by Alex Lidell
“River is right,” says Tye, trotting forward to catch the loose horses. “Plus, I little want to step there today if I can help it.”
I taste the words for the lie they are. Of course he wants to be with his quint brothers, fighting back to back instead of playing nursemaid to me. I reach into my pocket, where the stone Klarissa gave me burns my mind. The quint is taking care of me. Do I not owe them the same courtesy in return?
“Run!” River bellows, the cold, hard command making Sprite and me jump.
I grip my saddle, barely keeping my seat as I spin frantically to find what has the male on alert. I see it a heartbeat later, my mouth opening in a wordless scream as the air not ten paces behind me ripples and stretches to birth slithering brown worms. Slimy, ridged bodies thick as maple trees fall to the earth. Maws of needle-sharp teeth, absurdly white and large enough to gnaw off a leg in a single chomp, open and close blindly. Rhythmically. Hungrily. The soft, dragging sound of their movements makes bile rise up my gullet.
28
Leralynn
Tye pulls up beside me, grabbing Sprite’s reins again. “We need to run, Lilac Girl,” he says, his voice icy calm. “Very fast. Hold on.”
“No!” I jerk the reins from him, my hands shaking. My pulse races so hard that the world blurs, and Sprite dances beneath me as she senses my fear. “We aren’t splitting up. You can’t leave them. I can’t leave them.”
River is off his horse now, standing with his feet wide apart, his shoulders open to the piling beasts. And they are piling—five, a dozen, two dozen, too many to count. The breeze carries their rotten-egg stench to me and ruffles River’s dark hair as the male holds his hand out toward the worms. An energy that makes my tongue tingle crackles in the air.
Then the very earth shifts. A crater two paces wide and twenty paces long opens between the worms and us, the creatures falling over its edge almost as quickly as new ones follow them from the Gloom.
Sprite’s eyes roll in her head, the dancing and bucking beneath me all too familiar. Thanks to bloody Coal, I know exactly when I’m about to get thrown.
“What the hell are you doing?” Tye demands as I slide from the saddle to the ground a moment before Sprite starts on her next bucking spree.
“Avoiding breaking my neck,” I breathe.
Tye curses and swings down from his saddle, pushing me roughly behind his wide back while the horses run free and away, like the bright creatures they are. Ahead of us, the worms—piranhas, Klarissa’s voice explains in my memory—continue to fill the crater, the vanguard building the foundation for others to fall upon.
“They will spill over shortly,” River says. “I don’t have enough energy to deepen the chasm.” Calm. Matter of fact. As if a hundred man-eating worms fall out of the air every day.
Tye looks over his shoulder at me, his eyes drinking me in. “Your job is to stay alive,” he says, the air around his hands swarming with lapping orange and yellow flames. “Don’t get heroic. All right?”
“No danger of that,” I say, my mouth dry. “Do what you need to do.”
A short nod and Tye turns to step up beside River, his arms extended toward the crater. The smell of burnt rot hits me a few moments later as Tye’s fire magic attacks the worms.
The creatures sizzle and steam but seem disinclined to catch fire.
“We’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way,” Tye calls, drawing his sword, his body moving with a dancer’s grace as he splits the first escaped piranha in half. A second worm is already following, the never-ending pile of them refusing to slow.
I twist about, my own helplessness pounding me. Coal and Shade are still in the Gloom; River and Tye barely hold a school of piranhas at bay. The once-crisp air is thick with bile, rotten eggs, and the mute sizzling of the worms.
“If you want to help them, you need to stay alive,” a voice says behind me. An arm in leather armor wraps around my waist, an unfamiliar bitter scent filling my nostrils. Pyker. The male bends his body protectively over mine as he turns to point toward the foothills a few hundred paces to our left. “There is a cave close by,” Pyker says into my ear. “One with an entrance narrow enough that I can hold it myself. Can you run?”
