The Shattered Dark sr-2

by Sandy Williams

  I sink down to one knee beside the window and wait.

  Aren squats beside me. “Trev and I will fissure after him.”

  That will leave me alone with Hison and his guard. Lovely. “How am I getting back to Corrist?”

  “I shouldn’t be gone more than a few minutes,” he says. He looks directly at me. “McKenzie—”

  The door across the street swings open. I don’t have time to see the fae’s face; he disappears into his fissure the instant he steps outside.

  I flip open Naito’s sketchbook, rest it on my knee, and start sketching. I draw three thick, wavy lines at the top of the page. It’s the Daric Ocean. I frown at the shadows, scratch down a few bottomless triangles. It’s the same mountain range, too. The fae didn’t fissure to the exact location Aylen did, but it’s close enough to be extremely coincidental.

  I flip to the next page, narrow down my map. He’s close to a winding street on the west side of the city. He might even be on it, but I’m not 100 percent sure. I wait for the shadows to shift, see a thin dark line appear in the center of my vision. An intersection. I mark an “x” where the shadows tell me he exited, then turn to Aren.

  “He’s gone to Eksan,” I say. “I just drew—”

  Trev fissures out.

  “Thank you.” Aren rests his hand briefly on my bent knee before he rises.

  “Aren—”

  “I’ll be back soon,” he says. Then he disappears into a slash of white light.

  ELEVEN

  I’M ANNOYED. so annoyed, I don’t get drawn in by Aren’s shadows. I get that he needed to go, but it was obvious I was trying to tell him something. Trev had already left. Would it have killed Aren to wait five seconds? I’m sure it’s just a coincidence—Eksan is a huge city—but it’s possible there could be a connection between the remnants and Aylen. Between the remnants and Lorn. He called Aylen an “associate of an associate.” That could mean anything.

  “What do we do with this?” Hison’s guard asks. She’s staring at me.

  I’m so close to saying something because, really, what are the consequences if they learn I speak Fae? Hison will be pissed at Lena for letting me learn the language, but he’s already not happy I’m here in his world.

  I look at the spot where Aren disappeared. How long until he gets back? He said “soon,” but if the fae didn’t fissure directly to the remnants, Trev and Aren will have to follow him. And then, there’s always the chance the fae will double fissure—that’s how Aren evaded us for so long. Toward the end, we had a second shadow-reader standing by at a gate. After I mapped the fae, one of Kyol’s men would fissure to that human, then take him or her through the gate to the location I sketched out. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but we did come closer to capturing Aren that way.

  That’s probably why he started fissuring more than two times. It’s an impressive talent. After traveling a substantial distance, most fae have to wait two or three minutes before they’re able to enter the In-Between again.

  “Jorreb will come back for her,” Hison says. “If she didn’t lead him into a trap.”

  “You think she’s feeding information to the remnants?”

  Okay, so maybe this is why I don’t want them to know I can speak Fae. People are loose with their tongues when they don’t think I can understand them. Also: what the hell? I’ve been working my ass off for the rebels.

  “It would explain why she tolerates being near the protégé of a false-blood.”

  I stare down at the sketchbook still propped on my knee. I retrace one of my marks, clenching my teeth together so I don’t say anything. Sethan wasn’t a false-blood. Lena isn’t either. They’re Descendants of the Tar Sidhe just like Atroth was. I confirmed that with more than one former Court fae after we took the palace.

  “Humans don’t care about false-bloods,” the bodyguard says.

  “This one does.”

  I can feel Hison’s gaze. He’s waiting for me to look up. If I don’t, I think it will be suspicious, so I raise my eyes from the sketchbook and meet his. I’m through with letting fae intimidate me.

  “What?” I stand, so my demand has more of an impact.

  Hison doesn’t look away. “Did you understand Jorreb’s conversation with her?”

  “Some of it. He told her why she is here,” the bodyguard tells him.

  “No mention of Thrain?”

  The name makes my blood turn cold. No, no, no. Kyol killed him—I saw his soul-shadow—and banek’tan do not exist. Thrain is dead. Aren would tell me if he wasn’t.

