I push on, funneling adrenaline into my legs. My lungs burn from the cold air, and my chest is tight, tight with Kyol’s worry.
Intercept him! I try to translate those words into emotion, try to tell him I’m not running from someone, I’m running after him.
The ground rises steeply enough for stairs. I grab the two wooden handrails, use them to help propel me up steps.
“McKenzie!” Aren’s voice is distant. It reaches me the same instant I see Kyol step into the street. His head whips to the left as Nimael sprints past him.
“It’s Nimael!” I yell. “He’s almost to the wall, dead center.”
I don’t think Kyol needs my directions. He’s already moving, taking off after the elari.
It feels like it takes me hours to reach the wall, but really, it takes no more than a handful of seconds. I unsling my notebook, open it on top of the low wall, and grab my pen. Nimael’s fissured out. Kyol’s standing there, sword in hand just beside the twisting shadows, waiting for me. Or rather, for my map.
Aren bellows my name again, closer this time, but I focus on the shadows and, using my body to protect my notebook from the rain, I begin to sketch what I see. A twist of shadow in the upper left corner of my page, the tail of a river curving down from a mountain, and a clearing. A valley maybe.
I flip to the next page of the book, watch the shadows contort into more detail, a sharper image of Nimael’s location. Mountains to the east. Maybe to the north as well.
Brow furrowed, I squint at the shadows. Did he fissure into the middle of a mountain range? Aside from the smooth curve of a dark shadow, all the others are spiky and rugged and . . . fading.
Damn it, I’m going to lose him.
Aren calls for me a third time. Kyol answers him, but I’m still focused on the shadows. Where the hell did Nimael go? I should be able to track him. I wasn’t that far behind him.
Maybe the rain is obscuring my vision? I swipe a hand over my face, slicking my drenched hair away from my eyes. It’s too late to start over. I try to modify what I’ve already sketched out, find a detail that I’ve missed, or something that jogs my memory. But there’s nothing, and the last of the shadows wink out of existence.
NINE
“I LOST HIM,” I say, meeting Kyol’s gaze. He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t have to. He knows as well as I do that I should have been able to pinpoint Nimael’s location.
I break eye contact. Rain splatters on the low wall. This is the first time I’ve tried to read the shadows since the life-bond. I saw them clearly, but what if I’ve lost the ability to identify them? If I can’t name the location, my maps are nothing, just scribbles on a page that no one can understand, and I’m . . . Well, I still have the Sight, so I’m not completely useless, but shadow-readers are rare. Lena only has two working for her: Naito and Evan. Evan and I have only met a few times. I helped him and Naito escape the palace eons ago when Atroth was still alive and king, but he’s apparently terrible at reading the shadows, and Naito is already overworked. He can’t continue to track Lena’s enemies twenty-four/seven.
“McKenzie.” Kyol’s voice cuts through my thoughts the same instant I feel his focus sharpen. Goose bumps break out across my skin. No fissures have opened on the other side of the wall, but my sixth sense is screaming an alarm. We’re not alone here. We’re being watched.
“Back away from the wall,” Kyol says quietly, calmly as he approaches me. I do as he says, tucking my sketchbook under my arm as I scan the darkened street. I take one step away from the wall, two. The fae are standing so still, I don’t see them at first. It’s only after my gaze passes by them that my mind registers what I saw.
I look back at the main road, and this time, the six elari are clearly visible.
Kyol lets his mental wall slide away. If he was a man less in control of himself, I’d feel his worry, but all I feel is grim determination and a sense that he’s not just focused ahead of us; he’s attuned to something—or someone—behind us as well.
His sword is still drawn. Mine isn’t. I slammed it back into its sheath when I took off after Nimael so I could run faster. I’m afraid to reach for it now. I don’t want to trigger the fae surrounding us into attacking.
“Any chance they just want to chat?” I ask lightly, trying to reduce the tension that’s building inside of me. Kyol doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even crack a smile.
