Grave War

by Price, Kalayna

  I gave him a small nod of thanks, biting my lip as I absorbed the news. Nearly half the seasonal doors were gone. That . . . that was really bad. My hand finally closed on the item I was searching for, and I pulled the map I’d tucked away what seemed like forever ago free, letting it unroll as I lifted it. I ripped my gaze away from the mirror long enough to stare at the map. Sure enough, the color had fled from more of the surface. North and South America were now both completely devoid of color. As were Asia and some of Europe. Finding Nekros on the map, our little folded space didn’t unfold as much as it had the first time I’d seen it, the wilds not as wide or dense.

  Shit. The folded spaces were sustained by magic, and with Faerie being torn away, magic was leaving the land. Was human magic enough to sustain the cities and towns we’d built in the folded spaces across the globe? Or was the destruction of the doors going to have a rippling effect that would shake the whole world? If the folded spaces collapsed, both human and fae were in danger.

  I swallowed hard, looking into the small mirror again.

  “When did the latest bombings occur? I had winter’s people put extra security on the doors after Nekros’s was destroyed. At that time, there were no signs of trouble at any of the other doors.” I hadn’t had any reports from the other FIB offices, but then again, most of my local agents had jumped ship, taking off for the door in South America—not that it would even be there when they arrived, apparently—and, besides, I hadn’t exactly been accessible for reports most of the day, so I shouldn’t have been shocked that I hadn’t heard about the newest bombings. But why hadn’t the increased security helped? Having already lost one door, you’d think they’d be vigilant. Of course, Ryese had planted Tem on my team—he could have plants and sympathizers anywhere. I chewed at my bottom lip. “Could we have this conversation in person? This little hand mirror isn’t the best FaceTime device.”

  Dugan’s brows furrowed, and I saw him mouth the word “FaceTime” as if trying to parse out the meaning. Yeah, Faerie didn’t tend to keep up with the latest technology. And by “latest,” I wasn’t even sure most of the courtiers were familiar with the printing press yet . . .

  “Answering your first question,” the king said. “Around noon in the human realm. As to the second—” The image in the mirror shook again, cutting off the king’s words as all three men again braced against Faerie’s jolting rumbles.

  Two earthquakes in less than five minutes?

  My eyes remained riveted on the mirror, waiting for the motion to once again still. An odd sensation at the edge of my awareness dragged at me, but I didn’t want to look away from the image in front of me. Falin had braced his legs against the rocking motion of the ground and I felt almost afraid to lose sight of him, though there was nothing I could do to help from the mortal realm. Still that niggling feeling pulled at my senses, calling to my magic. I ignored it, but it tugged at me, a subtle wrongness to it.

  The wrongness was what made me finally glance away from the mirror. Ignoring those gut instincts that warned of dangers was a good way to get jumped by really scary things. I thought I was alone in this room, but this was a pocket of Faerie. It was possible that something had crossed from Faerie to this pocket and gotten stuck in here with me, trapped by my father’s wards. I glanced around, searching for what was niggling at me without fully taking my attention away from the mirror.

  I saw nothing unusual at first. Then my gaze caught on a corner, not because I could see anything odd, but because I could feel it. The threads of Faerie were dissolving, the pocket surrounding me shrinking. I’d thought I had until sunrise before we were in danger of losing this last bit of Faerie, but now that I focused on it, I could feel it actively dissolving around me.

  The sounds in the mirror quieted, and I glanced down as the image stabilized, the men straightening. As Faerie stilled, the fraying strands around me quieted as well. My gaze bounced between the mirror and the corner of the room, but now that the earthquake had passed, the room had stopped shrinking.

  “How often is that happening?” I asked as Dugan righted the mirror this time.

  “With increasing frequency.” Dugan frowned. He was close enough that he took up the entire mirror. “The first one more or less corresponded with the doors blowing. Recently they have been hitting every few minutes. Faerie will tear itself in half at this rate.”

