Shoot the Messenger

by Pippa Dacosta

  He peeled back my coat collar and wet his lips. Upon seeing the circlet, he raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. “Do not lie. I’ve seen your dreams. I’ve featured in so many of them. I do believe there was one where both I and the marshal featured prominently in various positions. You have a talent with that tongue, saru.” He winked.

  I looked away, face burning, and his cool hand settled against my stinging cheek, forcing me to look him in the eye.

  “Sota,” Eledan said, his eyes locked on mine. “Shoot the marshal in his left shoulder.”

  Sota’s motors whirred. The drone fired. Kellee cried out. I heard him fall, heard him panting. He couldn’t stop this. And Talen, if he was close, couldn’t stop this either. Sota was too fast. He would kill everyone in this room in a single second if Eledan ordered it.

  Eledan didn’t even look to see if the marshal had fallen. He brushed a knuckle down my face, catching real tears. “That’s for dreaming of him. Now fix my fucking heart, saru.”

  He took his dagger back from where I’d hidden it inside the coat and handed it over, handle first. “Careful now. It’s your friends’ lives at risk.”

  Bracing both hands on either side of him against the table, he breathed in, presenting his chest, and waited for me to make the cuts. I mentally reached for Sota’s link but found it dead. I couldn’t communicate with Talen or Kellee without Eledan knowing, and even if I could, I could only tell them not to move, not to provoke Eledan. I hadn’t counted on Sota being here.

  I spread my left hand against Eledan’s feverish skin and applied the dagger’s tip to the first metal suture. It popped apart, wrenching a hiss from between Eledan’s teeth.

  The sound of Sota’s whirring motors filled the room.

  “Kesh!” Kellee warned.

  I hesitated and pulled the blade back. “Change the drone’s order.”

  Eledan glared down his nose at me.

  “This will hurt, and you ordered Sota to kill Kellee if I hurt you.”

  A brilliant grin crawled across his lips. “Then don’t hurt me, Kesh.”

  One maddening, terrifying thought climbed over all the others: to stab the dagger in and cut out his heart, no matter the cost. Hulia and Kellee would die, but so would Eledan. It would be over. And I’d be finished.

  My hand trembled.

  “Kesh…?” Eledan purred.

  At one time, I would have made that trade, but I couldn’t. Not even to kill a fae I despised with my every living, breathing moment. There were lives at stake.

  “Close your eyes,” I told him.

  His brow furrowed.

  “I can’t hurt you, but with you watching me… I can’t do it like that. Just close your eyes.”

  He had to trust me with his heart. And despite holding Kellee and Hulia against me, he still wasn’t sure whether I would kill him. He was right to hesitate, but his need outweighed the risks. He had no choice. Warily, his eyelashes fluttered closed.

  I pressed the blade to another suture with my right hand, but with my left, I eased the second iron circlet from inside my coat. This one hung open on its hinge. I pushed the blade in deeper with my right hand as I brought my left hand around, angling the open circlet toward Eledan’s neck. When it closed, he would lash out. He might order Sota to kill Kellee. But Hulia would be free of his dreamweaving. I couldn’t save them all. I didn’t save people. I killed them. Kellee was fast and strong. He might be able to deflect Sota—somehow. This was the best I could do.

  Kellee, I’m so sorry…

  I snapped the circlet around Eledan’s neck. It clicked, locking into place. He opened his eyes, fae colors blazing.

  Hulia screamed. Her eyes were clear and filled with terror.

  “Saru bitch! Drone, kill Kellee!” Eledan roared.

  Chapter 29

  For one terrible, breathtaking second, nothing happened. Just like when Crater’s face had exploded in front of me, time funneled into a singular point, crystallizing the citrus scent of magic, Sota’s whirring motors, and the color of blood streaking Eledan’s chest. Then it snapped, unleashing chaos. Eledan brought his forearm up and shoved me back. Pure, blazing fury possessed him. He locked his hands around the circlet and fought to yank it free. His power flexed outward, drawing tight, about to snap.

  Hulia reared up on the table, her murderous glare fixed on Eledan’s back.