  But Aren did say Lena shouldn’t have sent me here. Is this why?

  “You speak Fae.”

  Hison’s statement pulls me out of my near panic. I shake my head, clearing my mind, and focus on the high noble. My thoughts obviously showed on my face, but Thrain in Fae is the same as Thrain in English. His conclusion that I speak his language is a guess.

  “What about Thrain?” I ask.

  The bodyguard translates what I said. Hison’s eyes narrow. He looks directly at me when he says, “Jorreb is his protégé.”

  Aren? It takes everything in me to look confusedly back and forth between the two fae. Inside, though, I feel sick. Is it true? Hison could just be trying to get a reaction from me, but this could explain why Aren asked if I was okay in Rhigh. If he’s connected to Thrain, he could know Thrain kept me here.

  Hison takes a step closer. “You do understand me, don’t you?”

  I furrow my brow further. Then my skin tingles. A second later, Aren steps into the living room. I let myself give in to the urge to stare at his shadows because it’s an excuse not to meet his eyes.

  “That didn’t take long,” Hison says, sounding disappointed. “Were you successful?”

  In my peripheral vision, I see Aren nod. “He led us to a home where three others were meeting. They’ll be taken to Corrist.” He turns to me. “We can go now, McKenzie.”

  I should win an Oscar. I meet Aren’s eyes, and I smile. “Back to the suite or to Corrist?”

  Maybe the smile is too much. His gaze drops to my lips, and his brow wrinkles slightly as he frowns. “Corrist, if that’s okay.”

  “It’s great,” I tell him cheerily.

  “Your shadow-witch isn’t as terrifying as the stories make her out to be,” Hison says.

  Aren glances at the high noble. “That’s because she’s not your enemy. Lena will contact you if we learn anything from the fae.” He takes my arm, and I’m thankful for the protection the cloak offers against his touch. I can’t deal with any chaos lusters right now.

  “I heard Thrain discovered her ten years ago,” Hison calls after us. “Is that true?”

  Aren tenses. He turns his head to the side but doesn’t quite look over his shoulder. “I’ve heard that as well.” He reaches for the doorknob.

  “It’s a shame Atroth stole her from you,” Hison adds.

  Aren looks down at me. My face is expressionless when I meet his eyes, and that’s all he needs to know that I know.

  “I didn’t know her then,” he says, then he opens the door.

  “CAN we talk about this?” Aren asks, keeping pace by my side. That pisses me off even more than I already was because I’m walking as quickly as I can. If he were human, he wouldn’t be anywhere near me. I don’t want him near me right now.

  “I didn’t know you then,” he says, when I don’t respond. “I swear I never saw you. I broke ties with Thrain about the same time he took you.”

  “So you claim.” I stuff Naito’s sketchbook into one of the big pockets on the inside of my cloak. The snow is beginning to fall faster, but I’m too angry to feel the bite of the air.

  “I’ve never lied to you, McKenzie,” Aren says. “Never.”

  “And I’m supposed to take your word on that?” I stop at the end of our narrow, curvy passageway and peer both ways down the main street. Two cloaked fae look our way. They’re breaking curfew. Technically, so are we. I bury my hands in the pockets of my
cloak, trying to preserve what little warmth they have left.

  “The gate is to the left,” Aren says.

  The two fae watch as I turn that way. I return their stares and, surprisingly, they drop their gazes. Even with the occasional edarratae flashing across my face, I don’t think I’m very intimidating. Most likely, Aren’s glaring at them over my shoulder. He’s just behind and slightly to the right of me, walking through the night fully armored in jaedric. His sword, sheathed at his left hip, is easily accessible. He could kill both men before they throw aside their cloaks to get access to their weapons.

  “That’s the shadow-witch?” the shorter of the two fae asks. The other doesn’t respond; he just backs away. Which is ridiculous, considering I’m on the opposite side of the street from them.

