The Shattered Dark sr-2

by Sandy Williams

  I press on and try not to think because I don’t want to face the truth: I don’t know if there’s any chance in hell that I can make it to civilization. The sun hasn’t burned off the fog below yet.

  It doesn’t until midday. I’m staring at the dissipating clouds, trying to decide if I’m hallucinating or if there really is a city down there, when Sosch and I come across a stream. He’s already there, lapping at the water, when I fall to my knees beside him.

  Minutes later, I have to force myself to stop drinking—I’ll make myself sick if I continue—then I turn back to the city below. It’s huge, filling up the plateau between the base of the mountain and a large body of water…

  Really?

  I’m not hallucinating, but this isn’t just any city.

  “It’s Corrist!” My voice is hoarse, weak, but I grab Sosch and hug him to my chest. He squeals, then scurries out of my arms. Once he’s firmly back on the ground, he looks up at me with the kimki equivalent of a glare.

  “Be happy,” I tell him. “We’re not going to die.”

  I’m surprised as hell that the remnants are camped so close to the Silver Palace. Lena sent rebels to search up here, but they found nothing. Either the remnants had their camp hidden by illusion, or they just recently moved into these mountains. Right now, I don’t care which is true. The morning fog made the valley below seem deceptively far away, but now that it’s cleared, I can see that we’re not as high in the mountains as I thought. Sosch and I might even make it to the city by dark.

  Reinvigorated, I lead the way back to civilization.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  WE DON’T MAKE it by dark. We don’t even make it by morning. Sosch abandons me around noon, and it’s at least another hour before I reach the plateau that lies between the base of the mountains and Corrist’s silver wall. The stream Sosch found joined another stream, then another and another until it fed into this river, the one that hosts Corrist’s gate.

  I’m too tired to worry about a rebel archer shooting me as I make my way to the wall. The air down here is warmer, but I’m still numb. My feet are moving only because I haven’t let myself rest. If I stopped even for a minute, I don’t think I would have had the strength to keep going.

  A fae calls out from the wall when I’m within a hundred feet of it. My mind is just as numb as the rest of me because I can’t seem to make sense of his words. It’s not until an arrow stabs into the ground at my feet that I force myself to stand still, to think.

  “I’m McKenzie.” It takes three tries to get those words out.

  No one answers. Not for several long minutes. I don’t call out again or move from my current location. The fired arrow is evidence the fae don’t trust what they see.

  Finally, the portcullis begins to rise. Chaos lusters strike across the arms of the human who ducks under it.

  “Naito!” I’m smiling and moving forward despite the fae drawing their swords behind him. He made it out of Boulder. I’ve been worrying about so many things, I didn’t realize I was worried about him, too.

  “She’s not an illusion,” he says, as I throw my arms around his shoulders. He staggers, probably because I’m not doing a great job of keeping myself upright.

  He keeps his arms holding mine when he steps back and surveys me, head to toe. “What happened? Aren said he saw you fall, and he’s…He’s not doing well.”

  My heart thumps against my chest, aching and anxious, but relieved as well. Aren is alive. “Where is he?”

  “In the palace,” Naito says, guiding me under the silver wall. He calls for some of the wall’s guards to follow us, and while we’re walking through the Inner City, I tell him where I’ve been and where the remnants are. I don’t know their exact location, of course, only that they’re in the mountains overlooking the city and that they’re being led by a fae named Caelar.

  As soon as we step inside the palace, my legs start shaking. Now that I’m safe, it’s like they’ve given themselves permission to give out on me. I need to sit, to sleep, but I need to see Aren more, so I force myself to keep walking, ignoring my body’s demands to rest. I make it as far as the three steps that lead down to the statue garden before my knees buckle.

  “Shit, McKenzie,” Naito says, keeping me on my feet.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine.” He lets me go but keeps his arm raised, ready if I fall again. “Go to your room. I’ll send Aren.”

