Prince of Air and Darkness

by M. A. Grant

  I take a deep breath and settle into the stance I’ve always used when I pull on the ley line while I’m practicing. Knees relaxed, feet solidly grounded. I close my eyes, fill my lungs with breath, and reach down into that strange, otherworldly place where my power comes from.

  Nothing.

  I go farther; it’s darker here. Quieter. Usually this is where the main current of energy lies, like a vast river coursing beneath my feet. Not even a trickle of power remains.

  Far, far away, a flutter.

  It’s farther than I’ve ever gone. All the stories come back. Merlin. Houdini. The fears and doubts everyone has told me. You’ll slip away. It’ll swallow you whole and you’ll vanish into it. According to my teachers and friends, I’ll lose myself.

  But that already happened this morning when those men took him.

  I dig down. My roots stretch, grow, past the point of claustrophobia, past the point of fear and fatigue. Somewhere, the ley line hides and I’m going to find it, no matter how long it takes. Together, we’ll find Roark and everything will be righted again.

  I cast ahead blindly into the darkness. I no longer fear it. The first headlong plunge into this abyss caught against all my roughest patches. Stripping away those daily fears and memories of acquaintances was easy. For a long time, it was enough. But the deeper I go, the heavier my ties grow.

  I shrug off expectations as they come. School, a career, and others’ hopes for me have no place here. Distracting doubts and quietly held fears are brushed aside. They weigh too much. There are other things I need to carry.

  The darkness thickens and it presses in against me with the electric promise of a thunderstorm before it breaks. I’m so tired. My friends will wait for me. They can stand together until I return for them. I claw deeper. My parents whisper encouragement when they let me go and their love is a thread tied around my heart. I’ll never lose my way back to them.

  When I hit my knees and wonder if I’ll be washed away into the nothingness, I find I’m not alone. Death and hope remain. They wait for me to stand and I move forward with my oldest, most devoted friends.

  Death lets me go of its own accord. It releases my hand and sits to wait for my return. It will never leave me, but it can’t survive any further. Hope and I walk on. Something rests in the darkness ahead. Its pain thrums through us and though hope has stayed the longest, even it must wait now.

  I am alone, and that’s when I find it.

  My ley line’s weak. Barely alive. Frail and waiting for me to finish breaking it.

  I kneel and hold out my hand. I wait. I will wait in this darkness forever if that’s what it takes.

  The ley line examines me. We watch each other.

  “I’m sorry,” I say again. My throat is raw from how often I’ve called that out. “I need you.”

  It draws back from me.

  “I understand now,” I promise. “I didn’t before.”

  And I do. Traveling this far taught me what I’d never known before. Houdini and Merlin and the others wanted. They gave up everything holding them together in their pursuit of power. They wanted, but they never needed. There was never enough to tie them to their world. Their shells were too fragile. When they finally found the ley line, it burned through them too fast for them to resurface. There’s always a way in with this kind of power, but they didn’t have a way out.

  I’m that strong. For my friends. For my family and their history. For Roark. For all of them, I’ll always be that strong.

  “Please,” I whisper. “He needs us.”

  The ley line shivers and slips toward me. I have to trust it this time. No more fighting. No more denying what I am, who I am. I’ve always ignored my potential. I’ve always thought that because I couldn’t control it, I was useless. But the ley line isn’t about control. Mab told me that ages ago. The ley line is about acceptance. I think I’m ready for that now.

  The ley line brushes against my fingertips and I bite my lip until I taste copper because it’s an exquisite pain, and even if it kills me, I need this. I want it to hurt a little bit. I need to pay penance so I never again dismiss this part of me so easily.

  The ley line rushes back in, sorting through all those emotions I’ve been ignoring, trying to determine how to adapt its power to fit my mood. I don’t let it sweep me away like it has in the past. Instead, I ride it out and try to process how I’ve changed. Those empty places inside fill to bursting. When they overflow and the backwash of energy floods through me, I let it devour me, destroy me, reforge me.

