We’d known the Mist Guard had a presence in Tradesholde, but I’d never guessed the Fae might be lurking in the shadows
themselves, undetected by the guards trained to kill them with their iron weapons.
Caelum shoved me behind himself, drawing a sword from the scabbard on his back, but the Fae’s attention stayed rooted on me, as if Caelum was inconsequential to him, despite the Mark on his neck that was the exact same as mine.
“The rumors are true, then. He does have a human mate,” the Fae said to me, his voice sympathetic as he took the first step toward us. “I don’t imagine the Queen of Air and Darkness will be very happy when I deliver you.”
I swallowed, trying not to think of the implications of that statement. What did the Queen of Air and Darkness have to do with me? My Mark seemed to tingle with awareness, humming against my skin as if it could feel the threat in the Fae male’s words.
“We have the same Mark,” I whispered, the words hovering between us. The Fae narrowed his eyes on Caelum’s Mark for a moment, cocking his head to the side as he considered him.
“So you do,” he said, a menacing smile tipping his lips up.
“Go,” Caelum ordered, reaching behind him to push me back down the alley. He might have been able to fight off a cave beast with the power of
his Viniculum, but they didn’t protect against the Fae themselves. I couldn’t leave him.
I wouldn’t.
I drew the dagger from the sheathe on my thigh, staying behind Caelum as the Fae strolled up to us without a care in the world. Caelum pushed me farther behind him, blocking my view with his broad form.
His body moved forward, meeting the Fae male’s strike with one of his own as their swords clashed together. With Caelum taking the steps forward to fight with the Fae, I watched as he moved his body in tandem with the other.
Whoever had taught him to fight, they’d taught him well. He moved with a fluid grace that I’d never seen from the Mist Guard, knifing through air with dangerous beauty. His blade caught the Fae male on the arm, the skin surrounding the wound sizzling as the cut didn’t heal immediately. My mouth dropped open in shock, breath frozen at the realization that Caelum’s stunning sword with the intricate golden hilt had iron blades.
“Now where did you get a warded iron sword, boy?” the Fae asked, taking a step back as he grimaced at the cut on his arm. He watched Caelum with far more respect, as he studied his stance and the hold he had on the hilt of his weapon.
“My father,” Caelum answered, lifting his chin high as he struck for the Fae male’s chest. The male sidestepped it, barely avoiding Caelum’s sword. I moved in harmony, twirling around Caelum’s legs and cutting the Fae through the fleshy part of his thigh, then withdrew. I ducked away before he could shift his attention to me again, retreating behind Caelum as the Fae stumbled back a step and paused to look down at the blood that spurted from his leg.
The bleeding slowed within seconds as I watched, the flesh beneath the fabric of his trousers knitting itself back together because my blade wasn’t forged from iron.
Caelum took the opportunity of the Fae male’s distraction for what it was, spinning to me and grabbing me under the arms. He hauled me to my feet, running at my side as he urged me in the opposite direction down the alley. We ran at breakneck speed, winding through the streets and trying to keep to the darker ones when we could.
A hand closed around my mouth and someone hauled me into the alleyway beside us. Caelum grumbled at my side, falling into the dark path
alongside me. I shoved my elbow into the stomach of the man who’d touched me, spinning to point my blood-stained dagger in Jensen’s face as he and Melian stared back at me.
“There’s a Fae,” I said, my breath wheezing as Caelum wrapped a hand around the back of my neck. It felt like a possession, but one he needed to know that I was safe with him and not at the mercy of the male who… hadn’t seemed at all interested in Caelum aside from him being in the way.
“The city is crawling with them,” Jensen said through gritted teeth.
“Is that normal? I can’t imagine the city isn’t heavily guarded,” I said. “I hadn’t expected them to be here, no,” Melian answered. “We
wouldn’t be passing through here if I had, no matter how many Marked are trapped in Calfalls. We would have gone the long way.” She glanced over her shoulder at Beck.
“We need to get out of here,” Jensen said, looking around the mouth of the alley and waiting to see if our Fae friend had followed us.