  That sounds like a great idea, now that he mentions it and now that I know I don’t have the energy to search for Aren myself. So, instead of following Naito through the statue garden, I turn left, staying under the covered walkway. It’s not until I step inside the residential wing that I remember I’m going to have to go up to reach my room. I don’t know how I’m going to make it, but I walk to the staircase.

  And stop.

  Aren’s there, sitting on a step halfway up with Sosch in his arms. Aren’s eyes are closed. His forehead is pressed to the kimki’s, and he’s murmuring something I can’t quite make out. With Sosch in front of him, I only see half of his face, but it’s clear he’s in pain, more pain than I’ve ever seen him in before. He looks haggard, and the way his shoulders slump toward the ground makes my heart break. I remember the way he screamed my name outside of Nakano’s compound, and I know that I can’t ever let him hurt like this again.

  “Aren,” I call out, placing one hand on the banister.

  He looks up.

  Our gazes lock.

  He pales as if he’s seen a ghost, and I pour all my energy into climbing that first step. I need to close the distance between us, touch him, taste him, tell him I want forever with him.

  I climb another step.

  He sets Sosch aside. I wouldn’t have believed it possible, but he becomes even more pale. I’m not even sure he’s breathing until he finally draws in a long, deep breath.

  Then something goes wrong. Instead of relief or elation, fury takes over Aren’s expression. He curses as he draws his sword, and that’s when I realize my mistake. The fae don’t believe in ghosts; they believe in illusions.

  Shit.

  He’s on me before I can explain, grabbing the front of my shirt in his fist. If he was in his right mind, he’d realize that touching me would break an illusion, but he’s in a blind rage right now. He’s not listening to me.

  Instead of trying to pull away, I move toward him, manage to lay my hand on the side of his neck. Thank God, my chaos lusters react instantly. I see the spark of heat in his eyes. He goes still.

  “McKenzie?” His voice breaks. Confusion moves through his eyes. He saw me go over the cliff. He’s believed I was dead for almost forty-eight hours.

  “I’m not an illusion,” I say.

  He touches my face. Tenderly. Tentatively.

  “McKenzie. Sidhe, I thought…”

  He doesn’t finish that sentence. Instead, he kisses me with a fierceness that takes my breath away, murmuring my name over and over and over again. His hands run down my shoulders, down my arms. They rest on my hips, tighten, then one splays across the center of my back, all as if he’s still not sure I’m here. I cup the back of his neck and kiss him harder, proving I’m not a dream.

  I want to keep kissing him, keep touching him, but Aren presses his lips against mine one last time then takes a half step back. He looks at me, almost as if he thinks his hands are deceiving him. He needs to prove I’m alive with his eyes now, so he takes me in. The relief I was searching for earlier reaches his gaze. It doesn’t completely chase away the shadows of his pain, though.

  “I saw you at the edge of the cliff,” I tell him. “I heard you scream my name, and it killed me.” I loop my arms around him, pull him close again so I can rest my head against his shoulder. He’s warm and deliciously solid. “I tried to get your attention, but Tylan had me. He…”

  I lift my head. “He took me to the remnants’ camp. It’s in the Corrist Mountains.” I draw in a breath to tell him more. “I told Naito—P
aige is there. A fae named—”

  “No, shhh.” He lightly touches a finger to my lips. “Unless the remnants are going to attack the palace in the next hour, I don’t want to hear a report. You’re always putting the Realm before yourself. It stops now.”

  With that, he scoops me into his arms. It’s sudden and unexpected, but I’m holding on to him instinctively. He climbs the rest of the steps and takes me to my room.

  To my bathroom. He kicks on a lever, and water begins to fill the round, tiled tub. When Aren sets me on my feet, I steady myself by holding on to the black pipe that travels up into the ceiling. A reservoir of water is up there. A palace employee fills it every time it’s drained.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Aren says, studying me, “but you look like you’ve crossed the Barren.”

