Storybound

by Emily Mckay

  “I don’t understand,” I say. “What is it you want me to do? Do you want me to make a binding promise to you?”

  She seems to consider my offer but then shakes her head. “No. Only death breaks a binding promise.” She gives me another shake. Her gaze is desperate. “The lost Oidrhe must remain lost. It’s the only way I can convince Smyth to spare Kane.”

  “Smyth,” I whisper the name, as the truth takes shape in my head. “You’re working with Smyth.”

  She blinks, seeming to see me for the first time in several minutes. “Well, yes.”

  “He’s staging a coup to take over the Kingdoms of Mithres. How can you be working with him? He’s going to cut the Thread of power.”

  She shakes her head in a bless-your-heart gesture. “That’s just what he told you.”

  “No, Ro, it—”

  “He doesn’t want Princess Merianna to marry Kane, either. We worked together to devise the plan. He would kidnap her. I would send the Kellas cats to attack Kane. They weren’t supposed to hurt him, just wound him enough that he wouldn’t rescue the princess himself. I would nurse Kane back to health and he would fall in love with me. I had it all worked out.”

  “You sent the Kellas cats?”

  “Of course I did. It’s the one talent I come by naturally.”

  “Because your mother was a master of cats.”

  I had guessed someone close to Kane must have betrayed him, but I never guessed it was Ro. Sweet as chamomile tea Ro. She must also be the one who introduced Lucy to Smyth. And why hadn’t I thought to ask Lucy as soon as I met her? Everything had happened too fast.

  Well, all of this made sense, in some weird, crazy way. Except the part where she thought she could kill me. That part, I’m not so excited about.

  And I suddenly realize that Ro’s been backing me up, step by step, and now we’re almost to the bathroom.

  “Smyth is using you. I don’t care what he told you. He wants power. He will do anything to get it.”

  “Don’t you see? Once Kane and I are married, I can control him. Smyth won’t need to cut the thread, because I’ll have all that power. It’s all going to work out fine.”

  If the full-blown crazy blazing in her eyes was any indication, she absolutely believed that. Me? Not so much.

  “You can’t get away with this,” I tell her, trying to sound reasonable. And not afraid. “You can’t murder me in your brother’s own house. Kane and Morgan know you’re with me. When they find my dead body, they’ll know what happened.”

  “See, everyone underestimates me. There won’t be a dead body. I’ll just tell them that you opened a threshold to the Dark World, and you disappeared from our lives. Easy. As. Pie.”

  “You don’t honestly think I’m going to open a threshold so that you can toss my dead body through once you kill me?”

  “Of course not. I’m going to kill you and then dispose of your body myself.”

  She gives my arm another twist, and her touch burns me from the inside out.

  “I don’t have much magical power, but I have an affinity for the alkaline elements. Have you forgotten that?”

  “No.”

  She had knitted my bones together. Could she unravel them as well?

  “Yes, I can see you get it now.” She gives me a tug, pulling me closer to her. “I can dissolve the bones in your body.” She takes a few more steps toward the bathroom. I try to dig in my heels, but it does no good. “That’s what an alkaline mage can do. It’s not a skill most people admire, but it certainly does come in handy when you want to kill someone.”

  She shoves me through the bathroom door and then closes and locks it behind us.

  I look down at the floor. Hard tile. Oh yes, this will make it much easier for her to clean up my body once it’s dissolved into a puddle. Fantastic.

  She stalks toward me, pushing me toward the shower stall.

  “Okay,” I say, stalling. “Once you dissolve my bones, what are you gonna do with the rest of me?”

  Almost as soon as the question is out of my mouth, I regret it. Do I really want to know?

  “Oh, that’s why I brought an entire pitcher of activated bluestone. It’ll dissolve your skin and flesh.” She pauses, tilting her head to the side as if she’s considering an interesting problem. “I hope I brought enough.”

  Somehow, that’s what kicks my fear into high gear. She is absolutely going to kill me. If I don’t do something to save myself, she’s going to kill me, and then she’s going to kill the princess. She’ll marry Kane, get all the power she’s always wanted, and maybe eventually kill him, too.

  Ah, crap. She’s probably the one who tries to assassinate the princess. Duh. That makes perfect sense. It is her I have been working against all along.

  If I don’t stop her, she’ll ruin everything.

  Besides, being dissolved from the inside out doesn’t sound like much fun, so I’m going to have to do something about that anyway.

  I look around, desperate for anything that I can use as a weapon. Unfortunately, Morgan’s austere, modern decorating style doesn’t leave much for me to work with.

  But I’ve had less. Against bigger, droolier opponents than her. At least with her, I know where her vulnerabilities are.

  She takes another step closer to me and once again grabs my wrist.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I may be gullible, but I’m not a pushover.”

  With my free hand, I reach up and grab her hand, pinching my thumb hard into the soft tissue between her hand and her thumb, and wrench her hand off my arm. Then I slam the back of my fist into her nose and quickly follow it up with an elbow to her temple.

  She doesn’t crumble, but she stumbles forward, which gets her close enough for me to wrap my hands around the back of her head and slam my knee into her face over and over.

