by KJ Baker
I felt the bond begin to slip, to tear, and it was like having my soul torn in half.
No! I cried desperately. Don’t!
But isn’t this what I wanted? Didn’t I want to be free? To no longer be a slave to Raven’s glamor?
“Asha!”
The cry exploded across my mind with the strength of a hundred fireworks. The sound of it shook me to my core. It was full of such pain and longing. I snatched at that cry, followed it back to its source—
—and I was suddenly on a battlefield. Carnage and chaos surrounded me. Blood and bodies littered the ground.
And there was Raven on his back, blood pouring from his head. A man stood over him, knife raised, ready to drive it into his heart, although the man looked strangely insubstantial.
Shock ripped through me, a horror so strong I felt it buffet Taviel’s grip on my mind, threatening to fling him out completely.
I launched myself at the man with the knife, my fists swinging for the back of his neck, but they passed through him as though he was nothing more than a ghost. The man didn’t move. He seemed frozen, like time had stopped.
What the hell?
Raven’s eyes opened, fixing on me. “Am I dreaming?” he whispered, his voice wracked with pain. “Are you really here?”
I didn’t know the answer. I didn’t know what I was seeing. Was this a fever-dream? Something conjured from the depths of my psyche? Or was it real? Some instinct deep inside screamed it was the latter.
This was real. Raven was in mortal danger.
Everything I felt for him came racing to the surface, blasting through the tangle of confusion that Taviel’s story had created. It was simple really. I loved him. And it was real. Real. Not some glamor-induced infatuation. Nothing fake could shake my soul the way the sight of him did. I saw that now that I was on the verge of losing him.
What a fool I’d been.
I staggered to his side, wrapped my arms around him. Unlike the knife-man, he felt solid, real. Oh, how I’d missed him.
“Raven!” I cried, the word coming out a ragged sob. I buried my face in his shoulder. How could I have believed Taviel? How could I have ever doubted what lay between me and this man?
His hand came up to cup my cheek. “I can’t believe you’re really here. Maybe the Fates have a sense of humor after all.”
“What do you mean? Where are we?”
“Don’t you know?”
I looked around. The battlefield was indistinct, the fighters shadowy figures that hovered on the edge of vision. Only me and Raven seemed real. It reminded me of...of...
“When we teleported to the Summerlands!” I gasped. “When I ended up...”
“At the border of the Twilight Lands.”
I went cold. “But that would mean...” I couldn’t say the words.
He nodded, and pointed to the shadowy man holding the knife. “He’s going to kill me. I can feel the Twilight Lands calling me. We’ve been given this moment. This moment to say goodbye.”
“No!” I yelled, grabbing his shoulders with shaking hands. “I don’t accept that. Nothing is set. Maybe we’ve been given this moment for another reason, to give us a second chance.” To stop me making a terrible, terrible mistake. “Have you thought of that?”
He looked at me, a spark of hope creeping into his eyes. “Maybe.”
“Then you have to fight. You have to find a way to live. Promise me, Raven!”
A wry smile twisted his lips. “How can I refuse a command from my mate?”
I tried to clasp him to me, but suddenly I was the one slipping away, receding away from him.
“Asha!” he reached for me, his fingertips brushing mine, a faint pulse of his magic making my skin tingle. “I will find you! Don’t believe what he tells you! See the truth!”
I went spinning away from the battlefield and another vision enveloped me. I was standing in the throne room of the Shadow Court. It was empty save for a single figure seated on the throne. I moved closer and the figure took no notice of me, as though I was invisible. Despite being seated on the throne of the Shadow Court, I noticed one thing right away: it was not Raven.
This man had the same night-dark hair, the same broad-shouldered warrior’s physique, but he was older and sported a dark beard covering his chin. And he was angry. Furious, even. It was evident in the way his fingers gripped the arms of the throne, the way his jaw clenched, the way he tapped his foot over and over against the carpet as he stared at the closed door.