  I blaze and the world glows from my light. A web of power stretches endlessly around me, thousands of ley lines connecting in an intricate design. There are so many paths I could take, so many millions of lives I could go on to lead...

  Focus. Come back. Find him. Never leave him again.

  Roark. I came here so I could find a way to help Roark.

  I look up, forcing my eyes away from the temptation of the eternal map lying beyond me. Hope fuels my urge to return now, unimpeded by time and speed and distance. The ley line urges me to slow down. It worries it will ruin me like it did my predecessors, that it will reduce me to ash.

  Never ash. Diamond. Hard and strong and indestructible. Stronger, so he doesn’t have to be.

  Surfacing hurts in the best way possible. I open my eyes, my lids strangely heavy. Herman sits in my desk chair, fire extinguisher at the ready. He gives me a weary grin. “Took you long enough.”

  I shake out my arms and test my legs. No more soreness. No exhaustion. Only the ley line humming sweetly under my skin, glowing inside me to the point that it casts shadows over the walls of my room. It’s dark outside.

  “How long?” I ask him.

  “Ten hours.”

  Ten hours. Longer than I thought. Longer than it felt. The ley line nudges me, keeps me from getting distracted. I lift my chin. “What did you find out?”

  He shakes his head and sets down the extinguisher. “Nothing good. Word’s out, but no one can contact Queen Mab, which makes sense because of the sealing. No one has seen Roark. The Seelie deny their involvement. But—” Herman swallows and shifts in his seat “—they warned that if the chains were iron, he may not make it very long.”

  “The more powerful the fae, the more violent the allergy,” I say.

  He nods. “You and the ley line—?”

  “It’s back. Stronger than before.” I turn for the door.

  Herman stands and wipes his hands on his thighs. “Where are we going?”

  “To the place they took him.”

  He tilts his head. “And then what?”

  “I’ll find him.” The ley line arches against me like a cat, and I smile. “I’ll make sure they never come after him again.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Roark

  Pain is relative.

  When I was young, the sting of my elder brother’s sword nicking my skin in practice seemed a mortal wound. As I grew older, physical pain grew easier to manage. I learned strength and stubbornness. Wounds heal. It takes time, medicine, sometimes even magick, but eventually rent flesh reknits, and wounds fade to scars and then to nothing once more.

  The iron binds me to the chair, poisoning and burning me by slow degrees. Yet the pain is nothing compared to the knowledge gnawing at me since I was taken from the car and placed in this room.

  I stare down at my palm. It’s a smooth expanse of pale flesh, callused from years of weapons practice. There should be a single, clean scar bisecting it. Except, all trace of my spell’s bond has vanished.

  My scar is gone. The spell is broken. The impossible has happened and my deepest, darkest dreams have come true. Phineas Smith is in love with me.

  Which means he now knows the oath to become the Winter Knight. And when my mother realizes that I’m not back in the sídhe and she’s able to send people out to find me, she’ll go to the apartment first. She’ll interrogate Smith and learn that he could take on the mantle. She’ll promise him they�
�ll find me and, eternal optimist that he is, he’ll take the oath because he thinks he’ll be able to use her power to rescue me. They’ll find my lifeless body after it’s too late for Smith to get out of the deal. He’ll be trapped in the Unseelie Court for the rest of his life, and everything I’ve done to protect him will be undone because I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I had to have one last night with him.

  One of my kidnappers stops my train of thought by kicking the leg of my chair. I clench my jaw when the chains resettle. Most fall back on the already raw flesh, but a few links find new places to land, sending delicate spears of pain through me.

  Their clinking echoes through the space around us. We’re in some decrepit industrial site, filled with rusted machinery and disgusting floors. The wooden chair I’m bound to is in the center of the room, the only illumination provided by a single, flickering bulb.

  My captors’ ringleader wears a ski mask, even though I can tell from the bumps and ridges underneath that he’s not human. Probably not Seelie, either, come to think of it. Which only leaves me with my own people or the Sluagh.

  He kicks my chair again out of some kind of dumb amusement and glances over at another of his cronies. “Think it’s been long enough?”

