A GATEWAY to hell awaited us in the clearing outside.
The spiraling maw of shadow and smoke was small. Only big enough to swallow a horse, perhaps. Convenient, since Kingfisher stood in front of it with Bill, Aida, and Ren’s bay mount. Carrion’s limp body was already slumped over Bill’s haunches. He’d misplaced a boot somewhere between the barn and the clearing, and Fisher obviously hadn’t deemed the loss important enough to do anything about it. I didn’t care much about Swift’s missing boot, either; I was too busy staring at the whirling black vortex behind Fisher to register much of anything else at all.
The way it pulled at the light, drawing the orange glow from the tavern’s windows toward it, twisting it into fine threads that it sucked into the spinning singularity in its center made me want to back away from it very, very slowly. I’d put Onyx back into the bag before leaving the tavern, but I could feel him shaking against my spine as if he could sense the strange force through the burlap and didn’t like it one bit.
Gusts of wind whipped at Kingfisher’s dark waves, tossing them about his face. The silver gorget was back at his throat. It glinted, the wolf’s head engraving fiercer than ever. After how he’d just behaved back in the tavern, I expected to find Fisher in a raging temper, but his face was blank, his shoulders relaxed as he handed me Aida’s reins and turned to face the wall of twisting smoke. “Let’s get this over with,” he said quietly. “You’ll follow Ren. I’ll be right behind you.”
The hairs stood up on my arms. “I’m—I’m not walking into that. What is
it?”
“It’s a shadow gate. A means to an end. You can use this, or you can spend the next two months on horseback, sleeping in snowy ditches and scavenging for your dinner. What’ll it be?”
“I’ll take the second option.” I didn’t even need to think about it. My ass would get used to a saddle eventually, and the cloak Kingfisher had given me was excellent at keeping out the cold. I’d spent half my life hunting for my own dinner amongst Zilvaren’s sand dunes. And besides, I had no interest in heading into a war zone. Delaying our arrival at Cahlish seemed like a fantastic option.
Fisher pursed his lips. “Let me rephrase that. You’re going through the gate, human.”
I took a step back, dropping Aida’s reins. “I’m not.”
Kingfisher considered me, one eyebrow curving with interest. “Are you thinking about running? Gods, I hope so. I’ll give you a head start if you like. It’s been an age since I’ve hunted anything.”
“Come on, Fisher,” Ren said wearily, slipping on a pair of leather gloves. “She’s scared. Give her a moment to adjust to the idea.”
“I’m not scared,” I lied. “I’m just not going through that thing. I’ll probably never make it out of the other side.”
Kingfisher opened his mouth, about to say something taunting and mean, no doubt, but the tavern door opened, and shadowy figures began to emerge. Fisher’s eyes hardened, and whatever he was about to say died on his lips. “We don’t have time for this. Ren will go through the gate. You will follow after him. Your oath to me will leave you no choice.”
Ren went still. His eyes locked onto Kingfisher. The warrior must have felt the burning intensity of the general’s gaze, but Fisher didn’t so much as glance in his friend’s direction. “Tell me I misheard that,” Ren said. “Tell me you didn’t bind this girl to you with an oath.”
“Go through the gate, Ren,” Fisher commanded. “An oath?” he whispered.
“She got something in return,” Fisher ground out. “Now, please. Go through the gate. We can discuss this on the other side.”
Ren shook his head, a combination of dismay and disappointment warring on his face. He didn’t seem to know what to say. Collecting Aida’s reins, he handed them back to me and said, “Don’t worry. It’s really nothing. You’ll be disoriented for a moment, but just keep walking. It’ll be over in seconds, I promise.”
It was a kindness, this reassurance from Ren. Without it, my fear would have eaten me alive as the general stepped forward and led his horse into the inky black.
I wasn’t going to follow. I wouldn’t.
Elroy hadn’t said I possessed a stubborn streak a mile wide for no reason. My force of will was stronger than this oath I’d sworn to Fisher. It had to be. I set my jaw and determined to enjoy the look of annoyance on Kingfisher’s face when I didn’t follow after Ren. But Kingfisher only gave me a tight-lipped smile as my body moved of its own accord, following his command without my permission.