What the—? What was this?
The door suddenly opened and a second figure slipped inside. My heart soared as I recognized him. Raven. But there was something subtly different about him. He seemed younger.
He strode past me, not seeing me at all, and approached the throne, stopping just short of the three steps that led up to the dais.
“You sent for me, Father?”
Raven’s father leaned forward. “Of course I Spire-damned sent for you! Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Did you think I would let this pass? You’ve made a fool of the whole of the Shadow Court!”
“I don’t care. I won’t do it.”
His father surged to his feet. “You have no say in the matter!”
A shrill laugh escaped Raven. “I have no say in my own engagement? I have no say in who I’m to marry? Would you listen to yourself? You have no power to command me in this, Father.”
“You’re a subject of the Shadow Court and you’ll do what your king commands! The Houses of Storm and Sand have been allies for generations! You’ve been promised to Felena since you were children. You will marry her!”
Raven’s hands curled into fists at his sides. “Do you even know her, father? She is not the laughing girl you remember. She has grown cruel and callous. She dabbles in the dark magic of the Unseelie.”
“Rumors and lies! Her father assures me—”
“Her father tells you exactly what you want to hear! You had no right to betroth us as children. And you have no right to expect this of me now. I won’t marry her.”
For a second, I thought the two men might come to blows. Raven’s father glared at him, a vein twitching in his temple, and Raven glared right back, equally as furious. But then his father slumped onto the throne.
“It doesn’t matter, the contract has already been signed. Only the king can dissolve a royal marriage contract.”
Raven said nothing. Silence stretched within the throne room. Then, so softly that I had to strain to hear, he spoke. “You won’t always be king, Father. One day I will sit on that throne. And then things will be different.”
Without another word, he turned and strode away.
“Don’t you walk away from me!” his father yelled after him.
But Raven did, striding from the throne room and slamming the door behind him.
I gasped. This was a memory Raven had given me in that last fleeting moment as our fingers had touched. His engagement to Felena had not been of his doing at all.
Nothing is what it seems. Nothing.
It was the first warning I had been given when I came here. A warning from beyond the door to the Twilight Lands. A warning designed to help me navigate the complexity of my new home. Nothing is what it seems. How could I have forgotten that?
And then suddenly, it all made sense.
The vision evaporated and I was back in the Spire, Taviel’s hands on my head. But I was not the same person I had been only moments ago. I was stronger. Wiser. A little less foolish.
No! I screamed silently, pushing at Taviel. This isn’t right! Get out of my head!
But Taviel’s grip didn’t slacken. The tendrils of power continued to twist their way into the bond. He had no right, dammit! The bond was mine. Mine and Raven’s. He was trying to trick me. He had been from the start and I’d been stupid enough to fall for it.
I gathered up everything I had. The rage at what he’d tried to do to me. The frustration I’d experienced at every slight I’d received from the
Fae. The scorn I’d suffered from Ffion. The despair that had consumed me at Taviel’s treatment of Gracie. I gathered all of it, every last scrap of emotion, every ounce of strength left within me, then sent it blasting through the bond—straight at Taviel.
It slammed into him. His shock reverberated through the bond and I felt his mad, desperate scramble as he tried to hold on. But he couldn’t. He lost his grip, the tendrils of his power releasing my mind. I snatched at those tendrils, grasped them tightly as they snapped back, allowed them to pull me with them—
—and suddenly I was in Taviel’s mind.
Get out of my head! he snarled at me.
Show me the truth! I snarled back. Show me!
He was powerless to resist. He screamed in rage and frustration, but was helpless as his plan shone stark before me in all its sordid glory.
Everything he’d told me had been a lie. A carefully constructed fairy tale to make me desperate enough, frightened enough, lost enough, to trust him.
First of all, there was my room designed to look exactly like my apartment. Designed to make me so homesick, so lonely, that I would cling to anything that reminded me of home. That’s where Samuel came in. Samuel. Kind, helpful Samuel. A human like me. A human alone in a world of Fae, a human mated to a Fae, just like me. A person I was far more likely to trust than Taviel or Felena.