  Crossing the Barren, a stretch of land in the Realm where no fae can fissure, is an idiom that basically means I look like shit, and damn it, I do. Dirt is packed under my fingernails, the sleeves of my gray shirt are torn and streaked with brown and black, and, when the edarratae flash across my skin, they look dim under the thick layer of grime. I don’t want to think about what my hair must look like.

  “God, no wonder you tried to kill me.” I take my hands off him, step away.

  He chuckles and pulls me back. “I wasn’t in my right mind. Even like this, I want you.”

  A million chaos lusters somersault in my stomach, and when he kisses me this time, I’m undone. Nothing matters but him and us and this, the way he makes me feel like I’m everything to him. Sometime in the last month, he’s become everything to me.

  He pulls my shirt over my head, cups my face between his hands, and drinks me in. Edarratae leap from me to him in excited, frenzied bursts, and I decide then that I’m never letting him go.

  “I never told you,” Aren whispers against my neck. “How difficult it was.” He plants a kiss on my bare shoulder, just to the right of my bra strap. “Not to touch you in Cleveland.”

  Cleveland? Too many thoughts are spinning through my head, too many sensations driving through my body for me to make sense of his words.

  “You scared me then.” His hands are between us, unbuttoning my pants. “I wasn’t sure you’d wake up until I dropped you into the tub.”

  “Ohh.” I mean that “oh” to be silent, but just when I realize he’s referring to the safe house he took me to after Germany, he pulls my earlobe between his teeth. My entire body turns molten.

  I feel him smiling against my neck, and I fall for him even more. I didn’t think that was possible, but making him happy makes me happy, and all I want to do is make him smile.

  Make him smile and moan and tremble when I touch him.

  That’s what he does when I start unbuckling his weapons belt. Then, he places his left hand over mine. His right touches my cheek.

  “Again, don’t take this the wrong way,” he says, his voice sounding strained. “But I’m going to walk out of here.”

  The way he slides my pants over my hips suggests differently. I step out of my shoes and let him finish stripping me down to just my bra and undies. He’s kneeling in front of me long enough that I have to run my hand through his already disheveled hair. I love how untamed it is, how untamed he is.

  “Aren,” I say. I mean to make his name an encouragement, to let him know that this is okay, that I’m not going to stop him, I want him, but my voice comes out just as strained as his, and when he runs his hands up my thighs, I can’t manage any more words. My muscles quiver. I’m barely able to stay on my feet.

  But then, he straightens, and, quickly, he picks me up and sets me in the tub.

  I gasp when the ice-cold water bites at my calves.

  “Sidhe,” he mutters. “Sorry.”

  Keeping one hand on my hip, he bends down to submerge his other hand beneath the water’s surface. It warms immediately.

  I raise an eyebrow when he straightens, then say, “That’s one way to cool me off.”

  He laughs at that, and his smile and the brightness in his silver eyes makes my heart skip.

  “Yeah, I…” He clears his throat, releases my hip. “Will you be okay? I’d stay and help, but I’d have to touch you, and if I touch you one more second…I think you need rest more than you need me right now.”

  That’s extremely debatable.

  “I’ll bring you something to eat.”

  Or maybe he’s right. Now that he’s brought up the idea, my stomach decides to remind me I haven’t eaten anything in almost two days. And it’s probably not a bad idea to rest before I…before we…

  God, I really want to be with him.

  He gives me one of his crooked half grins, and his gaze and his posture tell me just how difficult it is for him to walk away.

  And that’s one more thing I love about him I realize as he’s closing the bathroom door. I love that he needs me as much as I need him. Kyol always made leaving me look easy…

  Kyol.

  I almost slip in the tub.

  He’s the garistyn, the kingkiller. I don’t think Tylan was lying when he said that’s one of the reasons the high nobles aren’t approving Lena. Whatever their opinion was of Atroth, they aren’t happy he was killed. I just never realized how unhappy they were.