My pulse leaped as I approached the twisting gate, my breath catching in my throat. How could he do this? By using the oath against me, forcing me to bend to his will, he stripped me of my own. Even back in Madra’s Hall of Mirrors, when I’d fought for my life and Harron had outmatched me, I hadn’t felt this powerless.
My mind scrambled as the tip of my boot disappeared into the swirling gate. I would have begged Fisher to relent, but the warrior’s stony expression promised that doing so would be a waste of breath. “I’ll hate you forever for this,” I hissed at him.
And then I stepped into the gate.
 |
The howling black wind turned me inside out.
I became it.
It became me.
My mind scattered in a thousand different directions, ripped away from me in an instant.
I was nothing.
I was blind. I was deaf. I was a soulless whisper, trembling in the dark. And then I was pain.
It tore through me, exploding in my knees, my wrists, and my palms. It flowered behind my eyes, bright lights flaring, burning my retinas. Red.
Orange. White. Green.
I opened my eyes with a gasp and only had enough time to pull in that one breath before my stomach pitched upside down and ejected the few bites of stew I’d eaten at the tavern all over a rough stone floor.
“My Lord,” a stunned voice said. “I—Gods. I’m so sorry, I—nothing’s prepared. We had no idea!”
“It’s all right, Orris.” When Ren spoke, he sounded far away. “Thank you. Take the horses and make sure they’re rugged tonight. It’s going to get a lot colder before dawn.”
“But—”
“Yes, I know. Fisher’s back. He’ll speak to us all tomorrow, I’m sure. For now, I think it’s best if we give him a little time to settle back in. If you could keep this quiet until the morning…”
“Of course, sir. Of course.”
The world was on its side. My temple was cold. Cold as ice. It took me a long moment to realize that I was lying on the ground and that my head was resting on hard stone. I watched Kingfisher walking away down a long hallway—alone, silent, head bowed—and I vowed with everything I had in me that I’d make the fucker pay for this.
I tried to get up, but when I heaved myself onto an elbow, the arched ceiling became the floor, became up, became down, and another wave of vomit rushed up the back of my throat. I threw up a second time, hacking as I tried to catch my breath.
“Oh, Saeris. I’m sorry. Here, give me your hand.”
Leave me alone. Get the fuck away from me. Don’t touch me. I thought about screaming these things at Renfis, but there was real sympathy in his voice. And this wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t taken my free will from me. He hadn’t brought me here to this wretched place or tricked me into agreeing to a binding blood contract that effectively turned me into his goddamned puppet. I accepted the hand he offered to me, whimpering as my legs wobbled.
“Thankfully, you won’t experience this again. For some reason, the gates only affect us the first time we use them. For most of us, it’s just a little dizziness. Maybe a headache. For a human, it’s a little more than that, it seems. No one’s seen a human in a very long time. There’s a lot we’ve forgotten. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize to me. Not for him,” I wheezed.
Ren let out a tense sigh. “He’s not…what you think he is.” “A bastard? He’s definitely a bastard.”
The general flinched a little as I tried to straighten up. “Can you walk? Oh. No. Shit. You can’t even stand. Uhh…okay. That’s fine. I’ve got you.” There’s nothing more undignified than collapsing into the arms of a male you barely know. Not much I could do about it, though. My head wouldn’t stop spinning, and I was definitely going to throw up again. I couldn’t have shrugged out of his arms if I’d tried. I didn’t make a peep as he lifted me.
My head felt like it was going to crack open. “Wait. Onyx.
Where’s…Onyx?”
“Don’t fret. I’ve got him. He’ll be with you when you wake up.”
“Thank you.” I closed my eyes, trying to breathe through the discomfort when Ren started walking with me.
“He used to be kinder,” Ren whispered. “But the quicksilver inside of him… It makes it difficult for him to think straight. It wears on him. It’s exhausting for him, shutting out the voices. It’s made him hard.” There was so much sadness in his voice as he spoke. It made me want to open my eyes, to see what kind of expression he was wearing, but I couldn’t manage it.
“You shouldn’t make…excuses…for him.”
“They aren’t excuses, Saeris. I’ve known him my whole life. We were born to different parents, but we’re brothers in every other way that counts. I know him better than I know myself. The first time Belikon forced him to travel without a relic, the silver infected him so badly that I thought we’d lost him altogether. His mind was so fractured. Let’s just say, it took a long time for him to recover. The healers did their best, but the piece that remains in his eye torments him night and day. His mother’s relic doesn’t seem to be as effective anymore. And now he’s been exposed to the quicksilver twice without it again. I…I just don’t know what to expect from him anymore.”