  I tossed Eledan’s dagger over the fae’s head. Hulia snatched it out of the air and sprang, landing on Eledan’s back. The blade punched into his shoulder, up to her knuckles, and they both screamed.

  I whirled and saw the blur that was Kellee duck and twist as Sota’s single red light brightened. The marshal thrust his claws through Sota’s under armor, hooked into the drone, and slammed it into the floor, smashing Sota wide open. Sparks flew.

  Eledan’s magic breathed out, crushingly tight, and shattered. The oak roots that had entwined the room crumbled, in great clouds of brown dust. The iron circlet had broken the prince’s link to his magic.

  He screamed, but not in pain. His scream of rage sounded like twisting metal, and the saru in me whimpered away. I dashed for Kellee. He tried to wave me off, but I wasn’t saving the marshal. I gripped his shoulder, sinking my fingers into the gunshot wound and smearing his blood across my hand, and then spun back toward Eledan.

  I flicked my whip open—heart racing—and cracked the weapon in the air.

  Eledan had Hulia by the hair. He bowed forward, pulling her over his head, and tossed her away like she was nothing. The whip cracked, drawing his eye. He reached for the circlet around his neck. The whip’s tip sailed in and wrapped around his neck, trapping his hands there. A dangerous thrill buzzed through me, lighting me up. I have you now. I jerked him forward, reeling him in. Mine. He pulled, bucking and snapping against the whip’s hold, but the magnetic links tightened, choking off his air.

  His eyes blazed, his teeth bare, but I had him.

  Eledan dropped to his knees.

  All those dreams, all those fantasies he had forced on me, twisted me up inside. This was the one he had never let me live, but I was living it now. I stepped in close like he had done to me so many times and reached my left hand around his trembling shoulder. He bucked and snapped his teeth at my neck, until I pulled the dagger free from where Hulia had left it. His gasp scattered twisted ripples of pleasure through me. Wraithmaker. They’d crafted me to kill for them. I was made for this. And as I looked down into his eyes, I realized nothing had ever felt as right as this single moment. I would kill for them. I had killed their queen, and now I would kill her son.

  I pulled the tip of the dagger down his face and watched his sweet blood well in its wake. Flicking the blade off his chin, I brought the bloody dagger to my lips. I had vowed to taste fae blood again. His tasted like victory and revenge.

  I set the tip against his shoulder and swept it down his chest in lazy s patterns. He tried to twist free, but the whip tightened. The resulting strained gasps delighted my ears.

  “I promised I would carve out your heart.”

  His mouth moved, but the prince with the pretty words couldn’t speak.

  “I promised I would ruin you.”

  He tugged again, but his efforts were weak, trapped inside my whip’s coils.

  I stopped the point of the dagger above his heart where the scar ran. I wanted this. I wanted it so much I wondered if this too was insanity. If it was, I welcomed it.

  “Can’t…” he wheezed.

  I eased the dagger into the scar tissue, slowly, reopening the old wound one careful millimeter at a time. “Can’t I?”

  “People…”

  I ignored him and watched the blade peel back his skin. Tek gleamed beneath. Beautiful, functional, elegant tek encased his black fae heart. A cage like the one he had trapped me in. A cage like the one he had buried my mind in.

  Kellee called my name. I pushed the sound away.

  The dagger cut away his flesh, painting streams of blood down his chest. I
flicked my gaze to his eyes and found them wide with fear. He hadn’t believed I would hurt him. I had told Sota my secrets, secrets he had stolen. He had listened as I’d told the drone how I loved the fae, how I would do anything for them if they would take me back. And he had believed it.

  His black heart thudded inside its metal cage. So small a thing. So fragile now that it was exposed.

  I wiped the flat side of the blade across his gasping mouth and leaned in so close. “Did you truly believe my human lies, Dreamweaver?”

  Tremors spilled through him.

  “Did you believe your mother sent me to save her forgotten son, or was that the hope of an insane mind clawing at its own dreams?”

  Confusion clouded his face. He tried to shake his head, shake the understanding away, but the truth had him. I had him.

  “I am a messenger, Prince. But not for Mab.”

