by Bec McMaster
“Never.” Why can’t she see it? Why doesn’t she understand? “Do you remember when you had nightmares and I used to crawl into bed with you and hug them away? Do you remember what I promised you then?”
“We were seven,” she snaps. “We were children. We knew nothing of the world.”
I slide a hand through her hair, forcing her to meet my eyes. “I will guard your back,” I whisper. “I will shield you from the shadows. Always. Forever. Together. And I will never let you go.”
Soraya gives me a helpless look. “You’re going to get me killed.”
Tears prick at my eyes. I don’t cry. I never cry. And yet, there they are. “Are we even really living?”
It’s a confronting truth.
“Not for long.” Soraya claps a hand to her chest as she looks away. “Not if that prick finds us. Here. Where’s my knife? I need to cut this out.”
I dash away the tears. It’s not worth getting my hopes up. She doesn’t want to see it, and without her, I’m only half of what I once was. “Give me a look at it.”
“Don’t—” She tries to shy away, but I get a fistful of her shirt and tear it open. The arrow shaft is embedded just below her clavicle, but—
That’s when I see it.
The dark mottling that covers her chest.
Soraya grabs the shirt and whips it back over the wound, but it’s too late.
I sit back on my heels in shock. The blight. She’s one of the unlucky few afflicted by the blight. It feels like the world drops out from under me. No. No. “Why didn’t you say something?”
Soraya stiffly tears her shirt sleeve to pieces and uses it to blot the blood weeping from her wound. “What was I supposed to say?”
“How long have you known?” Shock makes my voice ring in my ears. “When did you first see it?”
Her jaw works. “A year ago.”
So she knew she was afflicted by the curse when we stole into the Court of Dreams to steal the relic. It wasn’t just her soul she was trying to save. She was staring her death in the eye—a brutal, violent, painful death.
This changes everything.
There’s only one way to fix this. The blight is a cancerous twist on the curse that afflicts wraithenkind. Hundreds die from it each year, and we have no way of knowing who it’s going to strike next.
But if we break the curse….
Maybe she’ll have a chance.
My heart feels like a leaden weight in my chest.
Keir wants to keep the cauldron safe from those who’d use it for their own misdeeds, but I can’t simply let him have it now. And I wanted to. I wanted to… prove myself true for once.
I have my answer.
And I hate it.
“Don’t,” Soraya’s voice cuts through me. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t. This is why I didn’t tell you. Because you’ll do something rash—something stupid—in order to save me.”
“I’m not going to do something rash.” My ears are ringing. “I’m going to do exactly what Father wants me to do. I’m going to bring him the horn. And then I’m going to bring him the cauldron.”
And afterward?
I promised myself there would be no war. I promised myself I’d do right by Keir, just this once.
I can steal the cauldron back.
After all, I’m the best thief in the north.
I can fix this. I can fix all of this.
Soraya’s eyes go shiny, and she turns her face away. “It’s almost painful to see how stupid you are. You’re going to get yourself killed. And for what? For me? Why?”
“Because you’re my sister.” My voice roughens. “You’re my only sister. You’re all I have. And maybe I’m stupid to trust you again….” My throat fills thick with unshed tears. “But you’re the one warning me away time and again. I have to believe that means something. I have to believe there’s even a single hint of love left in your heart.”
Her gaze jerks to mine again.
Her jaw works.
But she can’t say it.
All I can see is the impossible pain in her eyes.
“Love will ruin you,” she finally says. “And leave nothing but ashes in its wake.”
“That’s what you always say.” I push to my feet, offering her a hand. “And I don’t care. Now are you going to give me the knife? We need to cut that out of you and get out of here. I have a cauldron to find.”
The first sign we have company comes when we’re half a mile from the lake.
Gravel rains down over us as we cut through a narrow ravine.
Soraya pales as she looks up. There’s no sign of anyone on the ridgeline above us, but there doesn’t have to be.
When our brother and his seven are hunting someone, they’re rarely seen.
“Why is he here?” she gasps, sweat tracking rivulets through her hair. “What does Father want now?”
I think of the questing beast. “They’ve been there for a few days. The creature knew danger lurked within those caves. They must have scared it off at some stage.”
“What in the Shadow Lands can scare a creature like that away?”
“Ruhle’s face,” I say with a grimace. “Maybe it knew he was the bigger monster.”
Our eyes meet. I managed to cut the arrow out of her chest, and her right arm is strapped to her body, but she’s still losing a lot of blood. Whatever she did to me cost her. And while my feet feel as light as air, I don’t dare try and Sift us both again.
“Run,” she says, shoving me in the back.
She’s right on my heels as we slip and slide down the shale-covered hillside. The forest is crawling with shadows, some of them keeping pace with us.
An arrow hisses through the air, and I shove Soraya ahead of me as it sinks into a nearby tree with a thunk.
Ripping it from the wood, I stash it behind my belt, and then follow her.
On and on, with arrows hissing out of the weak afternoon light, as if Ruhle wants to taunt us with how easily he could kill us.
He’s playing with us.
Or no, herding us somewhere.