  His partner shakes his head. “At least a day, he said.”

  A day? I’ll be dead by then. And who is the he? Their boss?

  As if he knew what I was thinking, the second adds, “Promised he’d survive it.”

  The first shrugs, as if he doesn’t quite believe it himself, but can’t be bothered with such a trivial doubt. “A little more fun then.”

  I know what that means. I tilt my head back so it can rest against the chair. The backhanded slap rocks my head from side to side, but I manage to stay more relaxed this time. It doesn’t jar down my neck like the last one did. It’s not the leather-gloved hit that hurts; it’s the iron knuckles.

  I turn my head and spit on the floor. Thank the Goddess I’m wearing black. It helps hide some of the blood at least.

  “Think it’s odd that he hasn’t screamed yet?” the third asks from somewhere in the shadows. He was our driver and he doesn’t seem as comfortable with all of this as his friends. If I had more time, I would pick him to turn to my plight.

  “This is Prince Lyne,” the first scoffs. “Haven’t you heard about him? Carved from ice, they say.”

  I don’t respond. Instead, I let the blood and spit continue to pool in my mouth so I have to turn my head fewer times when I spit. These idiots may be strong, but they don’t know the first thing about real torture. They’ll never break me. But unless I can get a moment alone and find a way to get some of this iron off my skin, they’ll be the slow death of me regardless.

  My lead tormentor frowns when I don’t respond to his jibe. He leans down. The mask may hide his mouth, but I can tell from the look in his eyes that he’s leering at me.

  “I don’t believe it,” he croons, wiping a finger down my burned and bloodied chest. “That man running after us didn’t look frostbit at all. Wonder if we could find him. I bet bringing him here to play with would get His Highness to scream a little.”

  He’s lucky my glamour still hasn’t recovered. He’s lucky I’m bound with iron. He’s lucky he’s standing just a few inches too far away, enough that I can’t lunge forward and rip out his throat with my teeth.

  I spit in his face instead. He roars and rears back, swiping at his eyes.

  I’m braced for another slap, even another punch. I’m not prepared for the club that comes down on the back of my head a second time. The world shudders and goes black.

  * * *

  This isn’t real. I’ve been here before. I’ve seen this play out. Yet, this moment has defined me for so long. Of course, I’d return to it as the end creeps nearer. After all, pain is relative.

  The air freezing in my lungs hurts. The moisture crystalizes, cuts, and I’m sure if I started coughing, there’d be some blood. But that doesn’t matter.

  “What have you done?”

  I ignore my mother and stare at the closed wall of the sídhe. I don’t think he’ll bleed out before the satyr gets home. Goddess, please don’t let him die—

  “Roark Tahm Lyne.” Every syllable cracks with power, with ice, with fury.

  I left Smith lying there on the floor of our living room, blood from his wounds seeping down between the cracks of the hardwood. I couldn’t close them with my hands. Tried in the torture chamber. Tried in the apartment.

  Damned my Unseelie blood with every failure. I can’t offer life. I can only take it.

  The slices across his chest—their delicacy, the varying degrees of pressure, the artistic flourishes—are all so familiar that my stomach roils. Mother’s handiwork.

  The bruises on his wrists from the manacles were my brother’s addition. Sláine already paid for that. The herbs he was using on Smith allowed me to treat his facial wound so it would scar, leaving him a permanent reminder of his transgression.

  If Smith dies, I’ll never forgive either of them.

  “Darling, look at me.”

  I finally turn. She waits there in the hall, the starlight enchanted into our lanterns glittering off her crown, the jewels dripping off her throat, the delicate crystal-ice daggers she grasps lightly in her hands. Crimson stains their edges and I watch idly as a drop slips down the blade, freezing before it can drop from the tip.

  “Why?”

  Her face shifts at my question, at the rawness of it. It’s like someone’s carved behind my ribs, hollowing me out and filling me with ice and numbness that spreads through my veins like poison.