“Where…” I took a deep breath, “…was he?”
“Mm?” The questioning sound Ren made vibrated against my ear.
“You said…you haven’t seen him for…a hundred and…ten years. Where
was he?”
A thick silence fell. For a long time, the sound of Ren’s footsteps echoing off the walls was the only thing to disturb it. But then he sighed deeply, as if making his mind up about something, and said, “I can’t tell you
that. It wouldn’t be fair. He’ll tell you himself at some point, perhaps. But until then…”
I didn’t care to push the matter further. I felt too sick to talk. And who cared where Kingfisher had been? He could have spent the past century trapped inside one of those trees in The Wicker Wood for all the difference it made. There was no excuse for the way he was treating me. None that I would accept.
I didn’t know where Renfis of the Orrithian carried me. I was already unconscious by the time he got me there.
|
“It’d be a real shame to have to pinch you, but I’m getting bored, and this rabid animal keeps showing me its teeth.”
I groaned. Rolled over.
I was floating on a cloud. It was heaven. The most comfortable cloud I’d ever—
I hinged upright, grasping hold of my side. “Fuck!” The skin just above my hip throbbed painfully. “What the ffff…” I trailed off when I saw the auburn-haired brigand standing at the foot of my bed. No, not my bed. A bed. Warm. Comfortable. Massive. But not mine. Onyx sat at the end of it, baring his teeth at a very disheveled-looking Carrion Swift, who held hands aloft in surrender.
“Look! Look! Shh, it’s all right. She’s awake. I didn’t murder her. Stop overreacting.”
“If you touch that fox, I’ll skin you,” I growled at him.
Carrion’s pale blue eyes met mine, full of a false hurt I was more than familiar with. “And hello to you, too! What kind of greeting is that? And after we’ve been so cruelly separated for so many weeks as well.”
I flung back the covers and launched myself out of the bed. I had Carrion backed up against a wall and an angry finger in his face in no time. “You’re lucky I don’t knock your fucking teeth out,” I snapped. “What the hell were you playing at, telling Fisher that you were Hayden?”
The thief’s hands were still in the air. He glanced down at the index finger I was jabbing in his face, smirking at it like he was wondering what I was planning on doing with it. He didn’t miss a beat when he said, “You should be thanking me. That psychotic monster looked like he was planning on murdering your brother. I did him a favor. If it weren’t for me—”
“Just shut up and tell me, is he alive, Carrion? I need…I have to know.” My heart was a fist in my throat. My entire existence hinged on whatever came out of Carrion’s mouth next. I waited for his expression to darken or at least sober a little, but Carrion’s infuriating little smile remained firmly in place.
“Of course he’s alive. Why wouldn’t he be alive?”
“Because Madra…Madra swore she was going to find him and kill him.
She said she was going to destroy the ward.”
He frowned. “And why in all four winds would she do that?”
“You know why! Because I took that cursed gauntlet!”
“Ah, yes, that’s right.” He pushed away from the wall, blue eyes dancing with amusement. “The gauntlet. The one I advised you to take out of the Third, before our people started getting hurt? That gauntlet?”
I was going to hurt him. Badly. “Enough, Carrion. I know I fucked up, all right. I feel terrible enough as it is. Just tell me what happened. Is Hayden really still alive?”
“Yes, yes, he’s still alive. Gods, you never were one for patience.” He rolled his eyes. “Hayden’s in The Seventh. I got him papers and shifted him that first night when you were taken up to the palace. He’s now gainfully employed as a store clerk. It isn’t glamorous work, but it’s better than having no job at all. He has triple water rations and a room above the shop. I haven’t visited for a couple of days. I didn’t want to draw too much attention, him being a new face and all, but he’s comfortable. I can’t say that he’s happy. He’s brainstorming all sorts of ways to break you out of the palace, but—”
“Stop! Stop, stop, stop. Just…wait.” I covered my face with my hands. “Shit. Are you crying? I figured you’d be happy.”
Hayden was alive. Hayden was alive. He was safe.
