The Shattered Dark sr-2

by Sandy Williams

  I kiss him. It’s brief because we have no time, but it’s deep. It’s a kiss that says he’s forgiven. It says I want him, and it says he better damn well survive this.

  “Come on.” I half carry him the rest of the way up the steps.

  “Aren!” Trev’s voice comes from the lodge’s exit.

  “Don’t come in here!” Aren orders. We move past the computers and plastic tables. When we’re almost to the door, Aren draws his sword. “The remnants?”

  A quick nod from Trev. “Nalst brought back reinforcements.”

  I hear it as we step outside, the sharp clap of metal against metal. I don’t see Naito or Lee, just dozens of fae fighting each other. They don’t come near this building—Aren’s an idiot for doing so—but they’re everywhere. Their fissures brighten the night more than the moon. I’m going to have to make a run for it, try to get out of here before they spot me. We came from the east. That trail is covered in fighting fae, but Naito mentioned an older trail, one that will take me down to the same parking lot I saw when we first fissured here. I need to find it.

  “Can you fissure?” I ask Aren.

  “Not yet,” he says, his voice pinched. He tightens his grip on his sword. “I’ll keep them away from you.”

  Fighting without being able to fissure is a huge handicap for a fae, even for Aren.

  I draw my dagger. This is all going to go horribly wrong.

  A few steps out of the building, and Aren is able to walk without support, thank God, but his forehead is still creased. His edarratae are still going crazy.

  His reflexes are slow, too. He doesn’t react quickly enough when a fissure rips through the air in front of us.

  If Naito didn’t step to my side at that moment, if his gun weren’t already in his hand, Aren and I would both be dead. As soon as the In-Between releases the remnant, his blade arcs toward us. Naito fires, and the force of the bullet knocks the fae off his feet.

  Naito takes two more steps forward, fires again. A second later, the remnant disappears into the ether.

  “Go,” Naito orders. “I’ll cover you.”

  “Where’s Lee?” I ask, but Aren is shoving me forward.

  Another fissure opens in front of us. Trev.

  Aren mutters a prayer of thanks to the Sidhe. Then he’s intercepting the attacks of the remnants who appear around us. Trev is, too, but I yell his name.

  “Burn it down,” I order when he turns.

  He spares me a scowl, fissures, then, when he reappears, says, “Lena doesn’t want—”

  “Burn it down,” I say again, not caring that Lena doesn’t want to draw the attention of normal humans. “They’ll make more serum if you don’t.” I have the tablet computer in my sketchbook, we need to destroy the rest of the research, and we need to get rid of the body in the basement.

  As soon as I see the flames rise from his palm, I concentrate on finding the trail Naito mentioned. I spot it on the edge—the very edge—of the cliff.

  “There,” I point it out to Aren.

  “Go,” he says, then he turns in time to block a remnant’s attack. It won’t take him any time to catch up with me, so I head toward the trail at a full sprint.

  And skid to a stop when a fissure splits the air in front of me.

  The remnant is on me, tackling me to the ground as I draw my dagger. When I try to bring it around between us, he easily grabs my wrist.

  I tighten my grip, throw my hip into him, and we roll. We stop just before we reach the edge of the cliff, and my heart’s pounding. I’m not strong enough to fight off the fae; I’m buying time until someone can help me, but the remnant’s bending my wrist back. If he bends it any farther, the joint will snap. I can either give in to him, or let him break my arm. Either way, I’m going to end up dead or the remnants’ prisoner.

  I glance at the edge of the cliff again, notice that there’s a thin ledge nine or ten feet down.

  It’ll hurt like hell, but I think I can survive it.

  “Okay,” I gasp when my wrist is at the breaking point. “Okay.”

  In the split second he releases my wrist to confiscate the dagger, I roll, throwing us over the edge.

  I manage to land on my back. The impact drives the air out of my lungs. I nearly lose consciousness when my head slams into the ground, but I’m lucid enough to shove up at the remnant. He’s flailing already. I think that’s the only reason my plan works. He tilts off me, hitting the ground to my right and rolling. His arms splay out, his hands reaching for something to grab onto, but this ledge is bare and sandy. He screams as he goes over the edge.

