by Alex Lidell
Coal wants my touch on him as little as he wants my thanks for pulling me off Malikai’s lap.
My breath catches as Coal’s blue eyes find mine. The male crooks a finger to call me over. When I oblige, he gazes down at me. “Your old master liked to use a belt on you, if I recall?”
I nod, a cold shiver running down my spine even as I lean closer, focusing my attention on whatever Coal wants to say. Needs to say.
Coal snorts softly. “Well, I’m not you, mortal. So stop projecting your personal little terrors onto me. It’s embarrassing.”
I snap away from him, the chill in my spine turning to ice. “Bastard.” I twist away, my heart pounding as I stalk to the couch. Bastard. Bastard. Bastard.
The couch shifts as a wolf’s soft paws land upon it, the animal circling before curling up against me, his warm, fuzzy head resting in my lap. I run a hand down his back and feel his rumble of pleasure.
A bell tolls in the distance and River returns to the common room. His hair is washed, and in place of a training tunic he wears a formal uniform, his blue jacket buttoned to the neck and a golden braid encircling one shoulder before looping across his broad chest.
“Pretty,” Coal says, looking the prince up and down.
“It’s the least I could do,” River replies.
Coal snorts again, the two walking out the door as if heading to a dinner party.
In the silence that settles, Tye braces his arm on the back of a chair opposite me and tilts his head at Shade, who, I discover to my own surprise, I’m scratching between the ears. My hand stills. The wolf yips unhappily. The scratching resumes.
“Useless flea transport,” Tye grumbles at Shade. “I take it I have the pleasure of telling Autumn what happened?” He pushes away, stopping a pace short of the door. “If River and Coal return before we do,” he says, turning to look at me over his shoulder, “you may wish to let Shade care for him alone. Coal isn’t one to enjoy company when he’s hurt. When it’s me—and note that I say when, not if, because I think everyone knows I’ll do something stupid sooner or later—when it’s me, please feel free to sit by my side. You can brush my hair too; that always feels nice. And feel free to say soothing things about how tight my muscles are, how brave I am, how large my—”
Shade growls and Tye leaves at once.
Five minutes after that, I start screaming.
21
Lera
My wrists are shackled, the metal cutting into my raw skin promising of worse to come. My heart pounds at the sight of those iron bands, sweat beading on my forehead and draining down my face. There is no use pulling against the binds, but I do, ripping away skin. My breath comes so quick that I’m dizzy, unable to fill my lungs properly before the next breath. My hands shake. Tremble. My whole body shakes and trembles.
The click of boots against the cell’s hard floor is muffled, as everything is in the Gloom. The qoru like it here.
“This is the bull?” one voice says to his companion. “Is it not a bit . . . rabid?”
“I was under the impression you preferred them this way.”
A strip of blazing pain explores my left shoulder blade. Swallowing a scream, I twist to gaze at the male. He’s naked, of course, his gray lizard-like skin stretched tight over bulging shoulders. He bounces on webbed hind legs, his milky pink eyes blinking hungrily, the round maw of piranha-like teeth opening in a perverted grin. The qoru takes a step toward me and I pull against the shackles until—
“Lera!” Arms shake me, Shade’s yellow eyes level with mine as he crouches on the floor, to which I’ve somehow slid. “Look at me, cub. What’s happening?”
“Coal,” I manage to say, my mouth dry as I blink away a bad dream that’s already fading from memory, my hands shaking with fear—the source of which my consciousness no longer recalls. Terror and pain wash over me in a phantom fog that has my breath catching in my chest. “I . . . don’t think Coal is all right.”
“He is all right,” River says through the door, bringing both Shade and me to our feet. Behind the quint commander, Coal walks stiffly but without assistance, his black shirt looking merely wet instead of soaked in blood. For the first time, I think I understand his usual all-black clothing choice. If you can’t see a warrior’s blood, you can’t see his weakness. “Malikai is disappointed at the lack of sound, but he’ll get over it, I imagine.”