  The temperature in the hall drops. Her rage, mine, it doesn’t matter. My shirt stiffens as the blood saturating it freezes. His blood.

  It shouldn’t have been him. I would forgive her if it had been anyone but him.

  She blocks my first attack. Simply raises her hand so the spear of ice deflects into the nearest wall.

  A spike of ice this time. Stronger, faster, fueled by grief.

  She blocks this one, too, but she doesn’t expect me to have run behind it, rapier ready. Her daggers barely block my blade.

  The point of it scratches the skin of her collarbone. Black blood beads up.

  Before today, I would have apologized for that. Now, I revel in the sight.

  Even though I brace for the punishing blow I know she’ll unleash for the injury, the cutting wind she summons sends me flying into the end of the hallway, trapping me in place against it long enough that she can pin me to the wall with ice.

  I struggle against the bonds.

  “Tell me why!” I order.

  She says nothing.

  The words keep coming, vitriol spewing from me so fast I can’t understand what I’m saying, what I’m trying to say. I hurt and I want her to bleed as deeply as I do.

  “A year, Mother. A year of watching him and reporting back to you. A year to find out he knows nothing about his power or what causes it and that he can’t control it to save his life or the lives of anyone around him. He is not a threat. And still you doubt my counsel—”

  “Because you would do anything to protect him.”

  She waits for my argument. I have none. It’s true. It’s why my older brother lies in an unconscious heap in that room. It’s why my mother is bleeding. And it’s why she will probably kill me for what I did in the apartment.

  “Why are you smiling?” She steps closer, eyes narrowing and daggers lifting without thought.

  “You can’t hurt him,” I tell her.

  The ice around my limbs tightens.

  “It’s done,” I continue, enjoying the pain. A sign of her frustration. “The spell’s in place.” I repeat it to her, watching the emotion drain from her face, the color vanishing as the old words, the words of power, hum their bond even here.

  “You’re lying,” she whispers.

  “Check,” I suggest, tilting my head toward my trapped left hand.

  The ice t
here shatters and she grabs me, turning my palm roughly to face her. The sight of the pale line cut across my hand is what does it.

  The outburst of power breaks my nose, leaves blood weeping from my eyes and ears, shatters the ice holding me up so I fall painfully to the ground. And the entire time, I laugh.

  Because she can’t touch him. Our power forbids it.

  She leaves me there. I don’t know how much time passes before her return. The soft brush of the warm towel over my face is an apology.

  She watches me while she cleans away the blood. “Really, Roark,” she chides me gently as she wrings the towel out in the basin, “you based a protection spell on love? I thought I’d taught you better.”

  The water goes a hazy purple as my blood settles in the bottom of the basin. My face aches. “I was in a bit of a hurry. It was the only thing I could think of that would be impossible to break.”

  So simple, really. His memories of this moment altered, protecting him from the knowledge of why my mother wanted him, and the poisonous oath of the Winter Knight. I buried it far enough that if someone else takes him and interrogates him, he won’t know why Queen Mab ever showed any interest in him.

  She sniffs, wipes my face one last time, and stands. “He’ll hate you for this if he ever breaks it.”

  “I know.” If he ever does, I’ll have bigger things to worry about than his discovery that I altered his memories.

  “You’ll be going back to school, then?”

  “If I’m living with him, I’ll know when his powers develop.” When her brow rises, I add, “After all of this, don’t you think we owe him some protection?”

  “The cost seems steep.” She sighs. “It would have been so much easier to kill him.”

  “Don’t.” I use glamour to hide my wince as I get up. “I assume there will be some complaints made to the dean about my living in the apartment after all of this settles.”

  She waves off my concern. “I’ll see to that.”

  “Thank you.”

  I’m nearly past her, limping back to my room, when she asks, “Will you ever forgive me?”

  There’s no reason to slow or turn. I already know the answer. It’s in the guilt that will assail me every time I see his scars. Every stab of agony when he accuses me of something I didn’t do. Every moment I remember that I can’t defend myself to him and instead watch him fall deeper and deeper into hate with me.