by May Dawson
I stopped then, and I felt him freeze a second after I did.
I leaned back, my thighs still against his, so I could look him in the face. His eyes had dilated slightly, and there was something raw written across his face, just for a second, before it was gone. I studied him appraisingly.
“Nah,” I said. “I don’t feel it.”
He stared at me, then those eyes shuttered, every bit of emotion vanishing from his face. He caressed my cheek with his thumb, brushing a wayward strand of hair back behind my ear.
“Me neither,” he agreed. Then he smiled, oh so coldly. “But I’ll still drag you under the waves, princess. Just for fun.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
As soon as the door clanked shut behind the guard, Tiron demanded, “Are you all right?”
“Perfect,” I assured him. Azrael gazed at me with a frown crinkling his brow between those deep purple eyes, and Duncan must have been concerned because he didn’t even snort at my answer. I raised my hand with the keys shining between my fingers. “Walked off with the keys.”
“You are amazing,” Tiron said, and it made me smile. I unlocked the cold chains the guards had just clasped closed around my wrist and ankles, then tossed the keys to Tiron, because he was my favorite at the moment.
The four of us had soon shed all our shackles, easing them quietly to the ground.
“Alisa,” Azrael said as he pressed himself against the wall by the door, and Duncan moved to do the same on the other side, “Would you mind causing a ruckus?”
“Sure,” I said. I sat down on the floor, placing the shackle lightly around my ankle so it wouldn’t lock, and then shouted, “Guard! Guard! I need some help over here.”
A few seconds later, the guard’s suspicious face appeared in the barred window. “What?”
“I just started my period,” I said.
Behind the door, Duncan pressed his hand against the bridge of his nose as if I gave him a headache.
“I need supplies, and a bathroom, and a bath¸ stat,” I said. “And I don’t know if you’ve met Prince Raile, but I’m going out on a limb here and suggesting he’d want me to have those things.”
The guard glanced at someone unseen down the hall, who said, “Well, that sounds like a trap.”
“It does. It sounds like nonsense,” the guard agreed, then walked away down the hall.
“Fine,” I called. “It’s not as if Raile threw someone overboard for offending me before. Did you manage to fish that poor male out of the water? Prince Raile really has no sense of humor, does he?”
I could have sworn I heard the guard stop halfway down the hall and sigh.
“Still ninety percent likely to be a trap,” said the other guard.
“Go find out what Raile wants to do with her.”
“You want me to wake him to discuss the princess’ menstrual cycle?” He sounded disbelieving.
“Yes!” The guard sounded desperate.
“I can’t believe this is my life,” the second guard muttered. “My parents were absolutely right. I should have gone to the academy. But no, I wanted to join the military and see the world…”
“Would you just go?”
“I’m really supposed to say that she’s on her period? He’s in love with her!”
“I know it’s been a long time for you, Adien, but I have news. Females still have their cycles even when someone is in love with them.”
Duncan was gripping the bridge of his nose now as if for dear life. Tiron, on the other hand, had his head down; his shoulders shook with suppressed laughter.
“You go, then!” one guard shouted at the other.
“Fine. I’ll go.”
The wait took forever before the guard clomped into the hall outside and said, “Raile said to give her what she wanted. I found some… clean clothes.” There was a hesitation, then the guard sounded traumatized as he added, “He made…faces.”
“We both should have gone to the academy.”
“Yes, yes we should have.”
When the guards finally opened the door, my males were a blur. The two guards were quickly knocked unconscious.
“I feel kind of sorry for them,” I said, glancing back at the guard who still gripped a clean shirt and trousers in one arm, despite being slumped on the floor, his face slack.
Males and periods. Most of them are so uncomfortable, in every world, apparently.
“They’ll be fine,” Azrael said briskly, swinging the door closed behind us and locking it. “Feel sorry for us. We still have to make it to shore.”