Shooting me a worried look, Shade jerks his head toward his sleeping chamber. “I’ve the worktable set up. Come.”
Left alone for a few moments, I take a deep breath. Then I follow the males, my heart still beating too quickly. By the time I enter, Coal is already lying on his stomach on the table. With no shirt to stanch the wounds, blood flows from his wide back onto the wood, filling the room with a coppery scent. A bowl of water beside Coal’s shoulder is tinged the same crimson as the balled-up cloth floating inside.
River gets the hell out of my way as I step up beside Shade and rest a hand on Coal’s shoulder, relieved to find the full extent of the damage hidden beneath a thick coat of Shade’s shimmering magic. Coal’s eyes are pale and open, staring emotionlessly through the far wall. Sweat beading at his temples is the only sign he’s in any pain at all. His tattoo is hidden by the magic as well, the intricate lines that run down the length of his spine now surely in tatters.
“Leralynn—” River says tentatively.
I glare up at him, silencing the male in an instant. The world sways in rhythm with my pounding, simmering blood. Whatever the others think, whatever Coal himself thinks, he should never have been trapped against a whipping post. Not him. Not after Mors. My heartbeat echoes through my muscles, my skin, my soul, each new wave more powerful than the last. The hand I have on Coal’s shoulder tightens, my energy flowing through—
Coal lets out a short, pain-filled curse.
“What did you do?” I demand of Shade.
“Not me, cub,” Shade says quietly, his body shifting to bend around mine. His voice is soft, hypnotically calm—at odds with River’s sharp intake of breath. Shade’s hands settle atop my own. “Ease your magic. We want to mend the wounds from the inside, not sear the skin shut on the surface. We’ve time to go slow, not hurt him more than we must.”
Shade’s words ricochet inside me even as I feel him cajole the power that I can’t deny is pulsing beneath my fingers.
“Don’t be afraid,” Shade says into my ear. Calm and sure and confident. “I’ll guide you. Feel along with me.” Without moving either of our hands, I feel Shade’s magic steer my own along paths I’ve never felt before, but which now feel as wide as carriage roads.
I lose track of time, the pulsing magic inside me ticking along with my heart and Shade’s gentle commands. A power that is mine but not mine extends like a limb, probing damaged flesh, sometimes urging it to live and other times searing a tiny part closed to stanch a bleed or clear a bit too mangled to revive. Coal makes no sound, though I can tell the latter hurts him, and after guiding me through several closures, Shade takes those for himself.
The world tips and sways, strong hands gripping my elbows before I can fall. “That’s enough for the first time,” River says into my ear, pulling me out of the room. “Shade can finish up. Let us get some fresh air.”
I follow along obediently, blinking at the breeze as my awareness returns. “Did I just . . .” I trip on the words.
“Use your magic?” River says. “Yes. And quite a great deal of it.”
“You really should get out of the habit of talking about things you don’t understand, River,” Autumn says, coming up beside us and throwing her arms around me. “Lera didn’t use her magic. She used Shade’s.”
With Shade still working on Coal’s back, Autumn, River, Tye, and I settle around the common room. Tye resourcefully procures a bottle of whisky, putting a tot in my hand before I’m fully aware of what’s happening.
I wrap my hand around the drink, blinking at Autumn. Autumn. Here and real and—I squeal, launching mysel
f at the small female, my arms going around her as Tye industriously rescues the whisky from my hand.
I can feel the female’s grin, her braids tickling my neck. When I start to pull back, her hands tighten in one more embrace before letting me go. “Thank the stars,” Autumn says, grinning back at me. “For a moment there, I wasn’t sure you were going to let anyone near you.”
I sigh. “It’s been an . . . unusual day.”
Autumn snorts and holds her empty glass out to Tye for a refill. “Don’t jest with yourself, Lera. When it comes to these four, there is never a usual day. Speaking of which, do I want to know where exactly this whisky came from?”
Tye grins. “Your father has a fine taste for alcohol.”
A smile I didn’t think would ever return tentatively touches my face.
Catching my eye, Tye nods and extends my drink back to me.