And the worst thing is, we’re not going to make it.
Enormous beech trees climb the rocky mountain slope beside us. There’s no help for it. I dart within their lingering gloom. Two steps in, and there’s an eerie silence that falls like a curtain. I swallow as I lead Soraya further.
The trees provide the cover we need, but we’re not the only ones who can hide in here.
“Give me your knife,” I tell her grimly.
The look she gives me tells me exactly what she’s thinking. A goblin-forged blade? When the sun rises in the Shadow Lands….
“I’ll bring it back to you,” I promise.
A certain bleak acceptance darkens her eyes as she passes it over. “Kill,” she says. “Don’t hesitate. Not today. This isn’t the Court of Shadows. Father isn’t here to whip Ruhle and his filthy brethren into line. If he gets his hands on either of us—”
“He won’t,” I promise. “Hide.”
She’s right.
She’s only slowing me down.
And there’s only one way to end this.
I have to become her.
I Sift away, slinking from shadow to shadow. I don’t know whether it’s the fact we’re being hunted, but I can’t help feeling as though there’s something dangerous about this place.
A figure appears, creeping through the forest on silent feet. Nocking an arrow to his bow, he eases over fallen trees, ghosting over dry leaves that ought to betray him.
Semirhyn. My brother’s tracker.
I meld back into being, my spine pressed against a beech trunk and my hand curving around the hilt of the knife.
Of all the wraiths in my brother’s hand-picked seven, he’s the most dangerous.
You never see him coming. I’ve been ambushed in hallways within the Court of Shadows and nearly knifed in my own bedroom. One night, when I was asleep, a knee drove into my back and someone looped a garro
te around my throat. I thrashed and fought just long enough to drive my attacker into the wall, and then I Sifted to safety.
The next day, Semirhyn stared across the dining hall as I took my seat, his black eyes cold and emotionless.
There’d been a bruise on his cheekbone.
I’d learned how to lay nasty traps over my door after that. Sleep is difficult to find at the best of times, but since that night, I tend to wake at the slightest provocation.
It all boils within my chest.
All the sleepless nights. The nervous way I can’t walk through the castle without my hand twitching over my blade. The tripping beat of my heart….
I’ve never fought back. You don’t dare fight back against my brother’s seven, but this time I’m not alone.
And that prick put an arrow in my sister.
I can fight as good as Soraya can, but I’ve always lacked the ruthless edge she owns.
But this time…. This time there will be no mercy.
I punch into the shadows, alighting just long enough to kick a branch behind him. Semirhyn spins, his arrow driving into the tree root I was just on, but I’m already gone.
I slide into being on my knees, driving the knife across the back of his heel to cut the tendon.
With a scream he goes down, and I lunge to bury the knife in his throat, punching in and out of black smoke.
“She’s here!” someone yells, and then sunlight bursts over the clearing as though someone’s jerked a curtain from the window.
Rhyvaen. My brother’s little sun mage. It’s his one gift: the ability to conjure a shocking amount of light, although he can only hold it for seven seconds at best.
It’s long enough.
I scream as the light hits me and then vanish.
Through the trees. Rippling through shadows. Trying to smother the burns on my skin. When I’m shadow melding, I’m incredibly vulnerable to searing light.
The sound of a cantering horse suddenly captures my attention.
Shades of white and black glint between the trees. A rider clad in elegant finery, completely alone—
And then I see his face.
Keir.
Curse it. No. What is he doing here?
And he looks like he’s alone.
I flash to his side, startling the horse. It dances to the side, threatening to bolt, and Keir brings it back into line with the squeeze of his powerful thighs.
“Goddess’s mercy,” he hisses, as he wheels it around me. “Where have you—?”
I press a finger to my lips. “We’re not alone.”
That amber gaze locks on the blood dripping from my knife. “Mira?”
An arrow hisses out of the trees. The gelding rears, taking the shaft right in the chest. Its frightened whinny turns into a scream as it starts to fall.
Keir throws himself free of the stirrups at the last second, rolling to his feet beside me.
“What’s going on?” he snaps, scrambling to the side of his horse.
It screams in pain, its legs thrashing.
“It’s complicated!”
“It always is when it comes to you!”
“What are you doing here?” I demand. “You’re supposed to be at the court!”
“And you were supposed to be back by now!” He snaps the arrow, teeth gritting in fury as he strokes the beast’s frothed flanks. A certain kind of chilly rage settles over his face as the horse grunts and falls still. “I came to help you.”
There’s something about the way he soothes it that sends calm through it as it dies. It’s a particular kind of kindness, and the grief on his face is real. He couldn’t heal it. Not in time. So instead, he took its pain away.
And I know what he’s not saying.
I was supposed to be back—and so he came to find me. All the way out here, as if he somehow knew where I was.
“Are you tracking me?”
Keir gives me a withering look. “You have a habit of disappearing, my love.”
The breath bursts from me. I have a habit of betraying him too, but he’s kind enough not to say it.
And I don’t have time to argue.
“We have to move,” I warn him.