As we turned through the narrow passages and climbed the stairs through the ship, Azrael stuck close to me; Duncan and Tiron spread out to either side. I didn’t need Az to protect me, but hey, maybe he was scared of the Shadow Man and needed to stay close. I would have mentioned that possibility if I didn’t need to be stealthy.
When we stepped out onto the top deck, they darted forward to grab the two sailors who were on watch. One of them managed to squeak before Duncan’s arm slid around his throat; a few seconds later, they both dropped to the ground, unconscious.
The wind seemed to lash the sea, whipping the waves into white-foamed furor. My hair blew into my face, blinding me for a second as lavender strands stuck to my face, and I quickly tied it back.
In the distance there was a blur of green along the horizon. It was a long way—quite a distance for Tiron and I to fly with our burdens—but my heart still leapt at the sight.
“We’re starting to turn away from shore,” Azrael said grimly. “We’re close to the reefs. And the monsters.”
“Thanks to the rift, we’re always close to the monsters,” Duncan reminded us. He turned to Tiron. “Well?”
The question was unnecessary. Tiron already had raised his hands, and his face was tight with purpose, his teeth gritted. Blue-white magic crackled around his fingertips.
The ship groaned as the side scraped against the ice that had suddenly appeared before it fractured. But beyond the broken ice bobbing in the water, a long, shining slick path of ice rose above the waves, stretching out toward shore until I lost sight of amidst the chaos of the water. Waves broke against it steadily, seeming to explode against the ice, casting droplets high into the air.
“I am impressed,” Azrael said, casting a glance at Duncan that was full of concern. Azrael seemed to have many other feelings besides impressed.
Duncan shot him a look right back. “We’ve got to go,” he said urgently.
“Looks like you’ll have to trust my wings,” I said, catching Azrael by the wrist.
The look on his face was both resigned and unenthusiastic, but he stepped up on the edge of the ship’s railing without hesitation. He balanced there easily despite the rocking of the ship as it crested the waves, his toes hanging over the edge of the railing, and offered me a hand up.
I spread my wings with a pop. It felt as if they loomed above me, shimmering and beautiful and still unfamiliar.
Despite the precariousness of his situation, Az looked at me as if he loved my wings.
I launched myself off the deck and caught him under the arms, breathing in his scent of crisp leaves and woodsmoke, as we soared above the open sea. The wind seemed to tug at us, and I lurched through the air, unaccustomed to carrying his body weight. But Azrael’s face was calm, and although he looped his arm around my waist, he didn’t cling to me as if he were afraid. He looked as if he was certain I could carry him. I wondered if I had, in the past.
“Alisa!” The crazed scream was almost lost to the rush of the wind.
I turned back, my wings fluttering frantically to keep us above those white-capped waves.
Tiron’s hands hung loose by his side, no long sparking magic. Faer pressed close behind him, gripping him tightly with one arm. A long, wicked blade dug into Tiron’s throat, and his chin tilted up, trying to avoid the knife, even though his eyes were defiant.
“Take me back,” Az said, his voice determined. “Once we ge
t Tiron free, you two fly. Duncan and I will find another way.”
The ice bridge was melting away beneath us anyway, and it cracked loudly as more waves washed over it. I glanced down, debating whether to drop Az to the tentative safety. Maybe Tiron could launch himself toward us and grab Duncan, who leaned forward fiercely, glaring at Faer as if he might manage to murder him with his eyeballs. But it was a long shot. Faer not only had the knife Tiron had to escape, Faer had wings too.
“Alisa.” Az’s voice was commanding, and while that tone normally irritated me, right now I understood his tension.
I rocketed us back toward the ship, dropping Az as soon as we cleared the railing. He landed lightly on his feet, catching himself with superhuman grace.
Faer stared at me as if he couldn’t look at anyone else; his eyes glittered with fury. There was no sign in his face of a brother who ever loved me.
“Let them go, Faer,” I said. “This is between you and me. Whatever I did to you, let’s talk about it. Fight about it. Kill each other over it. I’m fine with any of those options.”
His lips twisted. “You are always such a disappointment, Alisa.”