But not a human at all, I realized. I shrank back in horror as images played before my eyes. The humans snatched from the mortal realm, their memories purged then stitched back together to make Samuel. Not a man at all, but a simulacrum, a patch-work creature of other people’s memories and Taviel’s lies.
Oh, Samuel, I thought with a shot of anguish. Did he even realize what he was?
The rest of the deception fell into place. Being told I was forbidden entry to the Grand Library knowing full well that would make me want to break in even more. Marriage documents so conveniently left for me to find.
And after all this had played out, when I’d been broken and pushed to the very edge of desperation, Taviel would offer me the solution: break the bond with Raven. Give it to Taviel.
A power greater even than the Orb of Tir.
Oh, how close I had come. How close to destroying everything.
Get. Out. Of. My. Head!
Taviel’s walls came slamming down and I was thrown out of his mind with such force that I went spinning, spinning, spinning...
My eyes flew open. I ripped my hand from Taviel’s, sprang to my feet and backed away.
Samuel rose from his seat, his face etched with concern. “Asha?”
I looked between the two of them. The Fae and the human. Was Samuel part of this? Or was he just another of Taviel’s pawns?
Taviel climbed slowly to his feet, his face a twisted mask of fury. “How dare you?” he spat. “How dare you enter my mind?”
“Get away from me,” I hissed, backing away further. “You bastard. You utter bastard. I’ll never give you what you want. I’ll never give you my bond with Raven.”
“Will you not?” Taviel said. He sighed, looked at Samuel. “Oh well, you can’t say I didn’t try to make this easy for her, can you?”
His dark eyes settled on me and a slow smile spread across his face. At the sight of it, my blood ran cold. “I will have the bond, Asha. Now you have a choice. Shall we do this the easy way or the hard way?”
Chapter 11
RAVEN
You have to find a way to live. Promise me, Raven.
Those had been Asha’s words. Or at least, those are the words I’d imagined her saying. I could no longer tell what was real and what was the conjuring of my pain-wracked mind.
I desperately wanted to obey Asha’s command. I wanted to stand, to fight, to save my people. I wanted to find Asha and tell her how much I loved her.
But I could not. The bond was cracked, only a cold dark void where it had once raged. There was no magic left for me to draw on. Nothing with which to escape the inevitability of Mirak’s dagger descending for my heart—
No.
Wait.
What was that?
With the force of a thunderclap, the bond suddenly roared back into life. Like a drowning man gasping a breath, I pulled its magic into me just as time lurched back into motion.
The clash of weapons, the grunt of fighting, the stink of wet earth and blood exploded around me. Mirak’s blade was a silver blur as it arced downwards for my heart—
No! I made a promise! I will not die today!
Magic blasted out of me in all directions. Mirak was blown backwards, his bluff face registering surprise as the blade tumbled from his grasp.
With a growl, I surged to my feet. A few paces away, Mirak Willow was staggering upright, the momentary surprise gone.
“Well, well,” he drawled. “Seems you’re made of sterner stuff than I thought, Seelie.”
I cocked my head, regarding him. The power humming through my blood sang to me. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.
“Look around,” Mirak said. “Already my forces are regrouping. You dealt us a blow but it was only a slap, not a death-wound.”
I turned to look at the battle raging around me. The forces of the Court of Rain were being pushed back, the Unseelie lines refusing to break. My own small band of warriors, marshaled by Ffion and Hawk, had cut a deep swathe into the enemy lines but the advantage of surprise was over and companies were forming up into fighting squares bristling with shields.
I was running out of time. I had to get to Asha now.
“I’ve heard all about your exploits,” I said to Mirak Willow. “But what the stories didn’t mention was how much you like to talk. Is there more to you than just piss and wind?”