  But humans are physically weaker than the Tuatha. Besides, she’s already damaged my left wrist. When she stumbles back, wrenching herself out of my grasp, I can’t hold on to more than a clump of hair in my right fist.

  “Stop it,” she growls.

  I follow with a crescent kick to her head. She stumbles back again, hitting the sink, but then throws her full weight at me. Her shoulder rams into my chest, and we both go flying back against the wall.

  Here’s where she has the upper hand. All she has to do is touch me. I need space to punch and kick. She doesn’t. She wraps her hands around my throat. I bring my arms up between her forearms and force them apart, then slam my head into her nose.

  Tuatha may be naturally stronger than humans, but someone can take only so many blows to the nose before it starts gushing blood.

  The broken nose only pisses her off. Her doe eyes blaze and become predator-like as she grabs my shoulders. My joints instantly burn. Her blood drips onto the floor, bright dots against the white tile. I snake my foot out, wrap it around the back of her legs, and pull.

  We both go down, sliding across the floor and landing with a bone-jarring thud. We roll over once, twice. I make it back on top. Crippling pain pulses down from my shoulders to my arms. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt. What the hell is she doing to me? Even if I stop her, even if I could kill her now, I might not make it. I wrench her hands from one part of my body, only to have her grab me somewhere else. Every defense I have against her, she matches. And that’s when it hits me. She’s going to win.

  She is stronger than I am. Physically, I am no match for her. Even with all my years of Tae Kwon Do. Even with my indomitable will to live, she is stronger.

  I will die here. My mother will never know what happened to me.

  What will she think? That I ran away? That I was kidnapped? That after all she’s done to protect me from the dangers of the Kingdoms of Mithres, I got kidnapped by some human serial killer and my bones are rotting in a grave somewhere?

 
And what about Kane? If I die here, will he believe Ro’s lies? That I left without saying goodbye? Will he still take the throne? Will Ro eventually convince him to marry her? I don’t accept that. I don’t accept either of those things.

  I wasn’t made to want things beyond my reach. I was made to reach for the things I want.

  I want to live.

  I want to go home.

  I want to save Kane.

  Isn’t that what I thought when I first came here? That saving Kane was what I was made to do. Then, by God, I’m going to do it.

  I may not be able to keep her from touching me with my human hands, but those aren’t the only hands I have anymore.

  I stretch out my Sleeker arms, and I wrap them around her arms and pull them off my body.

  “You may be able to kill me, but you’re not going to do it today.” She fights me, struggling to get her arms free from my Sleeker hands, but I keep pulling them, inch by inch, away from my skin. “You may be stronger than the parts of me that are human. But my humanity makes the parts of me that are Sleeker stronger than you.”

  Ro stares up at me. She knows she’s beaten. But she still has so much rage in her that she can’t admit it. Instead, she spits in my face.

  “Nice,” I say. I struggle to my feet, keeping my Sleeker arms wrapped around her. And when she tries to pull free, I wrap them around her again and again, pinning her own arms to her sides.

  Holding her away from me, I struggle to my feet, pulling air into my lungs, trying to soothe my suddenly racing heart.

  I take a step toward the bathroom door, and my legs nearly buckle. I feel myself sway.

  How much damage has she done to my body? My bones feel barely strong enough to support my weight.

  I stumble backward. Only the strength of my Sleeker arms keeps Ro within my grasp.

  “You are weak,” she sneers.

  “Not too weak to defeat you.”

  “You’ve gained nothing. You won’t live long, now that I’ve dissolved most of your bones. If you even trip, you’ll break.”

  “I’ve saved Kane. I might live long enough to make it home to my mother. I’ll warn her about Smyth. If I do die, I die on my own terms.” I use my Sleeker arms to tug her a little closer to me. “And I’ll die knowing you didn’t win.”

  I reach behind me and open the bathroom door. I stumble out, keeping one shoulder to the wall to support me as I drag her along.

  I gaze across the vast distance of this guest room. Once I make it to the door, I have that long as hell walk down the gallery. And then I have to find Kane, Morgan, and the princess.

  Goddamned rich people and their goddamned big houses.

  Before I can even summon the strength to take the first step, the door flies open and Kane and Morgan rush into the room, the princess on their heels.

  “Ro—” I am weaker than even I knew, and I can barely gasp out the words. “Tried to kill me. She’s working with Smyth.”

  “We know,” Kane says. “I know. I know everything.”

  I want to ask what he means by that. But instead, I fall to the floor. And I break.

  Excerpt from

  Book Five of The Traveler Chronicles:

  The Traveler Undone

  I’ve gotten into a few fights over the years. I’ve been hurt. I’ve been beaten. I’ve been knocked so hard on my ass, I didn’t think I could get back up.

  But seeing her hurt, seeing her broken…that just about killed me.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  I wake in unimaginable pain.

  Turns out, there is nothing as bad as having your bones almost dissolve, and then breaking most of them.

  Having them healed again, one by one, is no picnic either.

  That’s the pain that wakes me up. I’m screaming, struggling to get up, but unable to, since, as I mentioned, the bones in my arms are all broken.

