The Sharpest Blade

by Sandy Williams

  “Can you help me find information on World War II?” the man asks.

  “Um, yes,” I say. My brain is so wrapped up in the Realm and the fae, it’s hard to mentally shift gears, and his request is vague. I should ask him questions to narrow down exactly what he wants, but I just point to the nonfiction section and say, “940s.”

  He thanks me and moves on, but there’s a woman in line after him, and another man waiting. It figures that we’d be busy at the most inconvenient time.

  “How can I help you?” I ask the woman.

  “The computer won’t let me sign in.”

  “I need an answer now,” Trev says.

  I throw Trev the tiniest glare, then say to the woman, “The pin number is the last four digits of your phone number.”

  Nine times out of ten, that solves the problem, but I use the excuse to leave the reference desk and follow the woman to her computer terminal.

  “I won’t wait any longer,” Trev grates out.

  Chill out, I want to say to him as the woman sits in her chair. There’s only half an hour until I get off work. Rachel can handle the reference desk on her own. She might not even notice I’m gone. On the other hand, she might, and I’m already in trouble with Judy. I could lose my job if I leave now, but if I’m needed in the Realm . . .

  There’s always a ticking clock when it comes to tracking the fae. We never know how long a target is going to stay put.

  My choices are to wait half an hour and risk Trev leaving me behind or to leave, risking my job and the normal life I’ve always thought I wanted.

  The seconds tick by as the woman types in her pin number. When the computer turns on, she thanks me. I nod, then look at Trev, whose expression is rigid and impatient.

  After one last glance at the reference desk, I slide my keys out of my pocket. I can’t abandon the fae.

  EIGHT

  I DON’T KNOW if it’s the cold punch of the In-Between, the icy bite of the driving rain, or the sudden surge of Kyol’s emotions that makes my breath whoosh out of my lungs. Maybe it’s the combination of all three that throws me off-balance. I slip on the cobblestones underfoot and land on one knee, stifling a curse when my pant leg gets soaked.

  By the time I get back to my feet, Kyol’s reined in his emotions. Obviously, he didn’t know I was coming to the Realm.

  I draw in a deep breath, willing myself to feel nothing, then I pull up the hood of the cloak Trev gave me. He gave me a sword and jaedric cuirass, too. The latter is cinched tight around my torso, and swung over my shoulder is my leather-strapped notebook. I haven’t touched it since I moved from the hotel suite to my apartment—I almost forgot I’d stowed it under my driver’s seat—but the familiarity of it pressing against my side is oddly comforting.

  Trev squats down behind a low, stone wall. Reluctantly, I do as well. We’re standing in almost an inch of cold rainwater. It seeps quickly over the top of my black dress shoes—fae always forget the shoes—instantly numbing my toes.

  Lovely.

  “This way,” Trev says, leading the way alongside the wall. He stays crouched down low. I’m not sure why. It’s night here, and with the rain driving down so hard, no one will see us. I can barely see the edarratae on my own skin, and that’s not an entirely good thing. If the weather doesn’t change, I’m going to have to practically be on top of any fae I track. If Trev had commented on the weather when he asked me to come to Tholm, I might have gone straight back to my desk.

  I’m not sure exactly where we are, but I remember the wall. It circles half the western portion of the city. Supposedly, sometime back before the Duin Bregga, it was topped by melted silver and contained all of Tholm, but five millennia of rain and erosion have nearly worn the silver away, and due to the fertile soil and its close proximity to the Imyth Sea, the city has long since overflowed the confines of the wall.

  The rain increases as we climb a slope. I keep one hand on the wall in case I slip on the smooth cobblestones. It’s odd being in such a heavy downpour with no lightning or thunder, just the torrential rain and a wind strong enough to twist my heavy cloak around my legs. Only the outer part of the cloak is drenched. The inside is lined with the soft, waterproof skin of a sikki, a sea animal that lives in the Realm’s oceans. I wrap my hands into the wet folds of the material and try to keep it from tangling around my legs.

