His words strike me—he knows why this is all happening. I open my mouth to ask him the millions of questions crowding my head, but he yanks me again, pulling me forward faster.
“Not now,” he says. “No time for questions.” Like he’s reading my mind.
We come to a sparser part of the forest, and he pauses, looking around frantically. He whistles, and a huge bird swoops down from an upper branch, landing on a root nearby. Lailoken leans over like he’s listening to the creature.
I stare at the owl. The perfectly soft white and tan feathers. The black eyes reflecting the forest around us.
“Fionn,” I say in amazement. Kieran said the bird was dead!
“He whispers that Mr. Winter is this way,” Lailoken says, pointing through the shadowed trees.
I don’t look away from the owl. No, this can’t possibly be the same bird. It just can’t, not so many years later.
Of course, I’m apparently talking to this guy, who was alive back then too, so . . .
The bird takes off, disappearing into the limbs above.
“Was that Fionn?” I dare to ask.
Lailoken uses his long staff to move the curling arm of a fern off the path. “It’s a maybe and a most definitely. It isn’t my place to say what spirit returns to me now and then.”
The vision of the bird splits me in two again. I feel the familiarity of the trees around me and the cool, damp air—Lily’s longing for it all—but this time I don’t push her back. I want to believe that Fionn was three feet away from me just now, that he’s still alive. It makes the magic in this world seem less horrible, after all the manipulation and dead bodies.
We come to a denser part of the forest again, and Lailoken slows, tapping his staff on a tree with a hollow thunk, thunk, thunk, like he’s knocking to be let in.
Another squirrel scuttles from above and begins to chatter, its tail ticking and swishing.
“They come this way,” Lailoken says to me, waving at the trees ahead. “Hiding is necessary, I believe. We should choose our moment wisely.” He tugs on my sleeve, urging me back behind a rock, and presses me into a bush. I search the trees ahead expectantly. When we hear the crunching of brush and pine needles underfoot, I duck lower behind the rock.
“I think we should take the arrow out,” I hear Ben say. “It’s tearing his lung. It could make a mess, and he’s bleeding an awful lot. I didn’t think we were planning on killing him.”
“Enough sympathy, Ben,” Astrid says in a silky voice. “I know what the demi hunter can take.”
My gut clenches hearing them talk about Faelan, his wounds. And when I see the pair of them emerge from the trees, Faelan in tow, I nearly lunge forward. His hands are tied behind his back, the thick torque keeping him powerless. His blue shirt is coated in slick red, and his skin is ashen.
Lailoken grabs me by the arm, shaking his head. “Choose wisely,” he mouths.
Ben sets Faelan on the moss, leaning him against a tree. “How long, then? We could be wandering in this place for a fortnight at this rate. We’re not going to find the old bastard. He’s flown the coop.”
“We’ll worry about the monk after we catch the princess. Now that we have her protector she’ll sense it, and she’ll come. Any minute. The stupid bitch is in heat. You should’ve seen her mooning over him at the Introduction. She has no idea.” Astrid crouches beside Faelan. “Does she, lover?”
He opens his eyes slowly, grunting. “Bitch,” he mutters, blood glistening on his bottom lip.
She grabs the shaft of the arrow, staring at him. Then she leans close, kissing him full on the mouth, and yanks the arrow out in a swift jerk, laughing as she pulls it away.
He squirms. “What’ve you done, Astrid, you’ve gone too far—”
She kisses him again, swallowing his words. When she pulls away the second time, he glowers at her.
“You remember how to play our game, lover?” she asks softly, running a finger down his blood-soaked shirt to the waist of his pants. His blood is on her lips and smeared on her chin. “We’d play for hours under the willow. Skin and clover and sweat.”
My nails scrape against the rock.
“Go fuck yourself,” he says through his teeth.
A dark smile slinks up her lips, and she tugs on the waist of his pants, straddling him. “I will do it,” she says, “you know I will.” She reaches over to her boot and pulls out a smaller knife. She points it at his face, then aims down, cutting the collar of his shirt before ripping it and baring his chest.