Autumn rolls her eyes and pulls her bare feet under her, her loose blue trousers billowing around her legs. A circle of tiny gems glints in her exposed naval. “Now, then,” Autumn says, sipping her drink. “Given that I don’t believe the quint magic made a mistake in bonding the five of you, I started wondering why it chose you five, specifically. What’s the connection? It was Coal’s odd relationship with magic that got me thinking.”
“What is odd about Coal?” I ask.
Autumn grins and Tye sucks in a long-suffering breath. “Don’t ask questions, Lilac Girl. She’ll talk your ear off and bore me to death.”
“Magic is somewhat like blood,” Autumn starts, her gray eyes sparkling. “It keeps us fae immortal, quickly healing and, in the case of shifters, able to change form. After basic bodily needs are met, we can use the excess magic externally for things like fire and earth manipulation, healing, and throwing up shields. Everyone except Coal, that is. His magic never leaves his body. It stays inside him, making him even stronger and faster than typical fae.”
“I imagine it’s how he survived Mors as long as he did,” River says. “The qoru feed on their slaves’ energy, but because Coal’s is turned inward, they couldn’t tap it.”
My whole body tenses. Tye pulls me from my seat beside Autumn to press me against his chest, his pine-and-citrus scent brushing over me.
“Then there is the power of opposites,” Autumn continues. “The notion that combining different things creates a stronger whole than combining similar things. You can do more with a bow and arrow than you can with two bows or two arrows alone.”
“What does this have to do with me?” I ask.
“If Coal’s magic is all inside,” Autumn says, “I started wondering if Lera might be his opposite—able to manipulate only outside magic. It would make sense, since humans have no internal magic.”
“She used my magic in the first trial, then,” River says slowly. “And just now, she used Shade’s to heal Coal’s back.”
A shiver runs through me. “I’m a parasite?”
“No, a symbiot,” says Autumn. “The bow to the males’ arrows. That’s what I’ve been chasing after you to explain. But when I arrived and saw the runes on Tye’s neck, I realized it was even more powerful than that.” Leaning forward, Autumn flips through her book to a drawing of a five-corded rope that circles in on itself. “Quint magic is based on a power of five. A combination of five strands that creates a stronger whole than each one could alone.”
“But our mark has four cords, not five.” I swallow. “One is missing.”
“Not missing, Lera.” Autumn grins. “Simply opposite. A complement instead of a duplicate. The males’ power is represented by the four cords, yours by the knots that the cords make. It isn’t a new concept, just one that Lunos hasn’t seen before.”
“And here I thought I knew what ‘new’ means,” Tye mutters.
Autumn taps her book. “I mean that it’s been theorized. Predicted. Speculated about enough to be given a name. Didn’t the man holding you, Lera, think the fae were coming for him?”
I frown, nodding slowly. “Zake believed he was destined for immortality. I don’t think he thought it through more than that when he built his estate at Mystwood’s edge.”
The female grins. “I agree. But he likely was basing his delusions on old tales, legends that once came out of Lunos but morphed and changed since. Your rune has four cords because the fifth power, you, is the weaver who ties everything together.”
22
Lera
I wake in a sweat. My sheets are damp, the memories of the dream still imprinted in my mind. Shackles. Pain. A gray-skinned thing with too-long limbs and needle-sharp teeth inside a lipless maw.
My heart races as I sit up, blinking into the darkness of my bedchamber. There are no shackles here. No monsters lurking in the shadows of this luxurious room, with its four-poster bed and finely carved dresser and pitcher of fresh water beside the washbasin. A dream, that’s all it was. A nightmare. Like the nightmares I sometimes have about my old master, Zake, just different.
I swing my feet to the floor, the down comforter sliding off the bed with them. I consider picking it up but walk over and splash water on my face instead. The cool liquid beads on the pitcher’s side, wetting my hands and shaking away the last of the nightmare. I sigh in relief, my mind once more mine. And normal.