“I’m not going anywhere.” There’s a rough timbre to his voice as he pushes to his feet. The heat in his amber eyes flickers as the dragon rises. Wind whips through his air. It rips through the trees around us all of a sudden, tearing the leaves from branches and earning a startled cry from a distant figure. Keir turns in that direction as if he’s finally found a target for his fury. “Don’t you know where we are? Can’t you feel it?”
“Feel what?” I yell as my hair whips past my face. What is he doing?
There’s a particular quiver in the air, as if detonations of silent force vibrate out from him.
Keir’s lip curls as he smiles. “This is a dragon’s barrow. They’re in my playground now.”
And then he flings up a hand.
Trees fall violently, as if they were simply clipped at the roots. Branches simply shatter. A scream rings out, and I see a blur of black crushed by one of the toppling trees. Semirhyn.
He just… crushed him.
“Wait!” I scream, grabbing hold of his leather-clad arm. “Soraya’s out there!”
The wind cuts off as if it didn’t exist.
The devastation remains.
We’re surrounded by fallen trees, all of them radiating out from us in a circle. And right in the center lurks a dragon’s bleached skull, its knobby vertebrae covered in moss as they blend into the forest floor.
He simply… cut the trees down as if they weren’t towering giants with roots that wove through the forest floor. The power required to do such a thing…. It’s just… beyond comprehension.
“This way,” I yell, dragging him toward where I left Soraya.
The forest lies silent.
Maybe my brother caught a glimpse of my companion. Or maybe he found Semirhyn. Ruhle’s a coward at heart. He likes odds his enemies can’t match.
“Soraya!” I hiss as I slip down the slope toward where I left her.
She appears out of the hollowed-out center of a tree, her face strained and a knife in her hand. “What are you doing? Did you kill the archer?”
“Not I.” I jerk a thumb over my shoulder toward Keir. “Keir crushed Semirhyn with a tree.”
The two of them stare at each other, and all of a sudden I realize he wasn’t aware she was even here.
Indeed, the last time he saw her, she was trying to kill him.
I spin toward him, stepping between them. “Don’t.”
Keir rips his leather gloves off, one finger at a time. “Don’t what? Don’t ask what’s going on here?” Tension hardens his jaw. “Then I won’t. I have a fairly good idea already, considering you don’t look surprised to see your sister alive.” His gaze cuts over Soraya. “I assume this was planned. I assume you intended to double-cross me.”
I hold my hands in a pleading gesture. “Originally, yes. But…. I heard what you said about Calliope. About the cauldron. I was going to…. I just needed to get my hands on the horn. I was going to give it to you.”
“Was?” There’s acid in his voice.
It’s complicated.
He sees it in my eyes.
“The King Beyond the Shadowfangs wants to break the curse upon our people.” It bursts from my lips. “He sent me here to bring him the horn. If he finds the cauldron, then he’ll use it to set us free.”
“And you think he’s going to stop there?” Keir growls, his shadow falling across me as he steps closer. “I know what manner of creature your king is, Zemira. It doesn’t end there. It never does. It will end in war. Your king doesn’t want to set you free. He wants vengeance against the fae.”
“I know!”
“And you’ll what?” Anger darkens his brow as he stares at me in disbelief. “You’ll just give it to him?”
I rake my hands through my hair. “If he uses it to break the curse, the
n I can steal it back from him. I can get it back for you.”
Keir looks as though I just slapped him. “You’ve been planning this from the start.”
“Not from the start, no! He was the one who tore me from that dream. I couldn’t believe it when he gave me the same assignment. I didn’t intend to…. I never wanted to….”
“Betray me?” There’s a sense of bleakness in his eyes. “I kept telling myself it was different this time. I thought I knew the truth.” He scrapes a hand over his mouth. “But every time you open your mouth, lies fall out.”
There’s a piercing ache in my chest.
It’s better this way.
It has to be better.
“Why?” His voice breaks. “Why? I’ve offered you everything—”
“Because I can’t give you anything!” My chest heaves as we stand there staring at each other. “I can’t.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
Looking him in the eye is beyond me right now. “It’s not just me. We’re not all monsters. There are those among the wraithenkind who deserve a chance to live their lives free of this curse. There’s a blight afflicting our kind, a twist of the curse that is killing us. And… Soraya….” I gesture toward her, still seeing that dark mottling on her skin. “I was going to get it back for you.”
But even as I say the words, I can’t help sensing how pathetic they sound.
His expression closes over, and he gives a bitter laugh. “I was a fool once. And I knew when you walked into my dreams again I was taking the risk that I would be a fool again, but I didn’t truly believe….” He shakes his head. “Thank you. For making it very clear to me what your intentions are.”
I’ve lost him.
Forever.
And it hurts, even though a part of me knew it was never going to be.
That’s the cost of hope—you know it’s a lie and yet you still want it. You still want to believe its gentle whispers. You see a single reason to believe in it, and your heart throws itself wholeheartedly into the cause.
“I’m sorry.” The whisper steals over my dry lips. I don’t know whether it’s the look in his eyes or the steel in his voice that hurts the most. “I’ve warned you dozens of times. I tried to tell you—”