My taunt had the desired effect. “Arrogant upstart! I was leading armies when you were still in your cradle!”
He hefted his two-handed broadsword and charged at me. For such a big man, he moved like lightning. But I was ready for him. The power of the bond sang in my blood and everything had become stark and clear. I saw him move almost in slow-motion, as though he passed through water. I waited, unmoving, unblinking. I side-stepped the blade as it swung through the space I’d just occupied, then jabbed the hilt of my blade into Mirak’s throat.
He staggered back, eyes going wide, clutching at his neck and his crushed windpipe. Sounds escaped him, a series of horrible gurgles as he desperately tried to draw breath. Then he collapsed to his knees and sank slowly to the earth for the final time.
I wasted no time on mourning him. Spinning, I bellowed to my warriors, “To me!”
My horse had not gone far so I vaulted into the saddle and yanked her around to face the Unseelie horde. My warriors, hearing my call, began fighting their way towards me, forming a line. Our numbers were much smaller than when we’d started. Ffion and Hawk were bloody but unharmed but many of my warriors would not rise again. I ground my teeth, biting back the fury.
“We fight through to the Spire!” I yelled, standing in my stirrups and raising one of my silver blades so it glinted in the sunlight. “This won’t be over until we stop Taviel! Until we reclaim the Spire! Ride!”
I wheeled my mount to face the lines of Unseelie forming up behind us and kicked the beast into an urgent gallop. I hurtled across the blood-soaked ground, my warriors in a phalanx around me. I sent out a wave of magic, blasting many of the Unseelie warriors from their feet. But not enough. We slammed into a shield wall bristling with thick pikes. Many went down in that first wave, others leapt the shield wall, and others jumped from their horses to face the danger afoot.
Fighting erupted all around me. I was vaguely aware of Ffion and Hawk fighting by my side—both still on their mounts—but all my attention was focused on the warriors in front of me. I swung my blades to right and left, loosing the reins and trusting my horse to keep me in the saddle. I cut and parried, soon drenched from head to foot in blood that wasn’t my own, but we gained ground, step by bloody step, towards the bridge that led over to the Spire.
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I could see it through the hordes of Unseelie warriors, not more than a mile distant, so tantalizingly close but yet so far out of reach. I had to reach it. I had to. It was so close. Just a little further and...
A horn call split the air. To my dismay, more Unseelie came spilling onto the field, unbloodied and fresh. My lip curled in a snarl. Damn Mirak Willow! Damn him to the Pit! Where had he hidden these reserves? It seemed his reputation for cunning was accurate.
“There are too many!” Ffion shouted. “Arion, we have to retreat!”
“No!” I bellowed. “We keep fighting!”
“We’ll be destroyed! We have to retreat and meet up with Telia’s forces! Then we can organize a counter-attack!”
It will be too late by then, I thought. Whatever they’re doing to Asha...
I felt myself beginning to slip. The rage, the all-consuming fury that had pounded through my veins since Asha’s abduction was beginning to overwhelm me. I’d managed to keep it in check only because I’d been doing something. I had been moving toward her, getting closer with each step of my army. But now that advance was in danger of faltering. I was in danger of failing.
Something feral ripped from my throat, a growl that shook me right down to my bones. I could feel the beast in me fighting to break free, that savage, primal part of me that demanded I protect my mate above all else.
My grip tightened on the hilts of my blades, the grips slick with blood. “Order the retreat,” I said to Ffion. “You and Hawk have command.”
My sister scowled at me. “Oh no you don’t, brother. Don’t you even dare think about it!”
“I have to! She’s my mate!”
“And you’re our king! Fates curse you, Arion! If you go out there alone, you will die!”
Yes, I thought. I will. But that makes no difference. I have to try.
Ffion clasped her weapons, her eyes alight with fury. “I won’t allow it,” she growled. “I’ll fight you if I have to.”
I faced her. My sister. My fiery, fierce sister. Yet I saw only an opponent standing in my way.