  I just shake my head and keep walking. I try not to think, because when I do, I either flash back to ten years ago or think about the fae—the fae I barely know—who’s trailing me. Aren was Thrain’s protégé. It’s so hard to believe, and not just because my heart breaks a little when I think about the connection. Anyone who was associated with Thrain should be mentally unstable. They should go from calm to irate in two seconds flat. They should issue threats, dole out punishments with their fists, and be abusive both mentally and physically and…

  The scar on the side of my neck throbs, and I freeze. It’s the remains of a horrible moment, when Aren and I were still on opposite sides of the war, when he threatened me…Maybe Aren is like Thrain. Maybe I’ve just been too blind to see it.

  “I’m not a mistake, McKenzie,” he says softly, stopping beside me. His voice is soothing, reassuring. My chest tightens, and a warm, tingling sensation rushes through me. That scares me. I’ve told myself to take this relationship slowly, but my heart refuses to listen. I’m growing too attached to him too quickly. I shouldn’t be on the brink of falling in love with someone I know so little about. I shouldn’t want to believe every word he says. That’s what happened with Kyol. I loved him so blindly and so completely, I put my life on hold. I never questioned anything he told me, and I regret that so much.

  I swallow down a lump in my throat. “You should have told me about him.”

  “When?” Aren asks, and for the first time, impatience creeps into his voice. “Including today, I’ve seen you four times since we took the palace, McKenzie. Four.”

  “That’s not my fault.” I start walking again, but he grabs my arm.

  “You’re not being fair,” he says.

  “Of course I’m not,” I yell, turning toward him. “You’re as bad as Kyol was about not telling me the complete truth.”

  His nostrils flare. The comparison hurts. I’m almost sorry I made it—almost—but I’m sick of people withholding information.

  I meet his gaze. “Anything else you want to confess?”

  That gets under his skin. The silver in his eyes seems to sharpen, and he takes a step forward, pressing his body against mine so that I have to move back.

  “The complete truth, McKenzie, is I’d do anything for you, but you ask for nothing. You won’t confide in me. You won’t rely on me. You’re so preoccupied trying to decide if you can trust your feelings that you won’t consider giving in to them.”

  I back against a stucco wall. He’s breathing hard. So am I, and I have to admit it’s not only because I’m hurt and angry. There’s some truth to his words. I don’t trust my feelings for him, but there’s good reason for that. Learning about his connection to Thrain proves it.

  I put my hands on his chest to push him away. He doesn’t budge. Instead, his grip on my arm tightens.

  “Let go, Aren.”

  He shakes his head. His eyes are narrowed.

  “Seriously, let go.” I twist this time, trying to slip free, but his arms go around me, pulling me more tightly against him.

  “Aren—”

  “Shh,” he says. Then, when I keep struggling, he looks down at me. “You can be angry, McKenzie, but don’t be careless. Listen.”

  I don’t allow myself to relax in his arms, but his hearing is better than mine, so I turn my head to the side and listen. At first, all I hear is his heartbeat. It’s a steady, almost hypnotic thumpthump. Thumpthump. But then I hear something else. A raised voice. A shout. A crash. It’s all coming from the direction we’re heading.

  “I thought there was a curfew,” I say.

  “There is,” he answers. “Stay close.”

  I don’t protest when he places a hand on my back, just next to the dagger he gave me, and urges me forward. Rightly or wrongly, I trust Aren with my life. Even when we were enemies, he took care of me; my gut tells me he’ll take care of me now. I might be disturbed by his origins, his past, but that’s something I have to deal with later. Right now, I need to deal with what’s going on here.

  The shouts and noises grow louder as the snow under our feet turns from a soft, white blanket to a wet, dark mush. People have been through here recently. Lots of people. At the end of our alley, an orb-topped lamppost turns the stucco walls a brighter shade of blue. We stop at the corner and peer out at the scene.

  Standing between us and the river, some two hundred feet away, is what I can only describe as an angry horde of fae. They’re massed around the location where I remember the gate being. By the number of sleepy cirikith standing scattered throughout the marketplace, my guess is that half of the fae are merchants. I don’t know who the other half are. Not innocent bystanders. They’re pushing and shoving to get at the crates laden onto the carts the cirikith pulled here. Others are pushing and shoving just for the hell of it, I think. Aren said the people of Rhigh were almost rioting. I don’t think there’s any almost about this. They’re out here breaking curfew and looting just because they can.