  I don’t move for a minute. I concentrate on drawing air back into my lungs. My head hurts. So does my back and the arm I landed on, but I can move all my limbs. I force myself to my side, then to my hands and knees.

  Black spots smear my vision when I get to my feet. I wait for them to pass. When they do, I see my sketchbook lying on the ground just in front of me. I slip it over my shoulder, then look up the ten-foot drop I just took. Sometimes, I really am an idiot. How am I supposed to get back up there?

  Fortunately, the answer is easy. The ledge rises steeply to my left, but it’s not a sheer drop like where I’m standing, and I think it just might join the trail I was heading for. I shuffle that way, keeping a hand braced against the cliff face so I don’t lose my balance. I’m still feeling dizzy.

  When I reach the trail again, I look back toward the compound. The main building’s on fire. Thick black smoke rises from its burning walls and roof. The fae are still outside it, still fighting. I think I spot Aren, but I’m not sure, and as much as I want to see him, to have evidence that he’s okay, I can’t stand here and wait. I need to press on before a remnant spots me.

  The ground to my right becomes a cliff face, towering several feet above my head, and the drop-off to the left is at least a hundred feet straight down. I’m not afraid of heights, but the dirt under my feet is unstable, and this trail is fucking narrow. I keep my eyes forward, hug the cliff wall, and inch along. I can practically feel gravity pulling me down, making my legs feel like jelly and throwing off my equilibrium.

  The trail widens in about ten more feet. I’m almost there, so I keep moving, shuffling my feet along at a slow but steady pace. When I’m just two feet away from being on sturdier ground, Aren screams my name.

  He sounds so angry, so agonized, I almost slip off the ledge. I grab hold of a crack in the cliff face and whip my head around, looking back toward the compound, terrified I’ll see a blade spearing his heart.

  “McKenzie!” he screams again. He doesn’t look injured. He’s fighting his way toward the edge of the cliff beside the main building. He kills the remnants attacking him with proficient swings of his sword. White soul-shadows rise on either side of him, marking his path.

  A remnant lands a kick to his side. God, it looks hard enough to break ribs. I don’t understand until he drops to his knees at the edge of the cliff, peers over the side, and screams my name one more time.

  This has to be the work of an illusionist, a powerful illusionist. Aren thinks I fell. I open my mouth to call him—

  And am wrenched off my feet before I have the chance.

  I land on my back, my head hitting the ground hard. A fae is above me. A remnant. Tylan.

  “Aren!”

  His hand goes to my throat, choking off my scream. I cough, swing a fist at his face, then scramble back toward the narrow trail. Aren’s pain is raw, desperate, like he’s losing a part of himself. He’s still peering over the edge of the cliff. I don’t think he realizes he’s surrounded.

  “Aren!” My scream is a hoarse whisper.

  Tylan flips me onto my back again. His knee presses down on my chest with the full weight of his body, then he raises his hand. I glimpse the rock clenched in it just before he slams it down.

  TWENTY-THREE

  IT’S COLD, DARK except for the edarratae flashing across my skin. I’m in a small room, sitting on a dirt floor. My wrist
s have been bound with silver. The metal shackles bite into my flesh, and I have other scrapes and bruises. Some of them are from rolling off the ledge with the remnant I killed, the others, I think, are from Tylan dragging me away from Nakano’s compound.

  I’ve been unconscious for a while. I don’t know how long, but it’s an hour’s drive between Boulder and Wiggins, where the nearest gate to the compound was. Tylan wouldn’t have driven me there, though—a remnant wouldn’t risk being trapped in a car for so long. So could Lee have taken me to the gate, then? He might have helped Naito out of the compound, but I doubt the remnants would have just let him walk away. They might have forced him to drive me to Wiggins.

  Maybe one of the rebels saw me being dragged away. Maybe Aren did…

  My eyes sting, filling with tears. Aren was surrounded. If he hadn’t gone inside the compound to find me, he would have been able to fissure, but the tech or whatever the hell it was Nakano had inside that building crippled him. His jaedric armor might have stopped one or two swords from slicing into him, but I don’t think he could have fought off that many remnants.