  I opened my mouth. Closed it. The panic that I’d barely been keeping leashed railed against me, trying to drag my lungs out of my chest. Or maybe it was simply my heart’s frantic jumping that knocked the air from me. The pocket of Faerie I was standing in was shrinking, possibly every time Faerie quaked, which meant my window of opportunity to get the locals out was closing. But with Faerie tearing itself to shreds, it didn’t sound like any of us were safe in either reality.

  “What can be done?” I asked.

  “Currently?” Nandin said from somewhere behind Dugan, which I couldn’t see as the prince was still filling the entire mirror. I found myself craning my neck, as if that would help me see around him. It did not, of course. “Preventing more doors from falling would be good. We appear to be at some crucial tipping point.”

  I dug in my purse for my phone with the intention of sending a text to Nori about the fact that more doors had been lost and telling her to contact the remaining FIB offices and get as much security on the remaining doors as possible. But, of course, there was no phone in my purse. Tem had destroyed it, the bits likely still on the floorboard of my car. It wasn’t like the initial security I’d ordered seemed to have helped anyway.

  “What is being done to secure the doors from Faerie’s side?” I asked, wishing I could actually see Falin, as he was the only one here with a door to the mortal realm. The shadow court had little skin in this game, well, except that it sounded like this disturbance was trickling down to affect all of Faerie.

  “Faerie is locking down,” Falin said and I blinked in surprise.

  “You mean all the courts?” I’d known winter had been locked after the bombing, as even the unaffected doors hadn’t been able to reach the court, but I’d been under the impression that had been because Falin had been injured in a duel and the court had locked to give him time to recover. I hadn’t heard that the remaining doors to the other courts had also locked. Of course, the other courts hadn’t exactly been forthcoming.

  “All of Faerie, as of this afternoon,” Dugan said, his expression grave. “Every door between the mortal realm and Faerie is sealed. Travel between courts on this side is still open, but Faerie has closed herself completely to the mortal realm.”

  I sank onto the stone bench. That might protect the remaining doors, assuming the explosive spells weren’t already in place and Ryese didn’t already have people stationed around the remaining doors in the mortal realm. But it also meant all the fae in the mortal realm were cut off. That wasn’t too serious for those in areas where the doors still existed, because, while they couldn’t travel to Faerie, at least it was still tied to the land at the doors and would sustain the local fae. But for the evacuating fae? They couldn’t even bargain their way through the closest territory back to their own courts. Of course, Falin had said the South America doors were gone, so all my agents who’d jumped in their cars and fled toward where the closest winter territory should have been were headed to an equally devastated area instead.

  “I need a door,” I said, the words coming out surprisingly clear considering how numb I felt everywhere.

  Dugan lifted a dark eyebrow.

  “Well . . .” the king said and then made an annoyed sound. “Dugan, I know she is a pretty girl, but do let the rest of us see her as well. This is already hard enough with Faerie throwing us around every few minutes and whatever small reflective surface our planeweaver is using.”

  Dugan frowned, but backed away from the mirror, opening my view to the rest of the room. Falin had moved closer in the int
erim, as had the king, so that even with Dugan taking a place beside them, all three men barely fit in the small frame.

  “The shadow court owes me a favor. I’d like to trade it for a door for all the fae I can gather.” Not that I could gather all the stranded fae in the Americas before this pocket of Faerie deteriorated. Hell, if it were that easy to move fae across such large land distances, this evacuation wouldn’t have been an issue in the first place; the locals would have been easily relocated to the closest winter territory before the latest door had been lost. But at least I should be able to rescue the locals, and I’d try to evacuate as many as could reach us until the last thread of Faerie dissolved.

  The king frowned at me, but then his eyes once again flickered over toward something out of view of my mirror. What was he looking at? Who was over there? It wasn’t just the king either. Falin shot more than one furtive, if weary, glance in that direction. The weariness concerned me, but he hadn’t attempted to warn me in any way, so whatever it was, it must be a concern for their side of Faerie, not mine.