  I jerk back into Aren’s chest when there’s a crash to our right. It’s followed by an excited shout, and by the time I find the source of the noise, fae are pouring through the broken window of a store no more than ten feet away from us. The fae look like they’re the age of human teenagers, but they could be as old as thirty.

  One of those fae slips in the slosh of melted snow and dirt. The whole marketplace is one giant mud pit. It’s been ten years, but I remember Rhigh’s riverfront looking like one of my world’s touristy boardwalks. Even in my delirious, half-starved state, it hit me as ironic because Rhigh shouldn’t have looked like a vacation spot. From my experience in it, it should have looked like a ghetto outside a prison.

  It looks like a ghetto outside a prison now.

  A strange-sounding wail cuts through the air to the left. A cirikith lies on its side, straining to get back to its feet, but its haunches are stuck beneath a broken cart. It’s bleeding from its neck. Even from this distance, I can see that its huge, opalescent scales have turned crimson. Cirikiths aren’t pretty beasts, with their oversized heads and thick, hooved legs, but I can’t help but feel sorry for it. Cirikiths are strong. The only reason this one hasn’t regained its feet is because it’s hurt, and it’s fighting off its nightly hibernation.

  Aren rests a hand on my shoulder. “We should wait until things calm down to use the gate.”

  “Wait where?” I ask, backing away from the chaos.

  He takes my hand, turns me back down the alley. “Hison should have a place…”

  Two fae are walking toward us. They’re wearing jaedric over thick woolen shirts and pants. Their gloves and heavy animal-skin boot coverings look warm but tattered. Well before they reach us, I move aside. Aren doesn’t. His posture relaxes, and he stands his ground. That’s when I notice the two newcomers don’t exactly seem surprised to see us.

  “We heard you were here with an asset,” the fae on the left says. Interwoven feathers are braided through his hair, almost as if they’re taking the place of a name-cord.

  “Did you?” Aren replies lazily. He slips an arm inside the folds of my cloak, and I feel him slide the dagger out of my waistband.

  “You know them,” I say.

  It
’s not quite a question, but he responds with, “You know that past you’re holding against me?”

  Great. This can’t go well. I throw him a glare but take the hint and wrap my hand around the hilt of the dagger, making sure I keep it hidden beneath my cloak.

  “Also heard you’re with the daughter of Zarrak,” the second fae says. “You know how to get inside the palace. Useful information, that is. Valuable.”

  “I’m sure you’ve heard many things, Vent,” Aren says. He squeezes my arm gently beneath the cloak. Telling me to be ready?

  Feather-braid takes a step forward. “We control the gate, now.”

  Aren throws an exaggerated look of surprise over his shoulder where the marketplace is. “I can tell.”

  Feather-braid scowls. “You can either pay for the human or turn her over to—”

  Aren appears beside the fae. I’m just as startled as they are because I didn’t sense or see the slash of light until he was already gone. But there he is, swinging his sword through the shadows from his exit fissure and cleaving into Feather-braid’s shoulder. Feather-braid is nothing but a soul-shadow a second later.

  Vent reacts quickly, fissuring out of Aren’s way. Aren pivots, his sword arcing around, and kills the fae as he exits his slash of light. His soul-shadow joins his companion’s.

  An instant later, Aren’s at my side, taking my arm. “We’re leaving.”

  “Good friends of yours?” I ask. The fight started and ended so quickly. A spike of adrenaline is just now pumping through my veins.

  “The best,” he answers, leading me back the way we came. “We have to get to the gate.”

  I slant a wide-eyed glance his way. “The gate? Now?”

  “Yes,” he says. “Unless you have another idea.”

  “I can probably come up with something that doesn’t include a horde of pissed-off fae.” Seriously, he’s crazy to think that we can make it to the gate, the same gate everyone else is trying to fissure through, with the crowd standing in our way.