The Shattered Dark sr-2

by Sandy Williams

  We reach the silver wall without incident, then cross the terrace to the river. That’s when Aren takes my hand, pressing an imprinted anchor-stone into my palm.

  “If I could undo my past for you, McKenzie, I would. But I don’t have that power. No fae does.”

  I watch my chaos lusters dart across the back of the hand he still holds. His touch is hot, tantalizing. I still crave it. “Why do I have to find out about your past like this? When you don’t warn me, it’s like you’re trying to keep things from me.”

  “Do I need to name every fae I’ve made tor’um?” he asks quietly.

  I meet his eyes, a little startled. “How many are there?”

  “I do remember them. Every one,” he says. Then, as if he’s just hearing my question, he adds, “There were five. All but Brene were when I was under Thrain’s tutelage.”

  Five. After seeing Brene, it sounds like so many.

  Aren bends down to the river to cup water in his hand. He raises his palm to the sky, then the air rumbles as a fissure splits through the atmosphere. I feel like it’s splitting through me.

  “Ready?” he asks.

  I nod, then let him pull me into the light.

  The icy bite of the In-Between makes my muscles tense, and that sends a sharp lance of pain through my side. I hiss out a breath, or try to, but the In-Between has stolen the air from my lungs. When we emerge on the other side, I’m coughing, which makes my ribs feel oh so much better.

  I double over, holding my side.

  “McKenzie.” Worry fills Aren’s voice. He puts his arm around my waist to support me, and that only makes it worse. My knees hit grass.

  “McKenzie,” he says again, more anxious this time.

  “Ribs,” I manage to get out. I concentrate on drawing in a slow, careful breath as he slides my shirt up.

  “Sidhe.” He crouches beside me. “I know you don’t want me to touch you, but you should have said something. I didn’t know you were hurt this badly.”

  He places his hand over my bruised side. Heat sinks into me as he flares his magic, using it to heal my ribs. They must be cracked or broken because it hurts. It hurts almost as much as it did when he healed the arm Lena broke after I tried to escape the rebels in Germany. My hand clenches on Aren’s forearm. I squeeze my eyes shut against the pain, but it only lasts a few seconds. Then, the edarratae take over, and the only thing I feel is a hot, delicious tingling.

  Aren’s hand is still on my side. His touch was clinical at first. It’s not clinical anymore. The lightning affects him just as much as it does me, and I know he feels it gathering. What he said was wrong. I do want him to touch me. I want it so much, I can barely think.

  “Aren,” I whisper. His body gives a little shudder, and I half hope he doesn’t regain control. He’s always done this to me, made me want him when I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t right now. There’s too much between us, too much that we need to talk about.

  We move away from each other at the same time. I see him swallow, and his eyes have a wild edge to them. There’s a glimmer of something else there, as well, though. Something that I’ve rarely seen from him. Fear. He’s afraid of losing me.

  I’m afraid of losing him, too. I almost feel that, if I take the time to sort through my thoughts, if I create a list of reasons to stay with him and reasons to go, the reasonable thing would be to go. We were enemies. He threatened my life more than once and killed fae who were just trying to protect me. The thing is, I don’t want to walk away. No matter how illogical it might be, I want to be with him.

  “You have a call to make,” he says quietly. He runs a hand through his already disheveled hair as he straightens.

  A text to send, but I don’t correct him. I stand as well, shutting down my feelings for now as I slip Lee’s cell phone out of my pocket. Then, for the first time, I take in my surroundings. It’s dark, and there’s nothing but a starlit river beside us. The shadows from our fissure have already disappeared, so I have no clue where we are. We’re practically on top of a gate though, which is good. We can be back in the Realm as soon as I contact Nakano.

  Aren watches as I send the text and slide the cell back into my pocket. That’s all I need to do here—he knows that—but neither of us moves when I’m finished. We’re both waiting for the other to say something.

  Okay. I just acknowledged that we need to talk. Now is as good a time as any.