“Because I escaped? Or because I came back?” I asked lightly.
“I think you would be far easier to deal with if you were as friendless as you deserve to be.” His fingers seemed to twitch on the knife’s hilt. Tiron’s Adam’s apple bobbed above the blade, just before a thin line of red opened along his throat.
“Don’t hurt him,” I said, my voice urgent. “Please. Faer. I’ll do what you want—I’ll go with Raile. Just let the three of them go. You get what you want.”
His brows arched. “Do I?”
I stared at him, perplexed by what he wanted with Tiron, but he turned to Azrael, moving Tiron’s body with him.
“Just do it,” Tiron gritted out.
“I’m really tired of both of you,” Faer said to Azrael. “What are you going to do to rescue your pet this time?”
“Faer,” Azrael said. “He’s nothing to you. He’s just a boy.”
Faer’s desire for blood flared in his eyes, and Az raised his hands in a placating gesture.
Duncan took a step forward, his body angled toward Faer, and Az’s gaze flickered toward him warningly. The blade bit deeper into Tiron’s throat, blood streaming freely down his skin and soaking his shirt to his chest, and Duncan paused.
“He’s just a boy from a destroyed kingdom,” Azrael said, his voice low and soothing. “He isn’t even worth your attention.”
“Why do you pay him so much attention, then?” Faer demanded. Tiron’s blood covered his hand in streaks now, and a droplet trickled slowly down his wrist, running into the sleeve of his tunic. Faer didn’t seem to notice; he could barely take his gaze from mine.
“He’s my brother’s best friend, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but Duncan doesn’t make friends too easily,” Az said. “Just let him go, Faer. You won. You always win.”
Beyond Duncan, a tall, broad-shouldered figure emerged from the shadows. Raile. Great; now the odds were more in Faer’s favor. Raile might well be armed, just as Faer was, and the four of us had nothing but our wits.
Faer smiled thinly. “You seem to have forgotten our deal, Azrael. Faithlessness is always punished in the Fae world—if not by magic itself, then I guess I’ll have to do it.”
He dug the knife into Tiron’s throat, and despite himself, Tiron let out a grunt of pain and fear.
“Enough,” Raile warned, striding forward suddenly into the chaos. Faer paused, the tip of the blade digging in just below Tiron’s lifted chin. “I said no weapons.”
“What do you care?” Faer demanded.
“I don’t,” Raile said evenly. “I don’t give a damn about them, but I want the girl to love me. If you murder her lover in front of her, on my boat, it doesn’t exactly improve relations here.”
Faer’s brows tilted, and his gaze went back to me. “This one too, really, Alisa? Are you insatiable?”
“You wouldn’t understand how I can love more than one person because you don’t have enough love in your heart for even one. Don’t make that out to be my failing instead of yours.”
Suddenly, an eerie prickling ran down my spine, raising sudden goosebumps across my arms and legs. I glanced at Tiron, wondering if he was summoning some fierce winter storm. But he looked back at me still wide-eyed.
The Shadow Man. Understanding hit me.
The Shadow Man had found us.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The air between Faer and myself seemed to ripple. One second, I could see Faer and his grip on Tiron; the next, the Shadow Man was between us. His minions were suddenly everywhere, like a dozen shadows except they were moving without being cast.
“You ran from me, daughter of Herrick,” the Shadow Man growled.
“Couldn’t help myself. You’ve got bad breath,” I retorted. I glanced at Az from the corner of my eye, as if he’d have the answer.
The look Azrael gave me in return suggested we were truly fucked: on a ship that was steadily bearing away from the shore, facing Faer, Raile, and the damned Shadow Man himself.
“As far as I can tell,” I said, stalling for time as the Shadow Man took a step toward me. I still had no weapon. “There are two potentially unworthy heirs on deck at the moment. I don’t know what I did to be so special.”
The Shadow Man paused, his head sweeping back and forth as if he were searching. “I see no other usurpers intent on claiming a throne that isn’t theirs.”