I swallow. “The others—”
“The others need to be a full, real quint, not this perverted version of it,” Pyker says bluntly, his arm pressing me into motion. “But they need to be worrying about protecting a bystander even less. If you can’t be an asset, then at least stop being a liability. Unless you want to die and drain what power they have.”
Pyker’s cold words wash through me, the truth of them stinging my nerves. The cave. Yes. Close and protected so no one need worry for my sake.
“All right,” I breathe, letting the male pull me along as I focus on my feet, willing them to move faster toward the cave. “Where is it exactly?”
Pyker points with his sword at something still a hundred paces off. Maybe more.
“We’ve different definitions of ‘close by,’” I pant, my lungs burning.
“Move, human,” Pyker yells, slowing to match my shorter strides. Behind us, the sounds of battle—cracking earth, the spit and crackle of flames, the thick, wet thuds of swords slicing worms—are deafening for their quiet rhythm. “Faster. Run for your life—and your quint’s life too.”
I do. I focus on the pounding of my feet, begging my muscles and lungs to work through the pain, willing myself to reach the cave mouth growing before us.
“Bloody stars.” The change of tone in Pyker’s curse jerks me from my survival trance.
I look up to see a dark-clad figure with a sword rushing at us from the very opening Pyker and I are headed for. The dark fae warrior’s steel flashes in the bright sun, Pyker’s own blade coming up to meet it with a deafening clash that has me screaming in spite of myself.
The new male pulls back, spinning with his next blow. The blade cuts so quickly that I hear the whistle of air along the steel as it swings for Pyker’s side.
Pyker’s blade snaps down and he grunts as he parries the blow. His other hand sweeps out to grab me, pulling me behind him. Protecting me with his body the way Tye did.
Except it isn’t working the same way, because Pyker’s body is moving too. Spinning. A slave to the recoil of his last parry. He’s lost control, I realize with an icy shock. Pyker has lost control, and this wild attempt to save me will get me cut to pieces instead.
I shove away from him, summoning all my strength to throw myself clear of the melee.
Instead of releasing me, Pyker’s arm tightens, and a second realization strikes me with cold clarity.
He never lost control.
A trap. This is all a trap to get the quint separated. To get me killed despite Pyker’s heroic attempts to save my life. To pave the way for the males—my males—to welcome Pyker into their fold.
I am too angry to even scream as Pyker swings me directly into the path of the dark warrior’s coming blade.
The male catches my gaze, grinning wickedly as he swings for my neck. A fountain of red blood splatters his brown tunic.
I wait for the pain. The dizziness. The darkness.
The world stubbornly refuses to so much as blink.
So I blink instead. Blink and realize that the blood on the dark male’s clothing is his own, spurting around the tip of Coal’s blade, which has just pierced the bastard from back to front.
Pyker steps away from us, his breath heavy, his eyes wide. “Thank the stars—” he starts to say.
“Down!” Coal orders, throwing himself on top of me, pinning me beneath his muscular frame.
My head rings from the impact against the ground. In the sliver of daylight between Coal’s body and the earth, I see an arrow flying down at us from the cliffs. Then another. Another still. For a heartbeat, confusion rushes through me. At least one of the projectiles should have hit us by now. Surely the high-up archer isn’t so bad as to miss a stationary target, shot after shot.
On
e heartbeat and then I realize the truth. The archer is hitting us. And Coal is taking each and every arrow as he continues to cover me in silence.
29
Leralynn
The world around me slows. Each contraction of my heart lasting an eternity as reality lays itself bare before me. It is amazing how clear the truth is when stripped to the bare facts.
The archer will continue firing.
Coal is going to die.
Unless I buy Coal’s life with my own.
My gaze shifts, finding Pyker standing before us, making a show of being a shield against an archer who isn’t aiming for him. Still working on that illusion.
Good. That is the one piece of leverage I have on Pyker—Coal’s ignorance of Pyker’s treason and Pyker’s desire to keep it that way.
“Pyker,” I command from beneath Coal. “Pull me into the Gloom.”
“No,” Coal growls, the fury vibrating through his injured muscles, his precious breath warm in my ear. “Piranhas there.”
