An alarm starts going off in my head. Why is she trying to convince me to go through with this? I’m a complete stranger. She doesn’t owe me anything.
“Why are you so set on going to the Realm—”
My last word is more of a yelp. Kyol’s moving. I can feel it in the way he braces against the pain. He’s hurting so much he’s not breathing—a big mistake when you need oxygen to fuel your muscles—and I can practically feel the strength draining from his body.
Reason flees from my mind.
“The gate’s there,” I say, practically throwing her at the blurred atmosphere on the bank of the river. She lands on her knees but doesn’t hesitate to dip her hand into the water. She raises her palm to the sky, letting the water rain between her fingers. Each silver droplet glints in the sunlight. They seem to linger there, taunting me, drawing out the seconds and multiplying the panic ricocheting around in my chest. Finally, the drops solidify into a vertical slash of pure white light.
There’s no room in my mind for second thoughts. With my anchor-stone in my palm, I clasp Kynlee’s hand, then brace for the cold bite of the In-Between.
TWO
I’M PREPARED FOR the In-Between and the physical drain that comes from being led through it by a fae with little magic. What I’m not prepared for is the full assault of Kyol’s emotions. His agony roars through me.
I drop to my knees, cover my ears with my hands as if that will somehow block him out. Holy hell, he’s close. I didn’t expect him to be in Corrist. The Realm is a big place, one huge continent divided into seventeen provinces, and I thought I’d have to have someone fissure me closer to him. The fact that I don’t should save me some time, but not if I can’t find a way to tune out his emotions.
Closing my eyes, I draw in a slow breath and concentrate on myself, on the fact that I’m not hurt. I’m whole and healthy. Whole and healthy.
On some level, it works. Some of my haziness lifts. I just need to maintain my focus. Keep Kyol out of my head and keep me in it.
Chaos lusters leap across my skin as I crawl across a wooden floor. The lightning only appears on humans in this world. It’s bright and white, but barely lights up the room. I have to feel my way along a wall, trying to find a door or window or other source of light. My eyes are just beginning to adjust to the darkness when my hand finds a crevice that feels promising. I reach up, fumble with the lock, then freeze when I hear a moan. I look over my shoulder, see a tor’um curled up on the ground.
Shit.
My sanity whooshes out of me, and Kyol’s emotions whoosh back in. My head feels overloaded, and my heart thumps way too fast, a fact that makes me all the more aware of how slowly Kyol’s is beating. The lull between each beat puts so much strain on my body, my lungs are having trouble expanding. It doesn’t just feel like Kyol’s dying. It feels like I am as well, and I have to mentally fight against the part of me that is okay with that, the part that’s screaming that it would be better to be dead, too, than to live without him.
“My dad is so going to kill me.”
The murmured words pull me back to the present. I focus on the tor’um, watch her slowly sit up as I try to remember exactly why she’s here.
“Where are we?” she asks, her long, brown hair spilling over her shoulders.
I’m frowning. I can feel my forehead crease and my eyes narrow as I take in the empty, one-room house.
The one room safe house. That’s right. When Lena gave me the anchor-stone imprinted with this location, she told me it would be stocked with weapons, food, and water. The walls are made of stone, but the floor isn’t. There should be a few loose planks to pull up in the back corner.
And, more importantly, there should be a ward, a magical trip wire, set somewhere in here. If I break that, it’ll send a signal to the ward-maker, and he or she will notify Lena that someone needs help.
I nearly trip over the tor’um in my haste to find it.
“What are you doing?” the girl asks. She has a name. I’m certain I knew it at one time, but it’s so freaking hard to concentrate. There’s only one name that matters, and he’s dying a few blocks away.
I find a loose board, try to get my fingers beneath it. Goose bumps prickle across my arms. The ward is beneath the floor; I just need to get to it.
The tor’um says something else, but the board pops free, and a telltale tingling runs through me before vanishing abruptly. The ward is broken. Thank God.
I jerk up another board.
“Hey, are you okay?”