  Trev doesn’t seem to have any problems with the weather. He’s sure-footed on the slippery stones. He has an advantage, though: his boots get far better traction than my dress shoes. The heels are the shortest I could—

  Trev stops so suddenly, only a quick grab at the wall keeps me from falling on my ass. I grip the hilt of my sword, start to pull it out as I look for the threat, but then I see him—Aren—crouched down behind the wall.

  He looks from Trev to me. It’s dark, and with my hood up and the continued downpour, he can probably only see the flash of edarratae across my skin, not my actual face. He moves forward, then whips off my hood. His silver eyes meet mine for one heartbeat—for two—then he turns back to Trev.

  “Where’s Naito?”

  “Derch,” Trev answers. “It will take him six hours to reach the nearest gate.”

  Aren’s hand is still fisted in my hood. It brushes across the nape of my neck when he faces me again. The soft, brief contact is all that’s needed for my edarratae to come alive. He feels the lightning’s heat the same as I do, and he immediately drops his hand.

  I clench my teeth together so hard my jaw aches. It’s ironic, this reversal of roles. Two months ago, I was the one withdrawing from his touch and struggling with my attraction to him. Now, just because of a life-bond I had no control over forming, he doesn’t want me anymore? I don’t buy it. His behavior makes no sense, and it’s pissing me off.

  The life-bond and our relationship isn’t something I can discuss in front of Trev, though, so I just meet Aren’s gaze, making sure my expression is grim and determined. I’m here. He has to accept that.

  He laughs. It’s the last reaction I expected from him, and my anger dissipates a little.

  “Okay,” he says, a sideways grin stretching across his lips. “But there are conditions.”

  “Conditions?”

  He nods, taking a step closer. I have to crane my neck to look up at him, and even in the pouring rain, I can smell him, all woodsy cedar with a mouthwatering hint of spice. I’m aching for the condition to be a kiss, but he only grips the front edges of my cloak.

  “If I call it off,” he says, his smile fading, “we walk away, no questions asked. If I tell you to run, you run.” He takes my hand in his, then wraps it around the hilt of my sword. “If I tell you to kill, you don’t hesitate.”

  It’s that last condition that keeps me from responding immediately. The Realm is a violent world, and killing is a common thing. It’s not common for a human like me, though, and in the last two months, I’ve killed more fae than I have in the last ten years. Even though every one of those lives was taken to defend myself or my friends, I wish I hadn’t had to end them. I don’t want to end any more. It’s one of the reasons why living a normal life is so appealing. If I choose to remain involved with the fae, I’m accepting the fact that I may have to kill again.

  I nod once, hoping that this shadow-reading will be simple.

  Aren just shakes his head like he can’t believe my response. Then he tucks a lock of my rain-drenched hair behind my ear, letting his fingers graze my cheek when he takes his hand away. It’s a decidedly tender gesture, and I don’t know what to make of it. The life-bond can’t be the reason he’s keeping his distance from me. I’ve come up with a few other theories—someone from his past is threatening to reveal some terrible secret about him, a high noble is blackmailing him into some shady dealings—but Aren’s not one to let himself be manipulated. Something else is tearing him away from me.

  I reach for his hand. “Aren—”

  “Nimael is here,” he says.

  Nimael. The fae who sl
ipped away from Naito and could be the false-blood’s second-in-command.

  “Is there any sign of Caelar or the remnants?” I ask, focusing on what we’re here to do.

  “No,” Aren says. “But, technically, there’s no sign of Nimael either. He’s an illusionist. A powerful one if my information is good. Making himself and half a dozen other fae invisible is simple for him, even while fighting.”

  Damn, that’s impressive. Illusion is a common magic, but most fae who are adept at it can only keep themselves unseen while they’re fighting. Those who are stronger might be able to hide an additional fae or two, but concealing half a dozen fae who are all moving and fighting and lunging in different directions takes some serious magical skills.

  Which makes our job anything but simple. I’ll have to assume every fae with him is invisible.

  “How do we know he’s here then?” I ask.

  “He’s recruiting.”

  At my frown, Aren gives me his signature half smile then motions me to follow him over the low wall. I slide over the wind-worn stone and grimace when my feet squish into the ground. There are no cobblestones on this side of the wall. Or, if there are, they’re underneath an inch-thick layer of mud. The city is built on a hillside, and we’re standing in a shallow canal that cuts between tall, stone buildings.