Reaching inside me, I search for the magic I wielded healing Coal’s back. There is nothing there. Not an empty well—just nothing. Stars take me. Something that is so real and potent one moment shouldn’t be allowed to simply not exist the next. Maybe Autumn can explain—
A bolt of terror flashes through me, my heart leaping, the pitcher of water nearly falling from my hand just as the images come again. My wrists burn, but I know worse is coming. A great, unbearable pain determined to make me howl—
I gasp and stumble to my bed, feeling the silken sheets, the intruding nightmare gone with the same sudden efficiency as it came. Bloody damn stars. I rub my eyes with the heels of my hands. There is no pain. Not now, not waiting for me. However real the visions felt, they were not real.
They didn’t even make sense, in retrospect. The me in my visions was determined to bear torment in silence, a point of pride that I little bothered with when Zake came after me. I had more important things to worry about at that point than whether I screamed.
I freeze, ice gripping my neck. I little cared about taking a beating in silence, but there’s someone in this suite who cares about that very much. Whose past those images fit all too bloody well.
Coal. I pinch the bridge of my nose. My body has echoed River’s magic, and Shade’s. But Coal’s? Coal’s magic is different. Inside him. And now it’s dragging me inside him too.
The milky pink eyes. The stench of decay. The promise of a lash—and worse.
Stumbling from my room, I walk down the short hallway and cross the common room to Coal’s bedchamber, my bare feet tapping softly against the stone floor. No wonder he wanted the one isolated room. My shoulders tense, the evening chill peppering my nightshirt-clad skin with goosebumps.
If I’m right about the nightmares and what I think caused them, the Coal I’ll find behind his closed door will be little happy to see me. Granted, I’m unlikely to have a better reception if I’m wrong.
Gathering my resolve, I knock. Softly at first, then louder. Then I give up the pointless exercise and push open the door.
“Coal?”
A dim room, a single lantern like a small star in the corner, augmenting the sliver of light from the moonless sky. Odd for Coal to have fallen asleep with a light on. Odder still that he is still sleeping, sprawled out shirtless on the bed, his blankets and pillows littering the floor like something out of Autumn’s room.
I step toward the bed, my breath halting at the sight of Coal’s spasming body, his face set in a silent scream that never escapes his lips. The male is dressed only in a pair of cotton trousers, his quivering chest covered in a thin sheen of sweat. His musky metallic scent fills the cold room. “Coal, wake up.”
I touch hi
s shoulder carefully, ready to jump away if he decides to kill first and wake up later. My hand comes away slick with sweat and blood from reopened gashes. There was only so much Shade’s magic could do; it will take time for Coal’s flesh to heal fully. If he gives it a chance to.
Coal gasps, drawing breath in slowing motions, as if bracing himself for something that is yet to come, his muscles straining against invisible binds. As if he’s had this nightmare before. And his body knows what to expect next, knows the torment is only just starting. A thin trail of blood leaks from his mouth, where he’s bitten his tongue or lip.
Kneeling on the mattress beside Coal, I shake him with all my strength, no longer caring whether he’ll knock me across the room for it. “Coal! Wake up.” My heart races, my hands changing tack to brush his face instead. His light hair, for once free from its bun, tangles around my fingers. “Coal. Open your eyes. It’s me. Just me.”
“Mortal?” Coal’s confused growl is the most wonderful sound I’ve heard in a long time. The male’s eyes open, wild and pale blue, surveying the room, the light, me. Bracing himself with his hands, Coal sits up roughly. “Why are you in my bed?”
“I had a nightmare.” I swallow. “Your nightmare. I had your nightmare.”
“What the bloody hell are you talking about?”
Right. He wasn’t there for Autumn’s explanation. Granted, I was there and I still little understand what’s happening.
“The quint bond works differently with me—it lets me echo your magic. Sometimes. When we connect.” I sigh. “I don’t know. Ask Autumn. But that’s why I could use River’s earth magic in the arena and Shade’s healing magic yesterday. And now, I’m seeing your dreams.” I pause. Not just now. It’s been happening since we first approached the Citadel.