I look up. The girl’s hand is on my arm. She lets go when I meet her gaze, but my skin feels like ice where she touched me.
“I’m . . .” I squeeze my eyes shut. Focus, McKenzie!
“You need to stay here,” I say. Then, when a sliver of clarity breaks through the fog in my head and I remember her name, I add, “Kynlee. Stay here, and when they come, tell them Kyol’s less than a mile that way.” I point to the west. “I’m going after him.”
“Who are ‘they’?” she asks.
A third board pops up. In the hole underneath is a midnight blue cloak. I throw it aside, revealing two small, lidless crates. They’re filled with cabus—a foul-tasting fae drink that rehydrates and reenergizes—and magically preserved meats and cheeses. But lying between the crates is what I need: weapons.
“Who’s Kyol?” Kynlee asks.
A sharp lance of pain strikes behind my eyes. Darkness spills through my vision. I brace my hand against the side of a building, feel stone that’s rough and damp.
Damp?
I make myself focus. I glare at the crumbling mortar between the stones and realize I’m not in the safe house anymore. I’m outside on a street. Moonlight illuminates its craggy, uneven surface and the dirty, dilapidated façades of the buildings lining it have mold and moss growing between cracks. The rancid smell of sewage and decay clings to my lungs with each breath I pull in, and I have to fight down a gag reflex. This is not a good area of the city, and it’s especially not an area in which a human should be running around in plain sight and alone.
But I’m closer to Kyol, and already, my feet are moving me forward.
My feet are insane, I think. They should be running toward the palace, toward help. These streets aren’t quite empty—I pass a group of armed, young fae whispering and watching me from across the street—and I feel more eyes on me than I see. More than once, a silver gaze peeks out of a darkened window, following my progress through the city.
I place my hand on the hilt of the sword that’s buckled around my waist. Three steps later, I frown down at the weapon.
My first thought is, how the hell did I get it and the dagger that’s sheathed on my opposite hip? My second is that this must be a dream. It’s the Realm that’s confused and groggy, not me. Any second, Kyol is going to come out of the door in front of me dancing a jig.
I laugh. Kyol isn’t a jig-dancing kind of fae. I can’t even see Aren breaking into a—
Aren.
His name centers me, and I cling to it, remembering his cedar-and-cinnamon scent and the way his lopsided grin triggers lightning inside me without so much as a touch. It’s been three weeks since I’ve seen him. Three weeks since he pushed me away because of this life-bond. I have to get control of it.
I look again at the door in front of me. The building it’s set into is a tall, three-story structure made of identical slate blue stones. Each floor has four square windows, but not an ounce of light comes out of any of them. Either it’s completely dark inside, or the glass is painted black.
I try the handle, and when it turns, my feet take me inside, leading me closer to Kyol.
* * *
THE room I enter is magically lit, but the natural moonlight still visible through the open door is more comforting than the blue-white light from the orbs ensconced on the walls. It feels like I’ve stepped into the lobby of a hotel. That’s the vibe I get from this place though hotels are extremely rare in the Realm, where fae can
easily fissure back home to sleep in their own beds. But there’s an elaborate, wooden desk to my left and a cluster of plush-looking blue chairs to my right. Behind them, a series of small squares within small squares decorates the wall, and a few feet to the left of that is a wide staircase. It narrows as it climbs to the next floor.
I draw my sword as I step farther into the empty room. Something is wrong about this place. It’s too richly decorated to belong in a neighborhood like this. It’s clean where everything else is dirty, soft where everything else is hard and sharp. The only thing the building has in common with the outside world so far is the smell. It gets worse as I make my way to the staircase. Kyol is up there somewhere. He’s still weak and hurting, but I think he might be more . . . stable? That’s the only word I can think of that fits. He’s holding on to see me.
The warmth that swirls through me at that thought is laced with trepidation, and I almost lose focus.
I steady myself on the wooden handrail. Somehow, I’m already halfway up the stairs. I think my disorientation is Kyol’s fault. He’s fading in and out of consciousness, and I’m falling into and out of a walking coma.