  I’m not sure he wanted to.

  God, I hope I’m wrong about that. I hope he fought back. If he had time to think, I’m sure he would have—Lena needs him too much for him to give in to his grief—but the remnants weren’t giving him time.

  I close my eyes to hold back the tears, refusing to let them fall.

  A tiny squeak makes me reopen them. It sounded like a door opening. I look left, notice a tiny gap between the wooden wall and the dirt floor. I don’t know what’s on the other side of the wall. I have no idea where we are, just that it’s cold here.

  And quiet. That squeak is the only thing besides the wind that I’ve heard since waking up. The remnants aren’t holding me in the middle of a city, that much is clear.

  I lean my head back against the wooden beam holding up the center of the shack. My hands are bound in front of me, but a silver cord links the shackles to a metal loop in the beam. I can’t move more than two or three feet away from it.

  I’m pretty much screwed here. The rebels think I’m dead; they’re not going to be looking for me.

  Lena will still be searching for the remnants, though. Maybe someone will tip her off to where we are.

  Or where they are. The remnants might not have brought me to their camp. They might have stuffed me in some remote corner of the Realm, far away from other fae and far away from a gate.

  I swallow down the lump in my throat, trying to fight off the panic and frustration threatening to take over me. This isn’t the first time I’ve been held captive. My history with escape attempts isn’t great, but that won’t keep me from trying. I’m going to find my way back to Corrist, even if I’m stranded in the middle of the Barren.

  I draw in a breath, let it out, then the door in front of me cracks open.

  “McKenzie?” It’s Paige’s voice. My stomach knots into a mess of emotion. I wouldn’t be the remnants’ prisoner if she hadn’t escaped. I wouldn’t be sitting here trying to convince myself that Aren’s alive.

  But she wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t tried so hard to hang on to my human life. She wouldn’t be dying.

  “Hey,” I say.

  Soft moonlight spills inside when she opens the door wider. “Here. It’s for your head.”

  She’s holding something wrapped in a cloth. Ice, I realize when I take it from her. It’s heavy and cold.

  “The remnants don’t have a healer?” I ask.

  “Not one who will touch you,” she says, a touch of annoyance in her voice. She looks completely at ease, though. She’s comfortable with the remnants. She’s comfortable with fae. I don’t know how she’s adjusted so well in a week. I’m not sure I was ever this relaxed around Kyol and the Court fae.

  I put the ice to my temple. The pressure hurts, but it numbs the pain some, and the panic I felt a few minutes ago eases as well. Paige is here. A gate can’t be that far away.

  “How did I get here?” I ask.

  “Tylan,” she says and doesn’t elaborate. “I’m sorry about your head.”

  I’m sorry you’re dying.

  She doesn’t know. She wouldn’t be this calm if she did.

  Those knots in my stomach tighten further.

  “Paige—”

  “I know you’re mad,” she says. “But Tylan was right there at the palace, McKenzie. I didn’t have time to think. He wouldn’t leave without me, and the rebels would have killed him if they’d caught him again.”

  “You’ve only known him a week,” I say, almost grateful she interrupted me. It’s easier to talk about this than the serum. “He told you I was being held captive. All the remnants know that’s not true.”

  “I know, and I’ve had words with him about that, but, McKenzie, the Court fae didn’t kill the humans in London. We showed up there after the rebels.”

  She saw the humans. I wasn’t sure she knew anything about them. Neither she nor Lee has mentioned them before now.

  “The rebels didn’t kill them,” I tell Paige, pronouncing each word so that she knows there’s no doubt of it. “We received a tip saying you were there.”

  I expect at least a glimmer of surprise in her eyes; there is none.

  “We received the same tip about you,” she says, her tone and cadence matching mine. “I went to London to find you. The remnants didn’t want to take me. They thought it was a trap, and when the rebels attacked us, they tried to force me to leave. They’ve been protecting me.”