  With shaking hands, I strip off my undergarments. I don’t know if the shaking is because I’m weak and hungry or if it’s because I’m afraid. I try to convince myself that Kyol will be okay. Lena needs him. She has to protect him, but I know him too well. He’s too damn noble to let this go on for long. He’ll turn himself in because it’s what’s best for the Realm and because he blames himself for not being able to find a way to save his king.

  Naked now, I sink into the tub, letting the warm water swallow me. The only reason Kyol hasn’t already stepped forward as the garistyn is because it’s not the right time. He’ll wait until he’s sure Lena’s place as the Realm’s queen is secure. Then he’ll let the high nobles kill him.

  I clench my hands into fists. I won’t let that happen.

  TWENTY-SIX

  I DON’T INTEND to fall asleep, but climbing out of the tub and pulling on a pair of fae-made pants and a soft, loose top siphons my last ounce of energy. When I lie down on my bed, I pass out, sinking into two sets of dreams.

  The first are my usual dreams. They’re dark and terrifying and star more than one of my enemies. Thrain’s face is foremost. It always is. He’s the fae who dragged me into this world. He hurt me. He deliberately made me fear him. But I fear others too, now. Micid, the ther’othi who could walk the In-Between. Radath, the king’s lord general who would have preferred to see me raped and broken in a tjandel rather than helping him hunt the Court fae’s enemies. And there’s a third face now, one that I can’t quite make out in the shadows. I try to force Caelar’s face to fit there, or Tylan’s. I even try a number of the other false-bloods I’ve tracked down over the years, but none of their silhouettes fit.

  I’m not sure I’d survive the first set of dreams if it wasn’t for the second. Aren’s in each and every one of them, holding me, touching me, kissing me. Sometimes we’re in the Realm, my white lightning coiling around our bodies. Other times, we’re in my world. He’s taking my breath away against a brick wall in London or I’m kissing every one of his chaos lusters on the Strip in Vegas. And, every so often, we’re in between worlds, making love as we disappear into a strip of radiant white light.

  I hold on to every moment with Aren as long as I can, but I toss and turn no matter which set of dreams I’m trapped in until a warm body locks me against his chest.

  Aren shushes softly beside my ear until I relax. It’s only then, wrapped in his cedar and cinnamon scent, that I truly sleep.

  HOURS later, Aren shifts.

  I burrow closer against him. This feels good. It feels normal. I want this every single morning.

  “Sorry,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “I’ve been awake for a while.” I grab
his hand, intertwine my fingers with his.

  “You’ve been asleep for a while,” he says.

  “How long?”

  “A little more than half a day.” His thumb rubs across my palm. “You’ve missed dinner and breakfast. Another hour and you’ll miss lunch as well.” He nuzzles my hair. “You smell better.”

  I grin, then roll to my back so I can see him. He hasn’t been this relaxed and happy in a while, certainly not since we took the palace. He was more comfortable in the role of a rogue who disrupted the plans of the Realm’s ruler; it’s not quite as easy keeping the Realm’s potential ruler in power. But I’ve always known this wasn’t a fairy tale. If it were, everything would have been perfect the second we ousted the king.

  I breathe him in, then draw my fingers along the strong line of his jaw. I forgave him with a kiss when we were in Nakano’s compound. I realized I should have used words when I was being held by the remnants. I should have made it absolutely clear that I’m his forever.

  So I make it clear now.

  “I fell in love with you,” I tell him.

  He raises an eyebrow, gives me one of his half grins. “Just now?”

  “No, 16.6 seconds ago.” I lightly punch his shoulder. He laughs and pulls me closer.

  “I don’t know when,” I say. “Maybe when you gave me that diamond necklace.”

  “Ah,” he says sagely. “I’ve always heard humans could be lured in with sparkling rocks.”

  My smile widens. “You are so charming today.”

  “Aren’t I?” He presses a kiss to my temple. I feel him shudder when a chaos luster leaps to his lips.

  He sits up. Swallows. His eyes are a deep, steamy silver.

  “You should eat now,” he says, his rough voice sending a stroke of heat through my body. “You’re going to need the energy.”