“Lead the way,” she agreed, her face a mask of pain.
“What about Duncan?” I asked, looking around for the other man who was nowhere to be found. He wasn’t Marked; wasn’t valuable to the Fae searching the city.
“Dead,” she said, touching a hand to my shoulder and pushing me to follow Jensen. Caelum moved at my side, and there wasn’t enough time for me to stop and ask what had happened.
If Duncan was already gone, it could wait until we were safe, even with the anguish written into the lines of Melian’s face. I stumbled over my own feet as I followed Jensen, my ears ringing in my head with the way that Fae had looked at me.
With the way the Mist Guard and the Wild Hunt had looked at me.
“Are our marks unique to the Fae?” I asked, searching through my memory of the others in the tunnels, trying to recall another with the same colors. There had been white marks. There had been black marks, but Caelum and I were the only ones where the white and black intertwined.
Caelum took my arm, guiding me to follow at Jensen’s back as Melian and Beck followed behind us. “Not the time. Let’s go, Little One,” he murmured, using his hand on the small of my back to keep me moving forward.
I hadn’t paid close enough attention to the marks on the Fae in the Book of the Gods, too concerned with studying the ethereal lines of their face, but
one stood out in my mind. Denial coursed through me as my legs felt like they might buckle under me.
We cut through the alleys, navigating down the city streets when we dared. Jensen found the stone slab that covered the tunnel out, beside the stables, heaving it to the side and motioning all of us in while Melian and Beck hurried to catch up. I paused, waiting for Melian and Beck to take the lead inside the narrow passageway. It would have been too small for us to pass one another inside, and the darkness curved around a corner to make me believe it was far longer than the one we’d taken into the city.
I never saw the iron coming; never felt the stir in the air until it was too late.
Fire tore through my arm, cutting through the fleshy part of my bicep, searing my flesh as I jolted to the side and into Caelum’s frame. The throwing knife bounced off the stone wall in front of me, landing at my feet with a clatter, and my stomach turned over with nausea. He caught me, wrapping his body around my back and tucking me into the cradle of his arms as he grunted through whatever must have struck him next.
More iron that had been meant for me.
“Get in the fucking tunnel!” he ordered, shoving me forward and away from him as he jolted again. “Go!”
I hurried into the entrance, cradling my arm in my grip and trying to stem the flow of blood as Melian stepped up in front of me and pulled me deeper. I looked over my shoulder, waiting for Caelum to follow. He and Jensen locked eyes for a brief moment, understanding passing between them. As a dozen of the Mist Guard started to round the corner toward the tunnel, Jensen heaved the cover closed, concealing us from the soldiers.
“No!” I screamed, lunging out of Melian’s grip and banging on the stone that was too heavy for me to move on my own. “Help me get it open!’ I snapped, tearing at the stone with my fingers. My nails broke on the uneven surface, the tips of my fingers tearing open as I tried frantically.
“Estrella, stop,” Melian said, coming up behind me. Her hands came down on the tops of my shoulders, tugging me away from the stone blocking me from getting to Caelum. “We have to go.”
“I won’t leave him!” I protested, tearing away from her as my breath huffed out of me. “You go if you’re so willing to leave him behind. I won’t.”
“Stubborn fool,” she said, shaking her head in disappointment. Beck pulled at her arm, taking her further down the tunnels and leaving me behind while I waited. If, somehow, Caelum made it through, I had to believe we could catch up with them, because I didn’t know another way to get back to the Resistance in the end, and we’d have nowhere else to go.
I couldn’t think of what I would do if he didn’t make it.
This wasn’t the man I’d fallen in love with. This was the man tainted by Faerie magic, who had destroyed a cave beast.
“Dead,” he said, tilting his head to the side. “Do you care, my star?”
I paused, trying to decide if I did in fact care. Not for Jensen as a person, but for another Marked life gone to waste. “Did you kill him?” I asked, regretting the words as soon as they left my mouth.
Caelum grinned, something malignant flashing over his face. “No, but I didn’t save him either.”
