as if I were in the spotlight on a grand stage. Finally, he blinks, and I glance down at his mouth.

  “Are you real?” he asks.

  I try to laugh, but no sound comes out. Am I for real? I am the one who should be asking that question.

  He slowly stretches his hand toward my face but then pulls it slightly back. I notice a pallor under his olive skin, but a strange heat seems to radiate from his fingertips. I look into his eyes again and move my hand toward his. The curious, pulsing heat of his skin draws me to him. We are about to touch, his fingers breathing warmth against mine. He looks away from my eyes and notices the name pendant—a sixteenth-birthday present from CeCe—that I wear around my neck.

  “Daphne?” He reads my name. His hand drops, and that strange heat falls away with it. “You’re Daphne Raines?”

  “Yes,” I say before thinking better of giving this stranger my name. The trance he held me in is broken. “How do you know my name? What—are you some kind of reporter?”

  I notice now that this boy has no sound. No tone, no melody, no song coming off him. Just silence, like the too-still grove that engulfs us from the view of any witnesses.

  I also realize that he doesn’t have a camera. He’s not a reporter looking for a picture.

  He takes a quick step back, like he’s about to run away, but then stops. He looks me square in the eyes, but this time, the intensity of his gaze only frightens me. “Will you come with me?” he says, reaching for my arm.

  chapter eleven

  HADEN

  I make it to the gate unnoticed. In the mortal world, the gate is cloaked to resemble two curving trees that create an archway at the north end of the grove. The green light has grown fainter. I wonder if it is even visible to human eyes, but as I hold my hand out, I can still feel it pulsing with energy. The gate is still active, which
means it is still the same day in which I arrived.

  I have overreacted for no reason.

  I am about to return to Simon’s home, feeling reassured and slightly chagrined, when a sound catches my ear. It’s a high sound, but not like the screeching of an owl or the wailing of a nursling. It’s a flowing sound that evokes the image of a river or the wind streaming through the treetops—and yet still like no other sound I have ever heard.

  I cannot stop myself from following the echoing noise. I track it through the thicket of trees until I come to the center of the grove.

  There I see a young female, sitting against a strangely shaped tree. She cradles a large object on her knees, and strums the strings that stretch from its wide base up a long wooden neck. The object reminds me of the pictographs I often pass in the murals that cover the walls of the palace. It vaguely resembles a lyre—the great weapon the Traitor had used to deceive Hades all those centuries ago. But the object the girl holds does not seem like a weapon. Her picking and strumming the strings are what create the reverberating sound. I remove my sunglasses to be able to see her better in the shady grove, and I watch, curious, as she opens her mouth and starts to speak.

  No, not quite speaking. Her voice sounds different from that. Her words are drawn out, ebbing and flowing at times and flitting at others, blending with the sounds that come from her strumming. It grows in intensity, swirling around the grove and washing over me. It pulls at me, evoking something I have not felt since I was in the presence of the Oracle: the feeling of wonder.

  When the girl stops speaking and the sound dies away, a gasp slips out of my lips.

  She stands, her abruptness making it clear that I have given myself away.

  “Who’s there?” she asks. Her voice sounds different from before. Lower, but still appealing.