I take another step, then another. The silence doesn’t bother me until I’m almost at the top of the stairs. There should be a squeak or groan or something from the steps bearing my weight. Instead, I’m greeted by more silence. It’s so unnatural, I deliberately tap my sword against the wall. The beige-painted surface completely absorbs the sound. Someone’s used a rare magic here, one that absorbs the vibrations in the air.
Tightening my grip on my sword, I climb the rest of the steps.
At first, when I emerge onto the second level, it feels as pristine and untouched as the ground floor, but then I step onto the carpet. It’s not plush beneath my sneaker. It feels soggy. When I look down, I know why. There are no bodies in the long corridor, but a ring of blood puddles up around my shoe as if I just stepped on a sponge. Fae disappear when they die, taking with them their clothes, armor, and anything they’re holding or carrying on their bodies, but any blood spilled before their hearts stopped beating remains behind. That’s what has happened here. Of course, I have no evidence that the fae actually died. As long as the building isn’t protected by silver, they could have fissured out.
Or the blood could be from Kyol. He’s not on this floor, though. He’s one story up, almost directly over my head. Surely, he couldn’t have made it upstairs with an injury severe enough to saturate the carpet like this.
The staircase leading up is farther down the corridor. I wish it wasn’t. I want to go directly to Kyol; I don’t want to walk past the three open doors to get to the second set of stairs. This place sounds and feels like a tomb, and I’m afraid to peer inside any rooms.
The sticky, metallic scent of blood is getting to me, so I start breathing through my mouth as I make my way down the corridor. I’m not as freaked-out as I should be when the carpet continues to squish beneath my shoes. That’s evidence that I’ve seen way too much violence in my lifetime. I hate this, the fear and tension running through me. I’d rather be back in the library, sitting behind a computer screen bored to death.
I grimace. Bad choice of words.
I’m nearing the first open door. It’s on my right. I try to convince myself to keep my gaze focused on the stairs ahead, but my vision goes black again. When it clears, I’m staring at a large, silk-draped bed. It’s in the center of the room, and lying on top of its sheets is a woman dressed in nothing but blood and gashes. Her eyes and mouth are open, the latter as if she was screaming. Or gurgling, rather. Her throat has been slashed open. I can see something white peeking out of it, some tissue or ligament or something. I don’t want to know what it is. I don’t want to see this.
McKenzie.
I don’t really hear Kyol think my name, but he’s trying to get my attention, projecting steadiness and reassurance in my direction. How he can do that when he’s hurting so much, I don’t know, but I use the strength he’s lending me and turn away from the dead . . .
The dead human.
My gaze fastens on her face again. She’s not fae. And the way she’s been killed, her skin sliced open in long, wide cuts all over her body . . . I recognize this violence. She was tortured and killed just like the Sighted humans we discovered in London just under a month ago were.
My feet—my possessed, unreasonable feet—take a step inside the room. As soon as I do, the air beside me moves, sending goose bumps down my arms. My heart goes still one second later, just before I hear the whisper, “Tchatalun.”
THREE
ADRENALINE JOLTS THROUGH me. I raise my sword as I spin, knowing only someone who wants me dead would call me defiled one. My sudden move surprises the fae. He barely fissures out of the way of my blade’s path. Instinct tells me he’ll reappear behind me, so I pivot again, slashing out as he steps out of the light.
His sword is drawn and raised. He deflects my attack as if he’s swatting a fly and strides forward.
Kyol’s fear spikes with mine. We both know I’ll never win a sword fight against a fae, but I have no choice except to try.
I thrust my sword forward. My attacker steps left then his free hand darts out, catching my wrist before I fully register his movement. He shakes it hard, but I manage to hold on to my weapon with one hand and throw my fist at his face.
I’m off-balance—I don’t even have my full weight behind the punch—but hate fills his silver eyes. Still holding my wrist, he shoves me into the wall. I go for his eyes, knowing I have only seconds to maim and kill him before he maims and kills me.