“My brother is my twin,” I said, “and he doesn’t have any more claim on the throne than I do.”
“I see only the king of summer here,” the Shadow Man promised me.
Well, fuck diplomacy, then. I formed the ball of light the same way I had before, my fingers tingling with heat. I launched it at him, and the light flared across the boat, illuminating the world around us like a flash of lightning.
The shadow knights all rippled and disappeared as the light washed over them.
But the Shadow Man threw up a shield that seemed to have come from nowhere. The light bounced off the shield and then vanished, leaving all of us blinking in the depth of night once more.
“He’s got a shield now,” Azrael observed helpfully, through gritted teeth.
“Yes, I see that,” I said. “I hate when my enemies aren’t idiots.”
I didn’t have a weapon, but I shifted into a fighting stance anyway. First we had to get Tiron away from Faer safely; that was what mattered most. Then I’d deal with the Shadow Man.
Something would come to me along the way, I was sure. It always did. And no matter how bad the odds looked, Duncan, Az and Tiron were here with me too. We’d come up with something.
The Shadow Man raised his hand, and the shield disappeared. His enormous long sword—a broadsword so huge that no one should be able to carry it—rippled into existence, as if he was drawing it out of the night sky.
“Weird,” I said. “You really don’t give off that big-sword energy.”
“Would you please finally shut her up?” Faer demanded. He glanced at Raile, and I knew what he was going to do next just from the way his grip tightened on the slick hilt of the knife.
Before he could even speak, I hurled myself to the deck with all my momentum, landed hard on my ass, and slid through the Shadow Man’s legs. He tried to swing his sword, but I was in close enough to make him clumsy, and the sword plunged into the deck. The force of it reverberated through the boards, shaking the ground underfoot. Or under-ass, in my case.
Tiron didn’t hesitate. He launched himself upward, his wings snapping out into Faer.
Faer stumbled back, the knife flying from his hand—but an arc of blood hung in the air too, then splattered across the deck.
Tiron shot up into the sky, framed against the low-slung clouds. He seemed to hang there for a second before he plummeted back toward the ship.
Azrael was already moving to catch him.
Faer moved toward him with murder in his eyes, but Duncan was already there, slamming into Faer. He knocked him into the mast, his hands gripping Faer’s throat as if he would kill him.
The Shadow Man stalked me silently across the ship’s deck, and I threw myself at the bloodied knife. I barely evaded his blade and rolled across the hard floorboards, coming up onto my feet with the knife in my hands.
The Shadow Man looked from my knife, to the long blade of his sword, back to my knife—then raised his face to mine and smiled. The expression was chilling.
Azrael caught Tiron, letting out a grunt of effort at the force of his body landing in his arms. Tiron’s head lolled back, exposing the deep red smile carved into his throat, and the first wave of true panic rolled through me. Not Tiron.
“Enough,” Raile said, his voice rolling across the deck full of power, as if he could command us all, even the Shadow Man himself.
The Shadow Man didn’t seem to buy into Raile’s power, because he gripped his sword in two hands and began to raise it, facing me.
Raile muttered a word, raising one hand, and suddenly the air seemed to ripple. He was already moving, slamming into Azrael and Tiron.
Az was still getting a grip on Tiron when Raile knocked them sideways, toward the ripple, which suddenly turned into a split in the air itself. I caught a glimpse of something green beyond and brighter than it was out here on the sea.
Then Azrael and Tiron stumbled through it and were gone, and the rip sealed behind them.
Raile threw out his other hand, and Faer and Duncan flew apart from each other, the two of them slamming into the deck.
“Come on,” he shouted at Duncan, before he whirled and caught me around the waist.
I was moving to attack the Shadow Man, to use my speed and agility against him no matter how small my weapon, but Raile threw me off. I pushed back against him as he yanked me toward the edge of the ship.
Faer sat up on the deck and raised his hands, summoning his own magic. The Shadow Man moved toward us with his red eyes glowing and murderous purpose in his relentless gait.