  “Are you in the habit of reminding kings when they owe you favors? It doesn’t seem a healthy trait.” Nandin’s tone was good-natured, but I bristled at the implied threat. I saw Falin’s hand twitch as well, but it was his only reaction.

  “I’m simply opening negotiations,” I said, keeping my tone flat.

  “Ah, my dear—” The king cut off as all three men fell sideways, or more accurately, the mirror they were speaking through fell sideways. From the look of their feet, which was all I could see before my own mirror went completely black, all three fae caught themselves and braced for Faerie’s rolling quakes as it shook again. With the image gone, I would have thought the connection broke, except for the awful noise of Faerie rumbling and for the fact that I distinctly heard the king curse, so apparently I still had an audible connection, just no image. Or maybe the mirror had fallen facedown this time.

  With nothing to see in my mirror, I devoted my attention to the edges of the room. Sure enough, the threads of Faerie began fraying as soon as the earthquake began. The damage was slow—I doubted the room was losing more than an inch or two per incident—but that would add up. How long would this pocket of Faerie last?

  “Find a way to make it work!” the king’s voice shouted over the background noise.

  I thought he was talking about the mirror, but the voice that answered was younger, not one of the men I’d been speaking to. “I’ve been trying. Faerie is too unstable.”

  “Well, it’s not going to get any more stable.” That one was Dugan’s voice, but it didn’t sound like he was actually talking to the other two, just grumbling an aside.

  I frowned, glancing at my mirror. It was still dark. The sound of Faerie’s rumbling was growing dimmer; the angrier shaking must have been quieting to smaller aftershocks. The edges of my room stopped fraying as well, so I guessed the worst of it had passed. Though for how long? There were mere minutes between the last few earthquakes.

  I expected someone to right the mirror again, now that the most recent incident had passed. Instead the unknown voice yelled, “I got it. Be quick!”

  Without warning, arms wrapped around my waist and dragged me backward, up over the bench I’d been perched on, and into the darkness.

  Chapter 24

  What the hell?” I yelled as shadows swallowed me. I struggled against the arms locked around my waist, but they were vise tight, dragging me back against an armored chest.

  The air around me changed, the darkness filling my eyes turning thicker, more solid. I dropped the mirror as I aimed my elbow into what I hoped was my ambusher’s ribs. My other hand reached for the dagger in my boot, but whoever had grabbed me anticipated that move, and his arm slid up, bracing across my chest to grab my opposite shoulder and force me upright.

  The bench I’d just been sitting on vanished, a wave of darkness consuming the few feet of space between it and me. The hand mirror, which hadn’t even had time to hit the ground yet, shattered in midair, half of it falling to the ground inches from my feet. The other half was gone, still on the other side of the portal. A small cloaked figure dropped to his knees, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

  I went still, no longer fighting the arms that had snatched me from my little pocket of Faerie and hauled me into Faerie proper. As soon as I stopped struggling, the arms fell away, releasing me. I stood stunned for a moment, staring at the broken mirror barely a breath in front of my toes. If I had kicked out while being dragged backward, it would have been my leg that had been severed instead of the mirror.

  “Are you all right?” Dugan asked as he took a step back, leaving my personal bubble now that he’d released me.

  My pulse thundered in my ears, nearly drowning out his words. I turned to frown at him, but my gaze moved slow, unable to look away from the remainder of the mirror until it was physically impossible to see it with the rest of me turning. My eyes finally snapped up, landing on Dugan’s dark armor—armor I now knew was warm from his body heat. And very solid, if my smarting elbow was any indication.

  “What the hell . . .” I said again, blinking as I forced my gaze to Dugan’s face.

  His expression was guarded as he watched me but he met my gaze levelly. “I will not apologize for removing you from a realm where you could not safely exist.”