  “What did you do for Thrain?” I ask.

  “Is that where we’re going to start?” His gaze locks on the river, though I don’t really think he sees it. My stomach churns, waiting for him to answer.

  “I did whatever Thrain asked,” he says. His voice, which is usually lighthearted and full of mirth, is so monotone, it could be mistaken for Kyol’s. It doesn’t fit him.

  “If he wanted someone killed,” he continues, “I killed them. If he wanted someone captured and hurt, I did that as well. Then I healed them and hurt them again. I stole from fae. I burned down their homes. I exposed them to tech.” He draws in a breath. “I delivered humans to him, humans that I later learned he sold to tjandel.”

  My heart turns cold at the mention of the tjandel. Atroth’s lord general, Radath, threatened to send me to one of those. It’s a brothel that houses humans. I’ve never seen one—they were illegal even under Atroth’s reign—but Radath made it clear most of the women didn’t have the Sight, and that the fae who visit them get off on their screams. Knowing that they exist sickens me. Knowing that Aren helped make them exist…

  A lump forms in my throat. My chest feels hollow.

  “I’m not proud of what I did, McKenzie,” Aren says. He’s still staring at the river, and the starlight reflecting off its surface is mirrored in his eyes.

  “What made you leave?” Now it’s my voice that’s gone flat.

  “Lena’s and Sethan’s father.” He turns away from the river to look at me. “I was an imithi before I met Thrain. The exact translation would be orphaned wanderer, but it’s…It’s more than that. It’s a subgroup of fae, usually children, who have no family, no roots. It’s not a healthy way to grow up. Fae can fissure from place to place easily, but not having somewhere to call home changes us. We don’t follow the rules and customs of a region. We don’t care if we anger or offend people—we can just fissure to another city. We break laws and cause trouble, and there are almost never any consequences.”

  A part of me—the weak, sensitive part—wants to reach out to him, but I force myself to keep my hands at my sides, and say, “That doesn’t excuse what you’ve done.”

  I see him swallow again, and this time, it’s not because he’s struggling to control himself.

  “I know,” he says, and my chest aches, hearing the pain in his voice. “I’m telling you this because I want you to understand why I followed Thrain. We—me and the other imithi—all pretended to accept our situations, but in truth, we wanted roots. Thrain took advantage of that. Healing is a rare magic, so I was useful to him, and I wanted a mentor. It didn’t matter who it was. Not until I tried to steal silver from the mines in Adaris.”

  Adaris. That’s one of the provinces Atroth dissolved, the one where Lena is from.

  “You stole silver?”

  “I tried to steal it,” he says. Then he gives a short laugh. He doesn’t smile, though, and there’s no light in his eyes. “It’s not the smartest thing to do, and I didn’t plan it. Briant, the elder of Zarrak, showed up. He lived there, so he had experience fighting with deposits of silver around him. I didn’t. He slipped through my defenses and gave me a wound that would have sent me to the ether if he hadn’t ordered Lena to heal me.”

  “I’m sure she loved that,” I mutter, imagining her having to heal someone who had just tried to kill a member of her family.

  “There was an argument,” he says. This time, when he chuckles, he does smile. “Anyway, the Zarraks were already making plans to oppose Atroth. They gave me a cause to fight for—a good cause—and they gave me a home.�
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  He takes an anchor-stone out of his pocket. “I’ve spent every day since I ended my association with Thrain attempting to make up for it. Briant was a good man. I wanted to deserve the home he gave me.” He runs his thumb over the surface of the stone. “I want to deserve you.”

  Those words make my heart thud against my chest, erasing the numb, hollow feeling that was there.