  I remember the fae who wrestled Paige off the stage. She was trying to get away from the remnant but not for the reason I thought. She wasn’t scared of him; she just wanted to find me.

  Suspicions and theories turn over in my mind. The deaths of the Sighted humans bother me and not just for the obvious reason. The remnants convinced Paige to support them. Surely they could have convinced the others. What motive would they have for killing them? Am I being blind, not considering the possibility that it was someone else? It’s been easy to blame everything on the remnants. They’re the ones who have attacked Corrist, they dragged Paige into the Realm, and they want to punish the rebels for deposing Atroth, their king who had become increasingly violent and extreme.

  But what if someone else is puppeteering this war?

  That possibility seems like so much wishful thinking. I don’t want Paige and me to be on opposite sides of this war, and I want to justify her choice, find a way that we can negotiate a peace. But that’s the thing. Lena has tried to contact the remnants. Their leadership has an open invitation to meet with her—she’s guaranteed their safety—but they’ve never responded.

  They’d rather kill us than talk to us.

  Something squeaks to my left again, but it’s the door behind Paige that moves, swinging open all the way. Tylan steps inside. Another fae is with him. A brother, perhaps? They look enough alike. Both have the same shade of brown hair, the same deep-set eyes, the same sharp-angled nose. The other fae is shorter, though. Stockier. And he’s also somewhat familiar. He’s definitely a former Court fae. Kyol thinks one of Atroth’s higher-ranked officers is organizing the remnants. Maybe this guy is him. He has that quiet confidence that comes from years of training and experience.

  He stares down at me. Even though I hate craning my neck to look up at him, I don’t bother to stand. I don’t think the short cord between my shackles and the wooden beam will allow it anyway.

  Eventually, he crouches down so that he’s eye level with me. “I should slit her throat and send her back to them.”

  And I’m supposed to believe these fae aren’t the bloodthirsty killers they’ve proven to be? Right.

  I want to translate what he said for Paige, but I don’t know if she’d believe me, and I don’t want them to know I’ve learned their language, so I stay quiet and give no indication that I understood his words.

  “English, Caelar,” Tylan says beside him.

  Caelar’s lip twitches at th
e request. He doesn’t repeat what he said, though. He just crouches there, glaring. I think he’s contemplating the most painful way to kill me, and my stomach churns, remembering the skinned humans in London. With the amount of hatred contained in his silver eyes, I can believe he slaughtered them himself.

  Finally, he says, “You and I worked together once before.”

  I give no reaction to that. I worked with a lot of Court fae off and on over the years, usually when Kyol needed to put distance between us.

  “It was soon after you came to the Realm,” he continues. “You were young and wary. The false-blood Thrain had starved and beaten you, but you wouldn’t let our healers touch you. We thought you were broken, but you agreed to read the shadows for us. You hated Thrain that much. Given that, I don’t understand how you can support the fae who is his prodigy.”

  He’s waiting for a reaction, some sign of shock or outrage. I don’t give it to him. I knew where this was going the second he mentioned Thrain, and the news doesn’t blindside me. “Aren isn’t Thrain.”

  “He is exactly like Thrain,” Caelar all but snarls.

  “We’re looking for a fae,” Tylan says quickly, taking a step forward. His posture is tense, and his gaze is on Caelar, almost as if he expects the other fae to carry out his wish to send me back to the rebels with my throat slashed. “Her name is Brene. She’s—”

  “Tor’um,” I finish for him. Caelar’s jaw clenches at the word.

  “You know her?” Paige asks.

  “She’s in Corrist,” I say, still watching Caelar. His silver eyes are angry and agonized.

  Caelar curses, then stands, facing Tylan. “You were supposed to watch her.”

  “I’m sorry, I was busy being captured in Eksan,” he says in English. Then, softening his tone, he adds, “If I’d known she was there, I would have made sure she escaped with us. You know that.”

  “She was there because you’d been captured. She wanted to help. She’s…” I see the muscles in his neck tighten as he swallows, and I can’t help it. My heart breaks a little for him. Brene means something to him, that much is obvious.