He was in The Seventh. He had a job, and a roof over his head, and food and water, too? My whole body trembled with relief. I dropped my hands to
my sides, pulling myself together, trying to think pragmatically. “Madra just hasn’t found him yet.” I sniffed, clearing my throat.
“Madra isn’t looking for him.” “But the guardians…”
“Are all prepared for the Evenlight. It’s in a month. The whole city’s been buzzing with talk of what gift she’ll bestow on us this year. She has the guardians building a stage in the center of the market square.”
“You’re sure it’s not new gallows?” I asked suspiciously. “Definitely not gallows. There are flowers all over it.” “Flowers?”
“Yes, flowers.”
“Tell me everything that happened after the guardians took me up to the palace,” I demanded. There had to be something. Some kind of awful act of violence that shook the foundations of our ward. Madra was a lot of things and benevolent wasn’t one of them. But Carrion just let out a dry laugh.
“Everything’s fine. Elroy’s been a real pain in the ass, of course. He goes up to the gates every day and demands to see you, but they keep turning him away. He comes back down to the forge and gets to work, grumbling about the mess you’ve left him in. Hayden is dealing with a guilty conscience about as best as he can. He blames himself for you being taken. Other than that, the Third continues as it always has without you. Imagine that. The world, audacious enough to carry on without Saeris Fane.”
“I’m serious, Carrion. You didn’t hear her. She swore that everyone in the Third would die.”
“And yet no one has,” he said, shrugging. “Now, I think I’ve been pretty patient while we’ve rehashed all of this gauntlet bullshit. I think it’s my turn to have a few things explained to me. Principally, where the fuck are we, why are we here, were the people who came in here about half an hour and laid their hands all over you really Fae, or did I hallucinate that part, and lastly…” He pointed at his foot. “Where the fuck is my other boot?”
“Someone came in here and touched me?”
Carrion threw his head back, groaning. “All of those questions and you respond by asking one of your own. Gods. Yes, they came and touched your hands a bunch. They said they were healing you.”
Sure enough, when I looked down at my hands, the bite Onyx gave me when he was scared was gone, as was the little welt from the faerie. The
burn mark from Nimerelle was still there, but only just. The skin on my palm was tender to the touch, but it was pink again and didn’t look like it was going to burst open and start weeping pus anymore.
Kingfisher. He’d sent healers. He was really serious about making sure I didn’t develop a fever. But he would be, wouldn’t he? I was nothing more than a tool to him, and how would he use me if I was dead?
For the first time since waking, I took stock of the situation. Hayden was alive and doing okay. So was Elroy. For the time being, at least. But now, I was stuck in the Yvelian borderlands, in the middle of a war between battling factions of immortals, and Carrion Swift was prodding me for an explanation as to why.
I explained everything I knew, moving around the room and inspecting our surroundings. The room was windowless, which was my first disappointment. No way to assess the landscape around us, and no way to climb to freedom, either. The bedroom—because it was a bedroom—was twice the size of my room back at the Winter Palace. There were four large double beds, two on either side of the space, made up with thick, beautiful covers in bright blues and greens, each of them adorned with mounds of pillows and cushions. A plush rug covered the majority of the stone floor. Woven tapestries hung from the walls. A large fireplace roared at the far end of the room, next to which a wide table was loaded with bowls of fruits, bread, smoked meats, and cheeses, not to mention four copper ewers of water and two separate wash basins.
None of it had been touched.
From the look of the rumpled sheets and the disturbed pillows, Carrion must have slept in the bed closest to the table, which meant the food would have been one of the first things he saw when he woke up, but he hadn’t even poured himself a glass of water.
He stood with his arms folded over his chest, his brow furrowed, head angled to one side while he listened to me, taking in the details of everything that had happened to me without the slightest indication that he believed what I was saying. When I was done, he blew out his cheeks and sat himself down heavily in one of the chairs by the fire, running his hands through his hair.
“So you kissed that guy, then. The one with the creepy sword and the bad attitude?”
I stared at him blankly, not understanding the question for a moment. At last, I said, “What does that have to do with anything?”
Carrion shook his head. “You’re right. Ignore me. So, you have the ability to awaken this quicksilver. The pool that your new boyfriend dragged me into—”
“He is not my boyfriend.”
“—and no one else has been able to do that for a thousand years. And now you’ve made some kind of unbreakable promise to a malevolent legendary Fae warrior who might be completely insane. You don’t know what he wants from you—”
“He wants me to make relics for him. So that more members of the Fae can travel without losing their minds.”