  “You could have given me a little warning!” And a slightly longer window to make it through the door. I’d been inches from losing a limb. Besides, it wasn’t like I’d been in any danger alone in a small pocket of Faerie, and from the sounds of it, as I was carrying around my own pocket of Faerie, I was the fae least affected by the door’s destruction. I took a deep breath. I was trembling. Not a lot, just a slight tremor as the adrenaline that had flooded me when I’d been grabbed now drained away. With everything I’d been through already today, I was surprised my body was still up to pumping me full of adrenaline—did that stuff never run out?

  Crossing my arms over my chest, I turned my back on Dugan and spun to find Falin. He wasn’t far away, and as intently as he was watching me, I was surprised I hadn’t felt his gaze like a physical weight. I hurried over to him, but then stopped a foot or so away, unsure. Our relationship was so new, and we weren’t exactly advertising it. Of course, we were standing in the court of shadows and secrets, and Dugan had made it quite clear that he knew.

  “Hey,” I said, feeling awkward. There were so many things I wanted to say, but I didn’t even know where to start. Was he okay? Why was he in shadow? And why hadn’t he bargained a door with the planebender? I needed to tell him about Ryese, and compare notes about the bombings. To ask about his ideas on fixing the doors.

  Falin studied me for half a heartbeat. Then he stepped forward, gathering me in his arms and pulling me toward him. He kissed me, a deep, almost desperate kiss that blasted through my awkwardness. A kiss that communicated relief, concern, and affection all bundled into lips that consumed, breath that became shared, and warmth that surrounded me completely, making me forget about the audience in the room and the fact that our relationship was supposed to be on the down low. I relaxed into his body, returning that kiss with just as much passion, knowing it couldn’t last.

  When our air finally ran out and we had to break apart, he whispered, “Hello to you too.” He was still close enough that the words brushed against my lips and a delicious shiver ran through me, an awareness that tingled over my skin and fluttered in my belly.

  I was breathless again, but for a totally different—and much better—reason this time. I closed that inch of space between us, locking my lips on his just because I wanted the feel of him against me, reassuring me he was okay. I didn’t let the kiss linger, though, because while this stolen moment was ours and amazing and released a lot of the worry and fear I’d built up since the bombing yesterday, we were not alone and I had a mission here.

  I broke off, but he didn’t let
me get far, his hand in my hair, cradling the back of my head. “I was so worried,” he whispered. “What happened? Dugan couldn’t find your shadow after that troll crushed the mirror.”

  My lips pressed together as I studied him, aware of the taste of him still on my skin, wishing I could save it somehow. “It’s a long story. It involves Ryese—he’s the King of Light now, by the way.”

  I was focused on Falin, so didn’t see anyone else’s reaction to my words, but I heard Dugan’s grunt. Was that surprise or . . . ? I stepped back slightly, not far, not out of Falin’s arms, but I put some space between us. He didn’t try to stop me, his hand falling from my hair to grip me lightly at the waist instead.

  I glanced over at Dugan. “You didn’t know?”

  “That light had a new king?” He frowned, the expression severe on his otherwise handsome face. “No. And I should have. That shouldn’t be a secret that could be hidden from us, not even by light, where there are few shadows to overhear whispers.”

  I turned to see Nandin’s take on the situation and found him kneeling beside the planebender. I’d seen the changeling collapse to his knees after closing the rift that I’d been dragged through, but I’d lost track of him after that in the confusion of my abrupt entrance into Faerie proper and my reunion with Falin. He’d apparently collapsed further than his knees, because Nandin was now kneeling over his completely prone form. He had a flask of something he was trying to get the changeling to drink, but I wasn’t sure the planebender was actually conscious. It was hard to tell with his hood obscuring his face. His hands were limp at his sides, though one twitched upward for a moment, as if trying to reach for the flask Nandin was attempting to force on him, before falling motionless to his side again.

  I opened my mouth to ask if he was okay, but didn’t get the chance as the ground lurched.

  I’d watched several quakes hit through the mirror. I still wasn’t prepared to be in the middle of one.