  Once again, I am lying on the bed in Morgan’s guest bedroom. Once again, someone is weaving the calcium back into my bones.

  “What?” That’s all I’m able to get out.

  “Don’t move,” Kane says from beside me where he’s sitting on the bed, his hip by my shoulder.

  He reaches out a hand and brushes my hair out of my eyes.

  “Ro?”

  “Morgan is holding her in another room.” Kane closes his eyes briefly, and I sense all of the things he doesn’t say aloud.

  That Ro’s betrayal is as hard on him as it is devastating to Morgan. Everything Morgan has ever done since he was seven has been to protect Ro.

  I cannot imagine what this will cost him.

  Somehow, I know this is one more thing that Kane will torture himself over. Saving his own sister cost Morgan his.

  I know Ro would call that weakness—Kane feeling guilt about something that he had no control over—but I don’t. I call it humanity. I call it empathy. And it is what makes Kane…well, Kane.

  “Then who is healing me?”

  Kane’s lips twist in a wry smile. “Remember all of those shifters that Ro berated?”

  “The earth shifters?”

  “Exactly. They have the same powers that she has. They can all heal bones. What she did to you was unconscionable, but thankfully, the people who can fix it are a dime a dozen.”

  “What will happen to her?”

  “She tried to kill you. She tried to kill the princess. She plotted to overthrow the government. Even in our world, those are grave offenses.”

  “She’ll go to prison?”

  “We don’t have prisons. We have only punishments.”

  I nod, closing my eyes. And I can’t help but think that what Smyth told Morgan all of those years ago was true after all. Within twenty-four hours of him letting go of time, his sister would die.

  With that thought, I close my eyes and will myself to sleep, partly to avoid the physical pain, mostly to hide from what I have done to Morgan. I promised him that his sister would be safe. I had no idea I was lying.

  Excerpt from

  Book Five of The Traveler Chronicles:

  The Traveler Undone

  I hate killing chaos demons.

  Every time you snuff out one of them, it creates a vacuum, and two more demons rush in to fill the void. Then they fight for dominance and create that much more chaos. If you’re really unlucky, they’ll kill three or four more in the process.

  Basically, you kill one chaos demon and it all goes downhill from there.

  Chaos loves a vacuum.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  When I wake, the room is dark and I am alone. The good news is, the agonizing pain of 206 broken bones has been replaced with a dull throbbing ache and a ravenous hunger. Probably dehydration, too.

  I roll to the side of the bed and push myself into a sitting position, swinging my legs over the edge. I sit there for a minute, making sure that I don’t feel any ill effects from being broken and then healed.

  In the bathroom, Ro’s bright blue blood has been scrubbed from the floor. I turn on the water faucet and take several long drinks, cupping my hands. I am almost afraid to look in the mirror. I’m sure the last two days have taken a toll. But it’s not as bad as I expected. Besides, my hair looks cute. That counts for something, right?

  I go back to the bedroom and find my messenger bag sitting on the bench. Beside it is Kane’s coat. Why didn’t he take it with him earlier?

  I sling the messenger bag over my shoulder, then dig through it to find my phone and check the time. It’s early Sunday morning. If I’m going to get home before my mother, now is the time to do it.

  I toy with the idea of trying to open a threshold here. It might be easier—sneaking out in the dead of night.

  I close my eyes and hold my hands in front of my face the way I did the one time I was able to open a threshold on Crescent Island. I w
ait for the tingle of magic to dance across my skin. But when it does, I drop my hands and let it go.

  It would be easier, but way more cowardly.

  “Don’t go yet,” Kane’s voice says from behind me.

  I whirl around to see him standing in the open doorway, his shoulder propped against the doorjamb.

  “I wasn’t going to.”

  Kane raises his eyebrows. I drop my gaze to the latch on the front of my messenger bag and fiddle with it.

  “Well, I had just decided not to.”

  Kane walks into the room, crossing to stand so close, I can smell the clean, leathery scent of him. How does he still smell like leather when he doesn’t have his jacket? That doesn’t seem fair.

  I wait for him to say something. Anything. When he doesn’t, I finally look up at his face and meet his gaze.

  “I know you have to go,” he says, his voice rough. He leans down, pressing his forehead to mine and closing his eyes. “But I wish you didn’t.”

  “Don’t say that,” I whisper, squeezing my own eyes closed against the tears.

  He pries his hands off me, holding them stiffly, like he doesn’t know what to do with them now. “I know what I have to do. Kissing you isn’t going to make it any easier.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say softly, even though I’m not sure what I’m apologizing for.

  He turns back, running a hand through his hair. “No. I’m the one who’s sorry. I wish…” He turns away and walks over to the wall of windows that looks out into the night. “I know I have to marry the princess. That I have to accept the power of being High King. It’s what you want.”

  I almost laugh at that, the sort of panicked, frantic cackle that accompanies hysteria. “It’s not what I want. It’s what has to happen. Together, you and the princess can stop Smyth. There are more important things than you and me.”

  “And you can just accept that?”