“There’s nothing to see here,” he said over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”
My scalp prickled. I took a step toward the painting, overcome by the certainty that there was something to see, I just didn’t understand what.
“Kenna?” Sabriel stood by the open door, his expression impassive.
With a final glance at the ripped up painting I followed him out of the room.
We navigated the fortress, making our way back to familiar ground. Had that painting, that room, meant something to Sabriel? His reaction had been too weird to discount the possibility, but he wasn’t talking and there was nothing I could do without looking like a nosey cow. Besides, we all had our secrets, the things we preferred not to speak of. A sharp pain lanced up my thigh, reminding me of one such moment. The moment I refused to relive by talking about it.
Yeah, we were all entitled to our moments, and I’d allow him his.
I had other things to worry about, like avoiding Samson and training with Erebus.
I just hope he returned before Samson made good on his threat.
***
The next three days passed pleasantly enough in the company of Sabriel. I only crossed paths with Samson once, and he was careful to keep his barbed comments to a minimum. Maybe in time he’d come to tolerate my presence. As it was, being around him did awful things to my temper, reminding me how much I’d changed in a few short months. It was a hollow feeling I could do without.
It was late afternoon of the fourth day that Sabriel knocked on my door with a really cool gift. I’d been moaning about being cooped up, about being in a whole new world and unable to physically experience it. My balcony gave me a pretty awesome view of Evernight, but everything was so far away. It was just shapes and varying shades of grey. I was moping about, forcing myself to read an actual book—something about a prince and a ship and some faraway enchanted land. I wasn’t sure what was happening. I had to keep re-reading the same paragraph because the story just wasn’t sticking, so the knock at the door was a huge relief.
Throwing the book aside I called out. “Enter.”
Sabriel poked his head round the door, a huge grin on his perfect face. “Look what I found.” He stepped into the room, hand behind his back. “Guess what it is?”
I stared at him. “You want me to guess what you have behind your back? Seriously? It could be bloody anything.”
He pouted. “You’re no fun.” He brought his hand round to show me his prize. “Ta da!”
“Wow! Is that a spyglass?” I hadn’t seen one outside of a pirate cartoon. “Gimme!”
“Please . . .”
“Please,” I said sweetly.
He handed me the spyglass. Now to see if this baby worked. I rushed onto the balcony and extending the spyglass as far as it would go, peering out over Evernight below. The world came into focus. The ground was hard-packed earth in most places, with trenches of turned over soil here and there, mainly by the odd copse of blackened trees or boulder cluster. Shrubs sprouted randomly over the terrain. Black vines decorated with white blooms that swayed in a gentle breeze, their flowery heads turned up to the silvery light of the moon. I scanned left, seeing more of the same, and then a flicker of flame caught my eye. I swung the spyglass back, slower this time, until I found the fire—a camp fire with djinn—their skin an eerie green colour in the light of the moon. There were two adults and a child huddled around the small fire. A cart tethered to a strange looking beast was stationed behind them.
“There are djinn out there.”
“Yes, did Erebus not tell you?”
“No. I don’t understand. Why are they out there?”
“Nomads. Outcasts. Djinn simply wanting to be free of the oppression of the fifth dimension.”
“So they risk their lives here?” It said a lot about how fucked up things in the fifth dimension must be if these djinn were willing to take a gamble in Evernight, although I didn’t see any denizens out there.
“Where are all the denizens? Why is it so quiet tonight?”
“They’re probably underground. The hoard is surging tonight. Aidan, Vale, Samson, and Baron are out at the gate aiding the ceaseless army. The denizens may be monstrous but they aren’t stupid enough to brave the hoard.”
So Erebus’s sidekicks were at the gate. With the spy glass I’d be able to see the gate up close, and I knew just where to get the best view. I was about to step away from the balcony, when movement to the right of the campfire caught my eye. I leaned in, focusing behind the djinn. The ground opened up, and something with feelers and a shit-load of legs wriggled out. It looked like a monster sized centipede with epic proportioned pincers.
“Shit!”
“What?”
“You know how you said the denizens weren’t stupid to come out when the hoard was surging?”
“Yes?”
“Well I found a stupid one.” I dropped the spyglass, my heart pounding in fear for the djinn family. The denizen was only several metres behind them. “We have to do something.” I moved into the room and grabbed Bertha from her spot by the bed. “I need to get down there.”
“What?” Sabriel’s eyes grew round. “You can’t go out there. You could be killed.”
“And if I don’t, they’ll be killed.”
I rushed back to the balcony and found them with the spy glass again. The creature was taking its sweet time, circling around the campfire, sticking to the shadows of the rocks that rose up a couple of metres behind them. The little girl sat up straighter, and then the woman was gripping her arm and tugging her to the other side of the fire while the man jumped up, grabbing his staff in a battle ready gesture. They’d spotted the denizen, which wasted no time, bunched up its body and sailed through the air right at the man, landing on top of him. I couldn’t hear their screams, but I didn’t need to.
“Sabriel, get me down there now! I know you can. You come and go as you please. You must have a way, some kind of ability like the djinn. Please. I have to help them.”
He took a step back shaking his head. “Kenna . . .”