He grunts in pain from the sudden movement.
My bones ache watching it. Lailoken takes my arm, like he wants to hold me back from stopping them. I have no idea what I’m waiting for. I can access all my power now. My torque is still in my pocket from when Kieran took it off earlier.
But a part of me knows I still don’t have total control over the fire, and I’m terrified of hurting Faelan.
Astrid trails the blade of the knife along his clavicle. “I’ll force you to break your vow,” she says. “Right here against this tree, with Ben to bear witness—your body never fails to respond to mine, does it? Then you’ll be forced to return to your brother. You’ll have no choice any longer.”
His vow. Could it somehow be keeping him free of his father’s House? But how? I thought he was an outcast.
“How could you?” he chokes out. “After everything, you’ve done this? You’ve sided with Mara, killed a pixie, cursed Marius, chased away an old human—and for what? Just to get me imprisoned again by my brothers, held by your manipulations, after all these centuries?”
She laughs. “Please, you’re amazing, but not enough to risk the Pit for. This isn’t about you at all; your punishment for leaving me alone is just a bonus.” She rests the blade of the knife against his cheek and leans forward. “This is about the newblood. I made a deal, you see. Your precious firebird is going to be worked on by the Princess of Bones. She’s going to drive your pupil completely mad. And then she’s going to siphon all that power from her, leaving her a dried-up husk.”
Faelan jerks, and the blade breaks his skin, cutting into his face. Blood runs down, slicking his jaw and neck.
Astrid grins as he squirms. “She’ll probably look like she did the night you dragged her from the gutter. And all will be complete.” She moves the tip of the blade in a circle on his shoulder. “I know you thought I’d changed my mind about leaving your brothers. But I never actually planned to go with you. I couldn’t believe you were serious. I’d hoped you’d challenge your brother and take over as master. But I should’ve known—always so noble. So I waited patiently, and my opportunity finally came. And now I get what I want by upgrading to Kieran, and Princess Mara will get to play her freaky games. I’m excited to watch the bitch you’re infatuated with live a horrifying eternity in the princess’s claws. It’s a win-win for me, really.”
A chill works through me as Faelan goes completely still.
Then a burst of noise comes from above, the sound of hundreds of birds filling the trees.
Astrid’s smile fades, and she yells into the forest, “You should come out now, Sage. Or I’ll make you watch me do more than cut him. Olly, olly, oxen free!”
Lailoken lets go of my arm, whispering, “Go play, Lily.”
FORTY-NINE
SAGE
“There she is.” Astrid smiles as I move away from the rock. “I thought I smelled you, newblood. How did you like the show?”
“A bit melodramatic,” I say, hoping my voice isn’t shaking.
“Sage,” Faelan says, sounding helpless. He shakes his head. “Just run.”
“Oh, she can’t leave her crush,” Astrid says. “She’d ruin the story.”
I give her a plastic grin. “I’m so going to hurt you, bitch,” I say. “Lots of pain.” And I mean every word. I’ve never in my life wanted to strangle someone so badly. I think this is what it feels like to be willing to kill. I’d be very okay with her not making it out of here a
live.
“Aren’t you precious,” she scoffs. But her lip twitches like she’s bluffing. “It’s so good of you to join us.”
“Get your ass off him,” I say. “Now.”
“Are you going to smite me, fire whore?” Her eyes fall to my chest.
“No torque,” I say. “You picked the wrong day to mess with me, bitch.”
But she laughs, like she’s got the upper hand. And then she places her palm on the ground.
“Run, Sage!” Faelan shouts.
A thick vine bursts out of the ground near my foot, scraping up my leg, curling around my hips, my waist, cutting into my sides in seconds. I try to jerk away, to pull free, but the vine holds, cuts into my skin. The growth branches off, capturing my wrists. And I’m stuck.
“Oops,” Astrid says, laughing again. She slides off Faelan’s lap and stands, then walks over to me.