“But how are you going to do that?”
“She’s about to find out.”
Instinctively, I reached for the dagger that should have been at my thigh, only to grasp at empty air. Kingfisher stood in the doorway, his hand casually resting on Nimerelle’s pommel. His brows knit together, forming a knot above his sharp green eyes. He always seemed to carry a heavy cloud around him, but today there was something extra dark and stormy about his demeanor. He wore no armor over his black shirt and pants, but the silver gorget still guarded his throat as always.
Carrion bristled at Fisher’s entrance, positioning himself between me and the dark-haired warrior, which drew an amused smile from Kingfisher as he glanced around the room.
“Just so you’re fully aware of all the facts,” he began smoothly, “I’m only half insane. And yes, your friend is bound to me. Did she mention that she’s the only reason you’re still alive?” Fisher picked up an apple from the bowl on the table, turning it over in his hand. “I wanted to leave you back at the Winter Palace, but she insisted you come along for the ride.”
Carrion flashed me a sweet smile. “And here I thought you’d lost interest in me. Although, I have to say, I would have preferred to stay in Zilvaren. I was on the brink of closing a spectacular deal that would have made me a very rich man.”
Kingfisher stilled, his fingers tightening around Nimerelle’s hilt. His eyes flicked between Carrion and me before drifting off to the other side of the room, focusing on nothing in particular. Slowly, he set the apple back in the bowl. “I need you to come with me, Human,” he said.
“Wonderful. Another day of being forced to do whatever you want. Lucky me.”
He looked at me solemnly. “I’m not going to force you to do anything.”
“Oh?” I couldn’t hide the sarcasm in my voice. “So if I decide to stay right here and tell you to go fuck yourself, you won’t react badly and command me to go with you?”
“I’d be a little annoyed that you told me to go fuck myself,” he said. “But now that we’re here, the list of urgent matters I need to attend to is staggering. Asking you to explore the depths of your abilities and use them to save countless lives, so you can eventually return to your dusty city, is actually lower on that list than you might think.”
Carrion raised a hand. “When he puts it like that, I vote you go and help him with the relic issue.”
I grabbed his wrist and yanked his hand down. “You don’t get a vote. And you,” I said, turning to Fisher, “you’ve already tricked me into doing your bidding once. I’m not going to do what you want just because you’ve vaguely hinted that you’ll let us go back to Zilvaren once I’ve made enough relics for you.”
Fisher’s smile was all teeth, the silver in his eye flashing like a blade. “I wouldn’t need to trick you into doing anything for me. As you’ve already figured out, I could just make you do what I’m asking.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“Because my brother is displeased with me,” he admitted. “And because this will go much smoother if you agree to help my people willingly.”
So he was giving me back my autonomy to appease Ren. Not surprising. And it was no shock that Fisher didn’t appreciate my complaining. Well, he was about to find out that I could help him willingly and still give him plenty of grief. “I’ll come with you, then. On one condition.”
Fisher’s mask of indifference slipped, revealing a flicker of annoyance. “Which is?”
“That you promise me this exactly, verbatim. Word for word. I swear I will release you and allow you and Carrion to return to Zilvaren the moment you have made enough relics for my people.”
Kingfisher’s mouth twitched almost imperceptibly. “As you wish. Word for word. I swear I will release you and allow you and Carrion to return to Zilvaren the moment you have made enough relics for my people. There. Are you satisfied?”
“Are you bound by that promise?” I asked. Fisher dipped his head in a mock bow. “I am.”
“All right. Then I’m satisfied. Let’s go.”
“Leave the fox. He’ll only be underfoot.”
I started to protest, but Onyx had fallen asleep amongst the cushions on one of the beds that hadn’t been slept in, and he looked too peaceful to wake, anyway.
“And what about me?” Carrion demanded. “You’re just going to keep me locked away in here forever?”
Fisher snorted. “You haven’t been locked in here at all.”
I glared at him over my shoulder. “You didn’t check the door?” “I just assumed…”
“Urgh!”
Kingfisher spun and strolled purposefully out of the room. “You’re free to come and go as you wish, boy. Do whatever the hell you like. Though, I doubt you’re gonna get very far with only one boot.”