  Oh, what a beautiful thing it was to see his reality come crashing down around him. To see the blinding truth—the truth with its hand around his heart. I licked his blood from his lip. “You were right about one thing. The chances of us finding each other were impossible. I came to Calicto for you. I waited for you to make a mistake and reveal your whereabouts. And then I did what I was sent to do.” I paused, making sure he was looking only at me and listening only to my words. “Oberon sends his regards. He told me to tell you, You’re in my way, brother.”

  “You’re… his?” Eledan rasped.

  “Goodbye, Dreamweaver. And thank you for making this message feel so damn good.” I thrust the blade in, cutting around the cage, cutting into spurting arteries and veins, jerking the blade’s edge through the wires and metal structure. Eledan’s back arched, and his head jolted back. I dropped the whip and smeared Kellee’s blood across the prince’s poisonous mouth. His trembling turned into vicious convulsions.

  I let go and watched him fall.

  At my feet lay an empty shell—the carcass of the prince who had toyed with my mind, and in my hand his heart beat, safe inside its tek-built cage.

  I looked up, blinking through cold, empty tears. Kellee stood to my right. The fear in his eyes betrayed him. He had heard it all. Every. Single. Word. I was Oberon’s assassin. I had lied to him, lied to everyone, lied to myself. I had lived the nothing life of Kesh Lasota to keep the truth safe. And now, my work was done.

  I stepped back from the prince’s body.

  Eledan’s caged heart thudded, nestled and warm in my hand.

  I tapped my comms. “Talen?”

  “Kesh, are you all right?” Relief sent his words in a rush. I had told him to wait, no matter what happened. Wait until he heard from me. Would he still want to serve me knowing what Kellee knew? Would he still look at me like he had, as though he cared what happened to a saru?

  “Hail the fae ship,” I ordered, my voice like stone. My real voice.

  Silence. I felt the heat of Kellee’s stare scorching my skin.

  “Do it,” I told Talen.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Use the magic stored in this building and mentally hail the fae vessel in orbit. Tell them I have their prince, and if they want him alive and intact, they must let the surviving population of Calicto escape.” I could do this one thing and save Natalie’s people.

  “Kellee?” Talen asked, deferring to the marshal. He didn’t trust my words. I couldn’t blame him.

  I looked up. Kellee’s claws glinted. He had heard Talen through my comms. When he replied, he revealed long, dagger-sharp fangs. “Do as she says, Talen.”

  It was the only way to save the people. He knew it. He didn’t like it, but he knew it had to be done.

  “You’re handing him over to them?” Kellee asked me, the beast inside him so close to the surface that perspiration beaded on his face.

  I lifted my chin and looked the marshal in the eye. “My orders were to kill him. I wanted nothing more than to crush his heart. But I’m going against Oberon’s wishes to save your people. When the fae arrive, as far as anyone is concerned, I am Kesh Lasota, the messenger saru who Eledan manipulated to retrieve his mother’s magic. Do you understand, Kellee? They cannot know who I’m working for.”

  Disgust twisted Kellee’s mouth downward. “Was it all Oberon’s doing? He planned all of this?”

  “You already know the answer.”

  He shook his head and backed up. “I thought I knew you.” He flinched, all the memories hurting him. “I saved you from him. I helped you recover. I thought—”

  “And I am grateful. Believe me or don’t, but I do care for you.”

  “Believe you? I don’t know who you are!”

  I did care for him. Everything Eledan had done to me—the imprisonment, the dreams—wasn’t a lie. Kellee and Talen deserved more. But I couldn’t give it to them. But the people—I could save the people, just like Kellee had hoped I would.

  I approached Kellee and held out the prince’s caged heart. The marshal snarled at it, at me. “Take this and take shelter somewhere nearby. When I contact you, you will return it to me and I will make the trade.”

  “The marks…” He blinked, refocusing on me, seeing the truth standing in front of him. “They would never give a saru the fae marks that you wear. I should kill you. You’re one of them.”

  It hurt to see the hatred in his eyes, hurt to have the words thrown at me. I was saru, I was human, I had been raised to kill or be killed. I was the Wraithmaker. Oberon had given me the marks for my services. Gifts from the fae prince who had grown tired of waiting to rule. But now was not the time to explain. “Kellee, I’m saving the people here. Help me.”