My energy stirs in my chest, heating, but I hesitate. I’m not sure I know how to focus it yet. And she’s still too close to Faelan. I could kill him right along with her. If I can just burn away the vine—
A metal shackle clicks around my neck, latching from behind me. My energy presses at my skin, trapped. And Ben comes up beside me, giving me a shrug.
Astrid’s smile stiffens. “Double oops.” She’s a foot taller than I am, athletic, her striking features heightened by the glow of her white-blond hair.
I want to rip her perfect face off.
“I know you’re fond of your protector,” she says, her voice dripping with pity. “Such a shame. You realize that it’s never going to happen with him, right?” She looks me over, then glances at Faelan. “She’s barely a woman, my love. You weren’t seriously entertaining her childish infatuation, were you?”
She steps closer, holding up her hand and moving it around me like she’s feeling the air. She breathes out a derisive laugh. “The girl’s a virgin. How much will you wager you were her first kiss, lover?”
“Enough with the messing around, Astrid,” Ben says, sounding annoyed. “Let’s just get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”
“We still need the wizard,” she says.
“You already stabbed the crazy bastard. And we were running in circles looking for him for more than an hour before these idiots showed up.”
Stabbed? Lailoken didn’t look stabbed.
“His scent isn’t right,” Astrid says. “He’s probably masking it.” But she’s still looking me over, like she’s searching for a weakness.
“We don’t need him,” Ben says, “we’ve got the girl.”
“The monk has to die,” she snaps. “Princess Mara was very clear on that.”
“Why?” he asks, sounding done with it all. She shouldn’t have picked a twentysomething frat-boy shade for a sidekick.
“Just get the ivory bowl out of the pack,” she says, ignoring him. “Stop being such a child.”
Ben grumbles, then walks past me and starts digging in a bag by his foot.
I twist my wrists, trying to see how tight the vines are. There’s a little give, but not much.
Ben pulls a bone-white bowl out of the bag and walks it over to Astrid. “Can’t we just do this when we get back?”
She snatches the bowl from him. “I’m not traveling with him linked to her, dumbass.”
My mind races, trying to figure out what she means.
She steps over to Faelan and squats down, holding the bowl against his chest. She turns to look at me with stony eyes. “You better hope he fed before he came running for you. This takes a lot of blood.” She lifts the blade of her knife to his neck. “And he’s not like you, Daughter of Fire. He’s been cast off from his power source. So if this boy loses too much, he can die.”
Real panic hits me then, and I jerk against the vines holding me captive. “No! Don’t you dare!”
Her lips twist in a horrible smile.
She swipes with a quick flick of her wrist, like she’s finishing off an animal.
Faelan’s mouth opens, his throat moves, and his eyes widen. But he’s silent. His blood flows into the bowl, soon spilling over the edge.
My heartbeat thunders inside me. Fury beginning a storm.
A storm that can’t go anywhere.
Except . . . something tickles behind my eyes. And I smell sulfur. It’s not fire; it’s not the same as my other energy. It’s dark and horrible.
“Thank you, lover,” she whispers to Faelan. Then she moves away and turns to me, the bowl of Faelan’s blood cupped in her palm. There’s blood all over her hands and arms too. She looks like a crazy Serial Killer Barbie. “I was going to do this once Mara put you under,” she says to me, “but now you’ll have to be wide awake.”
From behind her, Faelan gasps for air. But I can’t take my eyes off her bloody hands. Faelan’s blood. Rage scrapes inside my skull. I want to rip her heart from her chest.
She raises the knife and puts the blade to my neck, just under the torque; it’s still warm. Her green eyes lock on mine. “And it really, really hurts to get a protector bond torn out.” Satisfaction fills her gaze as she looks into me. But then something catches her eye, and she focuses on my hands.
She cringes. “What . . . is that?”
Ben goes still, looking at me. “That’s not right.”
I turn to try and see what they’re looking at and spot threads of black smoke leaking from my fingertips. What the hell?
“That’s not supposed to happen,” Ben says. “She’s a fire demi.”
“Get this thing off me,” I growl.
They both jerk back like the sound of my voice physically hit them.