  Trev sinks into the muck beside me. Without a word, we both follow Aren. Since the fae are silent, I keep quiet, too, suppressing a number of curses because it’s hard as hell to keep my shoes on my feet. The mud keeps suctioning them off. It’s slowing me down more than usual, so when Trev glares over his shoulder at me for the third time, I throw off the impractical dress shoes, hoping there’s nothing in this sludge that will slice open my feet.

  When I catch up with Aren and Trev again, I realize we’re not alone in this canal. We’re following a fae. I only see the back of his shaggy head, so I can’t recognize him, but he’s not dressed in any kind of armor. And, if I’m not mistaken, he looks young, too young to be one of Lena’s swordsmen.

  “He’s imithi,” Aren says, slowing his pace until I’m at his side.

  Imithi? Curious, I squint through the darkness as the fae stops and faces us. Aren used to be one of them. They’re orphans, fae who have no parents, no homes, and no roots linking them to anywhere in the Realm. They fissure from city to city, stealing, looting, and generally creating havoc wherever they go.

  When we reach the imithi, the boy cocks his head at me, his silver-blue eyes openly taking me in from rain-drenched head to sludge-covered feet, which feel like blocks of ice now. I think he’s young, but I’ve always had trouble guessing how old fae are. They age slower than humans do, except in their early years. From birth until the teens, we mature almost at the same rate. It’s a good thing, too, because it would be freaking bizarre to talk to a twenty-year-old man who looks like a five-year-old boy. Still, it’s difficult to figure out those later teenage years. The boy looks like he could be a high-school freshman, but he could just as well be the age of a college graduate.

  “She’s the shadow-witch?” he asks in Fae.

  “She is,” Aren answers.

  The boy makes a face. “She doesn’t look like she could slice a leaf.”

  Slice a leaf? I glance at Aren and see the corner of his mouth lift into a smile.

  “Careful,” he says. “She’s stronger than she looks, and she has the willpower of a kasnek.”

  I have no idea what a kasnek is, but Aren’s words are clearly complimentary, and his tone is warm and affectionate. It makes me warm. And it makes me want to slide inside his embrace. As soon as we have a moment alone together, he’s going to tell me what’s really making him put distance between us.

  “Really?” the boy says. He shakes his head, flicking his wet, curly brown hair out of his eyes. “Can I touch her?”

  “If you want to damage your magic, sure,” Aren says with an it’s-your-funeral kind of shrug.

  I glare at Aren. It’s human tech that damages fae magic, not humans, but most fae are so paranoid about their magic that they’ll believe almost anything about us. It doesn’t help that Aren’s spread more rumors about the “shadow-witch” than I can count, turning me into some kind of mythological creature.

  Aren just grins back at me. “This is Dicer.”

  It takes an effort to ignore the way that smile makes my stomach flip.

  “You’re letting the false-blood recruit him?” I ask, forcing my gaze back to the boy and remembering that Aren said recruitment was the reason Nimael was here.

  “We’re here to capture Nimael,” Aren says, “so no one’s going to be recruited. But, yes, that’s the purpose of the meeting. I’ve been talking to Dicer and a few other imithi for the past few weeks, waiting for this to happen.”

  He says that as if he was all but certain the false-blood would eventually reach out to the imithi. But maybe he was sure of it. That’s how Thrain found him. He was imithi until the false-blood decided to use him.

  “How much farther?” Aren asks Dicer.

  “It’s just up here,” the imithi says, walking a few more paces through the sludge, then stopping when he reaches the corner of the stone building that makes up part of the right wall of the canal. “Straight ahead.”

  Aren’s gaze follows Dicer’s pointing finger. He’s just tall enough to see over the edge of the canal. I’m not. I move to the wall where a stone juts out from it, and use it as a foothold.

  Aren steadies me with a hand—a subconscious touch, I think—then points to a detached home about thirty feet away. Two tall, short-needled plants sit in pots to either side of a dark door. Drapes cover the two windows I can see, making the interior look as black as the sky.

  “Is it just us three?” I ask.