I want to tell him he can go. We’re outnumbered. There’s no reason for us both to be killed. He can sprint back to the wall, leap over it, and fissure out before the elari reach us, but I know Kyol will never leave my side. He’ll fight, and he’ll die.
The fae begin to close in on us. Now would be the perfect time for Aren to make an appearance.
The distance between us shrinks. Twenty feet. Fifteen. Ten. To hell with triggering them, I drop my sketchbook and draw my sword. No way will I make this easy for them.
“I’m Kyol, son of Taltrayn,” Kyol speaks up suddenly. “Lord General of the Queen’s fae. I request—”
“There is no queen,” the fae nearest us spits out. He’s only a half dozen steps away now. I tighten my grip on my sword, say a quick prayer.
“I request an audience with the Taelith,” Kyol says.
Five strides away.
“Your request seems to be denied, Taltrayn.”
I have no freaking idea where Aren’s voice is coming from. Neither do the elari. They freeze. Then their gazes scan the street. Mine does, too. I look past the alley to my left, then to the wall behind us. Three fae stand in front of it. All elari. Where the hell is—
Kyol moves the same instant the six elari in front of us turn. It’s only after one of them disappears into the ether that I see Aren. He cuts down a second fae before Kyol reaches the man nearest him.
Time slows as I spin back to face the fae at our backs. They move forward, and I swear I can see each droplet of water rise into the air as their boots splash across the wet street. Life only crawls this slowly when something terrible is about to happen, but I stand my ground and let Kyol’s confidence sink into me. An instant before the first elari takes a swing at me, I sidestep to his right and bring my sword around in a wide arc.
I intend to take the fae’s head off, but he intercepts my blade, easy. A part of my mind registers the fact that I’m screwed. The other part is still unnaturally confident I can kick the fae’s ass.
My sword absorbs a blow from the elari. Then another and another, but there are two more fae trying to kill me, and I can’t fight them all.
“Mind if I help?” Aren slides between me and two of the elari. The third elari turns his attention away from me when Aren kills one of the others. Dismissing the human. His mistake. My focus zeroes in on his right side, the vulnerable area where his jaedric is bound together with leather cords. Instinct tells me he’s going to raise his right arm to take a swing, so I throw all my weight into a lunge forward, leading with the point of my sword.
It’s a perfect strike, sliding beneath his rib cage and through his gut. He enters the ether the same moment Aren finishes off his opponents.
“I expected you to hesitate,” Aren says, turning to me.
“What?” I ask, tearing my gaze away from the misty white soul-shadows. All but one of the other elari are dead. Trev is here, helping Kyol restrain him.
“You didn’t hesitate,” Aren says. He’s not breathing hard; I can barely catch my breath. It takes a few seconds for my mind to remember the conditions he listed when I first arrived in Tholm, and suddenly, I have an almost overwhelming urge to throw my sword to the ground and step away from my crime. He’s right. I didn’t hesitate. I killed without a second thought.
A string of expletives comes from the last elari. Trev is trying to wrestle him to the ground, so Kyol can bind his hands.
“Nimael,” Aren says. “You mapped his shadows.”
He bends down and retrieves my sketchbook. He wipes beads of rain off the waterproof cover, then opens straight to
my map. “What city?”
I bite the inside of my cheek. Looking at the mess of mountains and zigzagging lines again doesn’t help me identify where Nimael went. I don’t know, and that bothers me more than I ever would have guessed. I’ve always been able to read the shadows. Ten years ago, before I’d extensively studied maps of the Realm and of Earth, I wasn’t very accurate, but within a few months, I started nailing down locations. Occasionally, I’d have to reference a real map to figure out where a fae went. I haven’t had to do that in years, though, but maybe it might help me now? I’m certain Nimael stayed in the Realm.
At least, I think I’m certain he did.
“McKenzie?”
I shake my head.
“What’s that mean?” Aren asks. “You’re not going to tell me?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, not ‘no,’” I say. “I just don’t know. I couldn’t track him.”
That admission kills me. I take my sketchbook from Aren, slap it shut, then sling it over my shoulder.
“The map looked finished.”