  A thunderous trembling shook Arcon’s windows, and outside, a fae shuttle began its descent, sparking a plume of color through Calicto’s atmosphere.

  “I don’t know what’s real around you,” he mumbled, face crumbling.

  “Lies are all the weapons a human has in Faerie.”

  Fresh resolve shut down his expressions, banishing all emotion from his face. “And you wear them well, Messenger.” He snatched the caged heart and dumped it into his pocket. “This isn’t over.”

  I should kill him. He knew too much. He didn’t mean a damn thing to me.

  So then why did it hurt so much to see him turn his back on me and walk from the room? I wanted to call after him, to tell him everything we had shared, everything he had done for me mattered, tell him I wanted to be with him and Talen, but I never could be because none of this was my life. Kesh Lasota might as well have been a dream too. I belonged to Oberon.

  “Kesh?” Hulia, trembling and dazed, staggered closer. “What just happened?”

  I nodded after Kellee. “Follow him. He’s a good man. He’ll help you.”

  “I…” She scooted around Eledan’s cold body and looked at me. “Thank you.”

  I would have liked to have her as a friend. “Go.”

  Alone with the cooling body of the prince, I moved to the windows and watched the fae shuttle land outside the dome, kicking up great clouds of dust.

  I had done everything Oberon had asked of me. I would earn another mark from my beloved prince.

  So why did I feel as though I wanted to tear out my heart to stop it from hurting? I had done nothing wrong. Eledan was dead—as Oberon wanted. After the exchange—a prince’s heart for the humans of Calicto—the fae would try to put Eledan back together again. They may even succeed, only to find him utterly mad. And he would be forsaken—ruined—just as he had feared. I’d gotten my revenge and more. I was saving people. That was a good thing. Oberon had always planned to return to Halow and claim the system for Faerie. I’d merely been one weapon in his arsenal of manipulations. I was his blade, but I had another edge. I had saved people here.

  A sound behind me. The fae were here. I turned and found fierce violet eyes staring into my soul.

  “You left us no choice.”

  A sudden sting burned through my arm, and Talen’s words followed me down and down and down into darkness.


  I did not dream.

  Chapter 30

  I woke surrounded by glass and steel. My heart and my thoughts jolted to a halt. But neither of the two figures standing outside the cage were Eledan, and this was not Arcon’s shimmery offices. Beyond the glass, floodlights illuminated a familiar rock-lined prison chamber.

  The star pinned to the marshal’s coat shone under the prison’s lighting. It was the brightest point on him. The rest of him was shrouded in disgust. Hate. Disappointment. He probably felt all those things. I remembered the pain in his eyes when he told me he had lost everything, how he had said he couldn’t lose me too. He was hurting, but he hid it beneath the hatred my betrayal had summoned.

  Talen’s silver hair was gathered in one thick braid and slung over his shoulder. He just looked disappointed and sad. I wasn’t sure which one hurt the most to look at.

  I closed my eyes. This could have ended so very differently. They were alive. That was a good thing. And so were many others—hopefully. “Did you make the exchange?”

  “Yes,” Kellee answered. “The fae escorted the Calicto refugees off the planet and shuttled them to various outposts. Your people kept their word.”

  The fae, my people.

  The Calicto refugees would have died on that planet, one way or another. It would have been better if I had made the trade personally. Oberon would have forgiven me. Now? Now he would come looking…

  Opening my eyes, I saw them still standing there, watching, judging, wondering if they had known me at all. “And Eledan?” I asked.

  “The fae have him,” Talen replied. “They’re reporting he’s alive and well.”

  Alive, maybe, but he wasn’t well. If it wasn’t for the people on Calicto, I would have carved out his heart and crushed it—magic and all. I still wanted to. I craved the taste of the mad prince’s blood. But what I wanted didn’t matter. It never had. I served a different prince. I would get my reward—once these two let me go.

  “More fae are arriving daily. They’re setting up Calicto as a base,” Talen continued. “Using the magic Eledan found as proof Halow is theirs by divine right.”