Of course there are piranhas there. There must be, if they are spilling out into the Light. But since I’m going to die anyway, facing a few worms seems to little matter. Ignoring Coal’s protest, I lock eyes with Pyker. “Pull me into the Gloom,” I tell him again. “It’s safer for me there.”
Pyker’s eyes narrow. It’s death for me there, and he knows it. But he also knows that I know of his treason. And he understands my request, if not my reason for making it. Pull me into the Gloom, Pyker, and there won’t be anyone to contradict your account when I die.
Pyker’s hand reaches for mine.
“No!” Coal gasps, his breath failing. “Not. Safe. For. Her.”
“I want the Gloom,” I say loudly, grasping Pyker’s extended arm and smiling sadly as Coal’s desperate roar to his quint brothers follows me out of the Light.
With the next breath, I am there. Here. The river, the path, the mountain—it’s all as it was a moment earlier. Except not. The sparkling water is dull, the grass gone, the moss growing on the rock face thick and glowing with a faint blue tint. A washed-out, wrinkled version of the upper world.
“Satisfied?” Pyker says, letting go of my hand.
Ignoring him, I twist about, getting my bearings. Distances are different here—smaller, if I’ve wagered right based on Coal having gotten to me as quickly as he did.
Yes. The mass of piranhas that was a hundred paces off in the Light is less than twenty steps away now, the slithering mass crawling up, up, up into the nothingness that I know is their gateway into the Light. The cavern River opened doesn’t exist here. Interesting.
“Where are all the piranhas coming from?” I ask Pyker. Not that it matters, but I’m curious.
The male points to the center of the crawling worms. “A deeper level of the Gloom. The wards are thin here, it seems.” Pyker’s voice is dull. “They will smell you in a moment, though. You’ll forgive me for not waiting around until—”
He breaks off as the air ripples and the four quint males step—or in Coal’s case, crawl—into the Gloom. Coal is beside me already, the others rushing from where they fought piranhas moments ago. Except it’s all closer now. We are all closer. The quint separated to protect me, but at least that problem is now corrected.
River’s eyes flash with a fury I can see even in the Gloom. “Why the hell are you here, Leralynn?”
Because I knew you’d come for me. Now come closer still. We’ve more to do. My gaze shifts to Coal, my throat burning. Several of the arrows failed to make the trip with him and their empty wounds now bleed freely.
Shade kneels beside Coal, the healer’s face grim.
“Shade, you have Coal,” River shouts as he and Tye step toward me. “Tye and I will take Leralynn.”
A noble attempt to save our lives, but even I know it won’t be enough. Fortunately, I’m about to correct the lack-of-power problem. Careful not to bring attention to myself, I press my foot against Coal’s arm as the other two close in.
River grabs my wrist.
I grab Tye’s.
There. Five. Shade touching Coal. River gripping me. Me pressing my skin against Tye and Coal both.
River’s eyes meet mine and widen just as the first wave of power pulses through our bond.
“I’ve claimed you, River,” I say before he can pull away. Speaking is hard. Not because of pain, but because of a sudden awareness of everything at once. Every sound. Every smell. Every taste. Every touch. “The quint is mine, as I am yours.”
My words falter with the next wave of power. And with it, there is no longer a Lera. No anyone else either. There is only the quint, our hearts beating as a single great force. I was planning to be dead. Instead, I’m more alive than I’ve ever been.
River hesitates only a moment before realizing what he must do. He lifts the hand not touching me and a wave of raw magic ripples before us. If I could choose where to look, I’d turn away from the writhing pile of piranhas splattering into a mass of goop. If I could move, I’d flinch away from the agony of magic searing Coal’s wounds closed. If I could speak, I’d shout about Pyker fleeing back into the Light.
But as I can do none of these things, I just hold on to River and Tye and Coal and Shade, and I entrust my life essence to them forever. They can have it all. The last thought is oddly peaceful, and I smile as the world finally dissolves into darkness.