“Her eyes,” Astrid whispers. “They’re gold.”
Ben just shakes his head, seemingly terrified by something in my gaze. “We should hurry and bleed her.”
Astrid steps back in front of me, pressing the blade to my throat again.
I stare at her stupid flawless face and snarl, “I’m going to ki—”
She swipes the blade. Pressure fills my head, my eyes widening, my throat closing.
My heartbeat thunders. I can’t hear Faelan’s labored breathing anymore. All I hear is my hammering pulse and a raven crying in the distance. Everything else is going dim. I barely feel the cut, the loss of blood. Pain doesn’t exist.
My mind goes still, and a buzz starts in my hands. The stirring behind my eyes prickles again, more determined. The blood running over my shoulder, sliding down my chest, it doesn’t feel right. It isn’t warm.
It’s cold.
Astrid is standing several feet away now. She’s watching me with terror on her face.
“Take . . . it . . . off,” I choke out, straining at my bonds.
“How is this happening?” Ben asks, his voice quivering.
“She’s manifesting like a Morrígan,” Astrid says. “But her eyes . . .”
“She’s an abomination.” Ben steps closer, pulling out a large dagger. “We need to get her head off.”
“Don’t touch her!” Astrid rushes forward, reaching out to stop him.
But it’s too late. He grips my hair, tipping my head a little, readying the blade to cut.
And the black smoke seeping from my hands slides in his direction, curling around his neck in quick threads.
He stiffens, the knife falling from his fist. His mouth opens in a silent scream, eyes widening as ice crawls across his gaping face, spreading from where the smoke touches, the crystals growing, clouding his wide eyes. The buzzing in my hands radiates into my arms, my chest, shaking my bones as red mist drifts from Ben’s mouth into the air, on a hiss of breath.
The body crumples in on itself, wilting like a dying flower, collapsing to the forest floor with a crackle of frozen flesh. I stare down at his broken body, feeling nothing.
The torque that he locked around my neck strains, then snaps with a loud clink.
Instantly the chill in my blood sinks away, the strange dark threads of energy dissipating.
My skin warms, then
heats, the torn flesh on my neck shifting and tightening. Healing. The familiar pulse of my power fills my chest, then spills out, coating my skin. Fire flickers at my fingertips. The yellow and orange flames move over my torso, down my arms, snapping at the air with a steady hiss, turning the vines holding me to ash. As I step free, the fire slinks over the ground to Ben, and crawls up his legs, the dead body of the shade becoming a blaze.
Astrid is shaking her head in disbelief, backing away.
I barely believe it myself.
Something moves in the shadows beside her. A raven.
“Danu, save us,” Astrid whispers. And then she turns in a rush, grabbing her bow and running toward the trees. Running right into Kieran. His shoulders still seep black smoke from his transformation.
He grabs her by the neck before she can get past him. “Leaving so soon?”
“She’s an abomination!” Astrid gasps. “She broke the torque, manifested—there was smoke, black veins. She has Princess Lily’s eyes!”
“I know,” he says, like she’s dense. And then he drags her back to stand in front of me, gripping her neck.
I struggle to focus myself, trying to calm my nerves, trying to pull the fire back. It settles and sinks into my skin again, but the heat keeps swirling with my anger. “Where have you been?” I demand. “If you hadn’t noticed, we could’ve used help.”
“I’ve been watching,” he says. He admires me for a second, like he’s enjoying all of this. “I’ve been in the trees, my love, waiting for my moment. You’re doing a brilliant job, by the way.” He turns back to Astrid and says, “Now, explain to the princess why you’re attempting to destroy her.”
As soon as he lets go, she crumples to her knees. “I wouldn’t hurt her! Please, mistress,” she says, suddenly contrite. “Have mercy. I’m a simple servant, an underling of no consequence.”
I ignore her pleading and hurry to Faelan’s side. I take in the hole in his chest, skin streaked with blood, his hair matted with it, the gaping wound on his neck . . . His eyes are closed, his lips pressed together, as if he’s holding in a scream.
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