  “Aren—”

  “You need to know something else,” he says, stepping forward and pressing the anchor-stone into my hand. “I regret what I did to Brene, but I would do it again. Radath had Briant. Brene knew where they were. She wouldn’t tell us. We had so little time and…” He draws in a breath. “By the time I made her tell us, she was broken, and he was already dead.” His gaze grows distant as he relives the moment. “Almost dead. Radath tortured him. He’d lost so much blood and…If I’d acted sooner, I could have healed him.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek until it hurts. Falling in love with someone shouldn’t be this difficult. It should be something you easily slip into, like a bed with silk sheets, but I can’t continue questioning why I’m with Aren. I need to decide if I’m going to follow my heart or if I’m going to follow my head. I followed my heart with Kyol for ten years. It was the wrong decision.

  The phone in my pocket vibrates, startling me. I wasn’t expecting a response to my text, especially not one so quickly, but I take the cell out and read Nakano’s message.

  “He took the bait,” I tell Aren. “He and his team will fly out tonight.”

  “That’s good,” he says quietly. Then he turns back to the river and dips his hand into its rippling surface. I watch as he lifts his palm to the stars, letting the water fall between his fingers. A rumble vibrates through the air as the rain turns into light, a fissure safe for me to step into as long as I have a fae escort.

  Aren turns back to me, holds out his hand. His chaos lusters leap to my skin when I take it. It’s as if they know I’m struggling with a decision, and they’re going to make it as difficult as possible for me to be clearheaded about it.

  Aren pulls me gently toward him. “You told me you wanted time. I’ve given it to you, and I’ll give you as long as you need, McKenzie. I love you.” He tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear. “You’re worth waiting a decade for.”

  He places the softest of kisses on my lips, then takes me into the In-Between.

  TWENTY

  WHEN WE STEP into Corrist, Aren changes. He’s back to his usual, lackadaisical self. It’s like our conversation never happened. His movements are relaxed, languid even, and, as we pass through the silver wall, he teases me about my tendency to get hurt—which I promptly point out is so not my fault. Fae keep trying to kill me, and I wasn’t born with a sword in my hand like he and everyone else in the Realm practically were.

  His voice is still light when we step out of an alley and the Silver Palace comes into view.

  “You’ve been to the Sidhe Cabred,” he says.

  “Yeah,” I answer, even though he wasn’t asking a question. When we were back in Germany, he found the anchor-stone that proved I’d been fissured to the Ancestors’ Garden via a Sidhe Tol. “It was three years ago.”

  “Lena’s thinking about allowing anyone to enter it,” he says. “The high nobles are against the idea.”

  Of course they are.

  “They love their privileges,” I say.

  Aren nods. “It’s beautiful?”

  I shift my focus from the palace’s silver-rimmed turrets to him. “You haven’t seen it yet?”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  True. That’s why we’ve only seen each other a handful of times since Atroth died.

  “It’s beautiful,” I tell him, remembering the vibrant green leaves edged in pinks and purples. “Even at night, the flowers are brighter and more alive than any I’ve seen in my world, and they’re lit with magic. Their petals are soft. Their scent lingers on your skin and…”

  I stop. The only reason I know that last part is because Kyol laid me down on a bed of laubrin at the foot of the Sidhe Cabred’s waterfall. I thought the flowers would be prickly and uncomfortable; they weren’t. They were sleek and silky, and Aren doesn’t need to know what Kyol and I almost did on top of them.

  “It’s beautiful,” I say again. Aren’s watching me, his thoughts unreadable in his silver eyes. He doesn’t look away until we near the base of the palace. He calls out to the guards watching us through hidden slits in the wall, and the small doorway beside the big, elaborate gate opens, allowing us entry.

  “You should try to get some rest before we fissure to Boulder,” Aren says once we’re inside.

  Lena’s decided to give the vigilantes time to pack up and leave for Cleveland, so we have a few hours before I need to be ready to go. Sleep isn’t a bad idea, so I nod and tell him I’ll meet him later.

  I head to my room to get as much rest as I can, but when I turn down the corridor that leads to the second level of the residential wing, I see Paige scrambling across the floor on her hands and knees.

  “Paige?” I say, walking toward her.

  She’s heading away from me, but she looks over her shoulder when she hears my voice, and her eyes grow wide. “It wasn’t me.”