  “No,” he answers. “Jacia and Taber are paralleling us. They’ll circle around to the back.”

  Automatically, I look to the left but only see the other wall of the canal. If the two fae are paralleling us, they’re on street level. Which means they’re not in this sludge. Lucky for them. Still, it’s comforting to know they’re here, even Jacia. Atroth wanted Kyol to form a life-bond with her. The king thought they were a good match, but Kyol refused the bond. I’m sure Jacia knows I was the reason for that rejection—anyone who wasn’t blind realized it—but she’s given no indication that she resents me for it. She’s fully capable of annihilating a whole contingent of fae, and so is Taber, who’s one of Kyol’s top swordsmen. Aren doesn’t have an army set to encircle Nimael, but he’s brought powerful backup.

  “Nimael is an older fae,” Aren says, making me turn my attention back to the target house. “He’s close to two centuries old and has streaks of gray in his hair. We need to capture him. The other elari in there won’t be able to lead us to the false-blood. Tholm’s silver wall will keep him from fissuring, so you shouldn’t need to read his shadows, but you’re all of our eyes. Make sure we know where he is.”

  I nod, then ask, “Are we going in or making them come out?”

  “We’ll see what happens when I knock on the door,” he says.

  My foot slips off the stone protruding from the canal’s wall. “Knock on the door? That’s your big plan to capture the false-blood’s second-in-command?”

  He gives me a devil-may-care grin. “You have no idea what I’ve accomplished by the simple act of knocking on a door. King Atroth was overthrown because I tapped on the right ones.”

  This is the Aren I fell in love with—confident, carefree, and sexy as hell. If he’s still trying to push me away, he’s doing a crappy job of it.

  He reaches inside a draw-stringed purse that’s attached to his weapons belt and takes out a coin. Tinril, the currency is called here. I have no idea what the different colors and sizes are worth, but Dicer catches the coin in the air.

  “Now, run off,” Aren says. “Far off.”

  “Of course.” The boy grins in a way that makes me think he’s not going to listen to Aren’s instructions at all, and the wa
y Aren watches him climb out the opposite side of the canal gives me the impression that his thoughts match mine. I’m betting imithi aren’t so great at following orders.

  There’s nothing Aren can do about it, though.

  “Are you two ready?” he asks, turning back to me and Trev. I nod, pull up my hood, then climb out of the canal behind the two fae. That’s when I feel a flicker of anxiety from Kyol. He feels my focus, my slightly elevated heart rate, and he knows that I’m moving now.

  Relax, I tell both him and myself. This should be simple. I don’t even have to read the shadows; I just have to point out what I see.

  We’re halfway across the street. My focus is riveted to the narrow house’s single window. Fae don’t often use bows and arrows—their enemies rarely stay in one place and, many times, they’re invisible—but we’re in a part of the city that’s protected by silver. If I were Nimael and thought there might be a chance someone was hunting me, I’d have at least one bow stashed somewhere inside.

  But he has no reason to use it on us, I remind myself. He doesn’t know we’ve found him. He’s here to recruit elari, and we’re just a few innocent, sludge-covered people crossing a street.

  Suddenly, the front door opens. Three fae step out, and everything—the air, the rain, my heart—goes still.

  • • •

  “DON’T let them back in!” Aren yells. Before the last word leaves his lips, Trev’s already acted, launching a ball of flames from his hand into the door behind the fae.

  “Bring Taltrayn!” Aren grates out. The order is unnecessary. There’s no stopping Kyol from coming. He felt the cold terror slide over me the second that door opened.

  Aren grasps his sword in both hands and takes a step forward. “Where are they, McKenzie?”

  “Shoulder to shoulder just outside the door.”

  “I can hide you,” a voice pipes up just behind us. Dicer. No surprise there.

  Aren doesn’t hesitate. “Do it,” he says. To me, he adds, “Tell us when and where to swing.”

  I nod, then both he and Trev are rushing forward. Dicer must be a decently strong illusionist. I see the moment the elari lose sight of Aren and Trev. Two of the three fae take a half step backward as they bring their swords in front of them. They don’t have humans to see through Dicer’s illusion, and they can’t fissure out of here. They’re screwed.