30
Leralynn
I wake to the scent of citrus and pine and the rhythmic rustle of running water. The sun piercing my eyes blinds me for a moment, until something beneath me shifts, veering my face away from the inconsiderate rays. The cold air nips my face, but an insistent warmth seeps through my back and sides, balancing the chill. Which all leads to one undeniable conclusion. “Why the hell am I naked and in your lap, Tye?”
The green-eyed male grins down at me. “You must be in paradise.”
“If I’m in paradise, then stop ruining it with your cold hands,” I mumble, though it does no good, as Tye’s fingers continue stroking my face and forehead. I try to sit up, but Tye’s hold tightens and River’s concerned face appears in my field of vision.
The quint commander crouches beside me, his liquid gray gaze piercing into my own. I want to reach up a hand to smooth the worry lines on his forehead, but the wall he keeps around him is firmly in place.
“How is Coal?” I ask.
“Yes, in case you were wondering, you are alive, Leralynn,” River says flatly. “Not that you should be after your mortal body conducted enough magic to knock out a herd of horses, but you are.”
“For the time being,” Tye clarifies. “We make no promises once Shade learns you’re awake.”
“Is he very mad?” I ask.
“For tricking us into doing the one and only thing none of us were willing to risk?” Tye says, his hand still stroking my face. “For utterly disregarding the one demand he made of you? What do you think?”
“I think I might prefer piranhas’ company.” I shimmy to sit up more, relieved to see that Tye has at least covered me with a cloak. None of which explains why I’m naked to begin with. And as far as I can tell, so is Tye. “Did the magic kill my clothes, or is this your way of keeping me from running off from . . . Where are we exactly?”
“About a mile from where we were,” says River, and I look around what appears to be a partially covered alcove in the side of the mountain. A natural rock wall separates the space into two chambers, the water I heard earlier running over the partition in a tiny waterfall and feeding an outgoing stream. Ahead of us, the evergreen forest and distant river wink in the sun. “And you lack clothes because you were freezing and skin-to-skin contact was the most efficient way of warming you.”
I turn back to the rocks, blinking at the glowing blue moss covering them. No. I shake my head, clearing my vision. No blue moss. Just a bit of natural yellow and green growth.
“We’ve been trying to warm you for five hours,” River tells me, tucking the cloak tighter aro
und my shoulders. His gentle fingers and careful fussing are so at odds with the no-nonsense commander I’ve come to know that I feel a sudden lump of tears in my throat. Tye draws me closer still, my back pressing against his smooth, sculpted chest. “The Gloom consumed your heat. That, at least, is normal.” River blows out a long breath. “Are you hungry?”
My stomach growls, answering River’s question before I can even check in with my own body. Great.
“How is Coal?” I ask again, now pushing against Tye in earnest. My memories return in a vengeful storm. The arrows. The blood. The searing pain. The desperate need to do something, anything, to keep him alive. What if I failed? My heart stutters. Coal took arrows meant for me, and the last I remember seeing him, he was dying. “Where is he?” I’m shouting now. “Is he . . . is he—”
River catches my shoulders, looking into my eyes to ensure that his words penetrate. “Coal is alive. In more pain than he’ll admit, but Shade was able to staunch the bleeding in time. Fae heal faster than humans. All right?”
I nod, not realizing I’m shaking until River leans forward, adding the heat and strength of his body to mine. His scent blends with Tye’s, the two of them holding me in a tight cocoon of safety and warmth, and I cling to both males, unbidden tears rolling down my cheeks.
A too-short eternity passes before the sound of footsteps interrupts us, and River squeezes my shoulder before leaning away to look behind him. My gaze follows his, stopping dead at the familiar sight of Coal’s muscled body.
I swallow, wiping my face quickly.
“Shade is hunting dinner and the horses are grazing,” Coal tells River. He holds his body rigidly, nothing like the lithe panther I know him to be, but my gut warns me to feign blindness to Coal’s soreness just as fiercely as Coal pretends not to see my tears.