“It wasn’t,” I snap. I start to turn away, but Aren grabs my arm.
“Hey,” he says. “What’s wrong?”
“If you’d listened to me, he wouldn’t have gotten away.” I yank my arm free. “I told you where he was.”
“You told me he was next to a smiley face. How am I supposed to know what that is?”
“It looks like a face that’s smiling,” I bite out.
“McKenzie.” Aren says my name so softly, I’d have to be deaf not to hear how angry I sound in comparison. Not being able to read Nimael’s shadows unsettled me, but there’s no reason to take it out on Aren.
“I’m sorry,” I say, deflating. “It’s just . . .” I close my eyes and draw in a breath before I reopen them. “I don’t know where he went.”
“Okay,” he says, like it’s no big deal. It is a big deal, though. A whole freaking province is opposing Lena because of the false-blood. She needs to be able to at least identify him to have any chance of disproving his claim. Nimael is the breadcrumb that could lead us to him. I doubt this other elari can help us.
I turn back toward that elari. His wrists are bound behind his back now, and Trev appears to have control of him. That isn’t stopping the elari from letting him have it verbally. He’s spitting out curses and slurs and angry words too quickly for me to translate. He’s filled with blind rage, and in my experience, people who are like him—people who can’t control their anger—are rarely trusted with important information. He won’t lead us to Nimael or the false-blood.
“We’ll question him in Corrist,” Kyol says. Trev nods, acknowledging Kyol’s words, then he begins to half walk, half drag the elari toward the wall. That brings him closer to Aren and me. The elari looks at me, spits on the ground, then continues his diatribe.
I’m pretty much tuning out everything he says, but as Trev wrestles him over the low wall, one of his accusations slowly translates itself in my mind. He’s accusing Lena of building an army of Sighted humans. It’s an outrageous accusation, especially considering that Lena is losing Sighted humans, not gaining them. I would entirely dismiss his words except for one thing: he used the word kannes. That can be translated into serum. Sight serum.
“Wait!” I say when Trev opens a fissure on the other side of the wall. “How does he know about the Sight serum?”
Trev frowns over his shoulder at me.
“He was talking about the Sight serum,” I say. “No one should know about it.”
Technically, that’s not true. Lena and a handful of people she trusts know about it. So do Caelar and a few of the remnants, but as far as I know, Caelar isn’t fissuring around the Realm talking about it, and neither side is using it. It’s fatal, and no one wants more humans than necessary to be aware of the fae’s existence.
The elari is still spitting out curses. Aren vaults over the wall; then, without a pause, he slams his fist into the fae’s jaw. That shuts him up long enough for Aren to ask what he knows about the serum.
The elari answers with the crap about Lena building an army again. He claims she’s selling it to any human who can pay, which is just plain stupid because what is Lena going to do with money that’s good only on Earth? It’s worth nothing here. Besides, she could just have one of her fae fissure into a store or bank and steal it. That’s what Atroth had his people do when he needed to pay the humans who worked for him. The elari has to be making crap up.
Still, when Aren nods, signaling to Trev that it’s okay to go, an uneasy feeling lingers with me. It’s too big a coincidence to ignore. If the elari said Lena was recruiting humans who already had the Sight or that Lena had found a fae with the magic to give the Sight to humans, that would be different. But he specifically said a serum gave humans the Sight. Somehow, he knows about the vigilantes’ serum.
There’s no way Lena would have let that information leak. The only way the elari could know about it is if Caelar told him, and why would Caelar tell him about the serum if they weren’t working together?
“Caelar isn’t working with the false-blood,” Kyol says, standing a few paces to my right. His words sound firm, uncompromising, but the sense I get through the life-bond is that some of Kyol’s conviction is missing. It’s the same feeling I had a few days ago when it felt like Kyol’s optimism about the Realm’s future was diminished. I want to bring it back, to assure him that he’s right, that Caelar is a fae who deserves Kyol’s respect and that the Realm will be the world he thinks it can be, but I can’t make those promises. He would feel my doubt if I did.