  “What wasn’t—” I stop. In front of her, a fae lies unconscious on the floor. I’m not sure who it is. His face is bloody, and he has at least two bruises swelling up near his right temple. He didn’t go down on the first hit.

  “It was Lee.” Paige rises to her feet. “He’s gone after his brother.”

  I curse. More than one fae should have been watching their doors.

  I start to move past her—I have to find Naito before Lee does—but she grabs my arm.

  “Don’t involve the fae,” she says. “Please. I can talk to him.”

  “He’s already involved them.” I jab a finger toward the fae on the ground, who’s beginning to stir.

  She looks down. “I know, but we had a fight, and I said some things…”

  “He’s a vigilante,” I say. “Do you know what that is?”

  “No.” She meets my eyes. “But he’s not the person he’s trying to be. I swear, McKenzie.”

  “Vigilantes hate fae. They hate humans who help fae.” I start down the corridor again—I don’t have time to stand here and have this conversation. Paige follows.

  “Did the remnants not know what he was?” I ask when I reach a staircase. I take the steps two at a time.

  “He’s never acted like he hates the fae,” Paige says, descending behind me. “He just thinks they’re dangerous and he’s…I can take care of myself, but he’s looked out for me.”

  We reach the bottom of the stairs. They lead out to the arched covered walkway that surrounds the statue garden. Only a few fae are here right now. I spot a guard and head toward him.

  “I thought you hated Lee,” I say to Paige even though I suspected otherwise.

  “I want to hate him,” she says. “I met him at Amy’s wedding. He asked to meet you, but you were with Aren, so we hung out. Hooked up. He’s actually fun when he’s not being an idiot.”

  “You said yourself he was using you to find Naito.”

  “And Aren is using you to fight the Court fae,” she counters.

  I glare at her, but she has a point. Aren and I started off all wrong. “He’s not using me anymore.” He loves me—I’m 100 percent certain of that—and he’d do anything for me.

  I veer toward the guard. Paige notices where I’m heading immediately.

  “Please don’t involve the rebels.”

  I stop to look at her. She changed out of her wet clothes. Someone delivered new ones. The narrow-sleeved white top looks more like a jacket than a shirt. It’s laced up the middle, and the two tails flow over her hips. The tan skirt is short—I think she ripped off the lower half—but she’s compensated for that with boots that reach up to her knees. Everything is fae-made, but somehow, it all looks like something she’d pull out of
her own closet.

  This is Paige, I remind myself. My friend. She’s never asked me for anything, and she’s always been there for me even though I haven’t always been there for her, but if anything happens to Naito…

  No. I can’t risk it just because she asks.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  There’s a glimmer of hurt in her blue eyes when she releases my arm. It’s gone in an instant, replaced by a carefully neutral expression.

  “I understand,” she lies.

  It feels like someone’s stabbed my chest from the inside. I’m going to lose my only friend, I realize, and it’s like I’m losing my last connection to my human life. Paige has always put up with my eccentricities and random disappearances. She’s always made me feel normal. I guess I finally need to accept that I’m not. I never will be.

  “I’m sorry,” I say again, then I start walking toward the guard. It’s possible Lee passed by here, and the fae didn’t detain him. Under Atroth’s reign, humans were hardly ever stopped or questioned as long as we stayed in the public areas of the palace. It was assumed that, unless the fae were told otherwise, we belonged here. I know Lena is suspicious of Paige and Lee—that’s why she put a guard outside their door—but I don’t know if she’s issued a general alert to all her people.

  I’m only a few steps away from the guard when I see movement in the corner of my vision. Lee leans against the wall in the covered walkway opposite the one Paige and I stepped out of. He slides down it, sinking to the ground then propping his arms up on his bent knees. Blood covers one of his hands.

  Please don’t let it be Naito’s blood.

  I hear Paige take in a breath. She moves toward him before I do, but I’m at her side a second later.