My nails scratch down his face. He hisses, shakes my wrist again, and this time, I lose my grip on my sword. It falls uselessly to the carpeted floor as the fae slams me into the wall again. My head hits so hard, my vision blackens. When it clears, my attacker raises his sword to my shoulder. His blade is sharp, so sharp I don’t immediately feel the skin peel away from my muscle as he slides it down my arm, following the path of one of my chaos lusters.
Agony surges through Kyol—he’s trying to move, trying to make his way to me—and his emotions scream for me to run. I try. The blood sliding down my arm makes my skin slick. The fae loses his grip on my wrist, and I turn and run even though I know it’s virtually impossible to escape.
I make it back into the hall, then into the next room. As I slam the door shut, I note there’s another dead woman on the bed in here. I don’t have time to process what that means; I’m trapped. There’s no other door to exit through. There’s not even a window.
Reaching down to my left hip, I take out the dagger that’s sheathed there and wait for the fae to kick open the door. Instead, he slowly turns the knob.
I clench my teeth hard enough to make my jaw ache. I’m human. The fae is toying with me. He thinks he has all the time in the world to be slow and deliberate, but screw him. I grab the edge of the door as it’s easing open, jerking it toward me as I thrust out with my dagger.
I’m aiming low—toward his groin since his torso is covered by jaedric armor. I end up slicing into his hip. Not a lethal wound, but he roars as if I’ve just struck his heart.
I think he roars, at least. Everything is still magically muffled, and I’m concentrating on the sword in his hand.
The door protects me from his enraged attack. His blade sinks into the wood, giving me the half second I need to strike again.
This time, I watch where I aim, and my dagger stabs up and under the jaedric and into the center of his gut. Then, as if I’ve done it a thousand times before, I twist the knife inside of him.
I don’t flinch or look away when his eyes widen. I memorize his face, the sharp nose, his black eyebrows and eyelashes, and I note the name-cord braided into his hair. Light from a magically lit orb reflects off the cord’s red and black stones just before his body disappears. His soul-shadow replaces it a second later. The white mist encircles my hand and the weapon I’m holding, before it rises and gradually fades.
Numb, I slide the blade back into its sheath.
“McKenzie.” Kyol’s voice is so weak, I’m not sure if it’s in my head. I stagger against the wall, then use it as a crutch to inch back toward the hallway.
“Kyol?” I hear my own voice. The magical silence has lifted, probably because I killed the fae maintaining it.
I shouldn’t have been able to kill him. I should be dead.
My hand leaves a streak of red across the wall. My arm throbs, but it’s my mind that’s truly hurting. It’s being crushed by the weight of the life-bond.
“Kyol,” I call again.
“Taltrayn!”
I step into the hall as his surname is called out. It’s not until the fae steps into view that I recognize the voice’s owner.
“Sidhe,” Lena murmurs, grabbing my arm as I sway.
“Help him,” I manage to say.
Lena lowers me to the ground, barks an order at her guards, then leaves my side.
I don’t know how long I stay there, doubled over and digging my fingers into my knees. It feels like I’m crouched on the edge of eternity. If Kyol doesn’t survive, I’ll pitch over into an abyss. I can feel the life-bond drawing me toward it. I fight to keep my balance, and in my mind, I grab hold of the strand of light that connects us and pull. Kyol has to stay on my side of eternity. He has to.
At first, all I get from him is a loud silence, a static of a thousand weak emotions. Gradually, some of those emotions strengthen. One in particular snakes its way through the life-bond: concern. It’s for me, of course. He’s always so worried about me. I wish I didn’t know that, wish I couldn’t feel just how much he cares. If he hated me or at least cared a little less, my decisions wouldn’t hurt him half as much as they do.
Bracing myself, I open my eyes and look up. My heart does a somersault when I do. Lena is kneeling beside him at the end of the hallway, but his stormy gaze is focused on me, and it feels as if a tidal wave moves through the air. Kyol’s always had a tangible presence. Without seeing him, you know when he steps into a room, and even injured like he is, he gives off the impression that he could annihilate an entire army with just one practiced swing of his sword.
The Sharpest Blade ml-3 Page 2