“I’ve told you before,” Aren says, slamming his sword back into its scabbard. “You’re wrong about Caelar.”
“This isn’t proof they’re working together,” I say. I realize a second later that I shouldn’t have said anything. I spoke out of a need to reassure Kyol, but Aren’s expression turns stony, and I can imagine what he’s thinking: I’m not on his side. I’m on the side of my bond-mate.
“Aren—”
“I’ll find out more in Corrist,” he says. “I’ll send back dry clothes and supplies.”
“No,” Kyol speaks up. “You’ll stay with McKenzie.”
Slowly, Aren’s head turns toward Lena’s lord general. Kyol’s emotions are steady and calm now. Aren’s aren’t. The tension in his muscles is as clear as if we had a life-bond. Technically, Kyol outranks Aren, but I don’t think he’s been issuing many orders to him. I don’t think they’ve been interacting much at all these last few weeks.
“I’ll go,” Aren says again. “You’ll escort McKenzie to Corrist. It should be a safe enough journey.”
It’ll be a long journey, a full day’s walk. A full day for me to learn what I can do to get Aren back.
“No,” Kyol says. If Aren were anyone else, he would know there’s no room for argument when Kyol uses that tone. Even the rain stops, almost as if it heeds the command in Kyol’s voice.
But Aren is Aren, and even though he’s now part of the Realm’s legitimate government, in his heart, he’s still a rebel.
“I’m fissuring out,” he says. “If you choose to do so as well, then you’re the one who’ll be leaving her alone.”
A slash of white light slices through the air beside him.
“Wait!” Kyol barks. “Just get her out of the city. I’ll meet you within view of Tholm’s westernmost building.”
Then, before Aren can step into his fissure, Kyol opens one of his own and disappears.
Aren curses.
“I’m not that repulsive, am I?” I ask lightly.
Aren’s gaze slides to me, and the way his silver eyes peer out beneath his dark lashes says my words are ridiculous. I just give him a tiny shrug, wrap my arms around my now-shivering body, and start walking.
“Did you really need to get rid of your shoes and cloak?” Aren asks, falling into step beside me. He’s looking at my bare feet. Throwing off my shoes wasn’t a mistake
—my toes were already numb, and I get better traction without them—but losing the cloak might have been.
I don’t admit to it, though. Instead, I say, “You took off your cloak.”
“It’s easier to move without it.”
“Exactly.”
“Besides,” he says, “I can keep warm.”
“If you’d like to keep me warm, you can start any time.”
Even in the darkness, there’s a glimmer in his silver eyes when he looks at me. “You’re determined to make this difficult, aren’t you?”
We step onto a curved stone bridge. “If you’re referring to you dumping me, then yes. I am.”
“Did you make it this difficult for Taltrayn?”
“I—” The question surprises me, and I’m not sure how to answer. With Kyol, I knew the reason he kept his distance. I even respected it, and in the beginning, I believed that human culture was damaging the Realm. Over the years, I started to doubt that, but I never started to doubt Kyol. He was noble, a man of his word, and each time he told me we couldn’t be together, I tried to move on.
I look at Aren as the bridge takes us across a canal. I have no desire to move on now.
“I didn’t make it easy,” I finally say, focusing on the long passageway in front of us. We’re near the edge of the city. The homes are larger, the storefronts aren’t smashed together quite as much, and even though dawn is still hours away, the shadows between the buildings don’t seem as dark here.
It’s still cold as hell, though, and Aren hasn’t moved one inch closer to me.
I stop walking and turn toward him. “Will you just tell me what’s wrong?”
He faces me and, almost reluctantly, meets my eyes.
“I don’t understand why you’re here,” he says. “You have the normal life you always wanted.”
Not breaking his gaze, I tilt my head to the side. “Don’t you know? I could never be a normal human.”
The smile that spreads across his face tells me he recognizes the words. He said them to me two months ago, right after the vigilantes attacked the inn in Germany. I was still fighting my attraction to him, still clinging to the hope that I was shadow-reading for a good and honest king.
The Sharpest Blade ml-3 Page 9