“Dammit, Sabriel, can you get me down there or not?”
He nodded reluctantly.
“Then do it! Or I swear to god, if anything happens to that family I’ll never forgive you.”
“I’ll take you but I won’t be able to intervene.”
What? I didn’t understand what he meant, but it didn’t matter. “Fine. Whatever. Just get me there.”
He held out his hand and I took it.
The world fractured. The ground vanished from beneath my feet, and for one blissful moment I was merely floating in nothingness. But reality pulled my back down with an iron grip. My feet slammed against the earth, the vibration travelling up my limbs to jar my knees. I buckled as my prosthetic came loose.
Fuck!
There was no time to fix it.
We’d landed right in the centre of the scene, almost on top of the campfire which flickered wildly, casting crazy shadows across the ground. The little girl’s screams and her mother pleas filled the air. The man, who had succeeded in rolling clear of the denizen, stood bleeding and shaking, his staff swinging all over the place, his eyes glazed.
Some kind of neurotoxin on the denizen’s talons?
The centipede raised the front portion of its body off the ground, pincers ready to clamp and tear.
Not on my watch.
I leapt forward, swinging Bertha with everything I had, and clocked it upside the head. It whipped back, a terrible screech tearing from its monstrous throat, but it recovered quickly, turning on me, the only threat to its bountiful meal. I got a good close-up look down that fuckers throat then, rows upon rows of tiny razor teeth travelling down in a spiral into infinity. Anything that went in there would be shredded nice and proper before it reached the creature’s stomach. No chomping needed.
I pulled Bertha back and swung again, but this time it ducked, evading the strike and throwing me off balance. My prosthetic
slipped. I buckled, hitting the ground with my knee. Fire shot up my thigh and a whimper tumbled from my lips.
“Mama. The lady!”
“No. Kira, stay back!”
The denizen swung its body toward me, but I brought Bertha up blocking the attack, barely, but it was bleeding now. It scuttled back a metre, dazed. I tried to pull myself up but the prosthetic had come lose and there was no leverage to get back on my feet.
“Sabriel!” I kept my eye on the creature. It was bunching up, getting ready to pounce again. If I could just get on my feet . . . One good hit might knock it out. “Sabriel!” I had to look, had to see what was stopping him from helping me. I glanced over my shoulder to see him standing by the mother and daughter, his face a pale oval, his blue eyes two dark smudges in his face. My pulse beat in my throat and numbness filled my chest.
He wasn’t going to help me.
The little girl screamed and I turned in time to see the denizen leaping through the air toward me. It happened so fast, and yet it felt like the thing was sailing through the air forever before its weight came down on me, before its talons pierced my flesh and heat flooded my veins.
This was it.
This was my end.
I waited for the crunch of pincers, the darkness of oblivion as it crushed my skull. But it didn’t come. Instead the weight was thrown off me and a feral face with silver eyes was staring down at me, screaming at me with no sound. Because the only sound was the roar of blood rushing through my head like a current catching me by the limbs and dragging me down, down, down . . .
CHAPTER27
“L
eft her to die!”
“I know. I should never have . . .”
“ . . . know better . . .”
“ . . . Understand . . .no more . . ..”
“ . . . deserves the truth . . ..”
I wanted to focus, to open my eyes, to understand what was being said, because it sounded kinda important, and I was pretty certain it was about me. But my limbs felt like someone had coated them in lead and then popped a house on my chest just for good measure, and don’t even get me started on my eyelids. I think those had been glued shut.
It was easier to let sleep take me.
***
“Kenna? Can you hear me?”
“Yeah, I can hear you.”
An exhalation.
I opened my eyes. “I’m alive.”
Erebus glared at me from a chair by my bedside. “You’re lucky to be.”
“How long was I out?”
“Two days.”
Wow, that was some powerful neurotoxin. I tried to sit up, but gave up when the world began to spin. The insides of my eyelids were safer.
“Kenna!” I felt his breath on my face, fresh and sweet.
“I’m okay, just dizzy.”
I felt him retreat. “That is to be expected.” There was a long beat of silence. “Why did you do it?”
“What? Go out there?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t have a choice. It’s what I do.”
“If I hadn’t returned when I did you would have been killed.”
My body tensed. Yeah, I would have because Sabriel hadn’t bothered to help. “I didn’t think I was alone. I had Sabriel. Obviously I was wrong.”
Erebus sighed. “Sabriel is at fault. He shouldn’t have taken you out there, not without explaining the truth to you.”
“Which is?”
“Not my truth to tell.”
Great, so I had to wait to speak to the traitor. I risked opening my eyes and turned my head to look at him. His gaze was fixed on me, and our eyes locked.
“Thank you for saving my life.”
“The djinn you saved asked me to convey their thanks to you.” He sat forward in his chair. “I always assumed Fearless cared only for the fate of humanity, and yet you risked your life for creatures that possess none.”
I hadn’t understood it until now, because I hadn’t felt it until that moment on the balcony when I’d seen innocent lives in peril. My instinct was to protect, regardless of race or species. Mum had been right all along.
“I guess that’s what humanity means.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled in the possibility of a smile, but it never reached his lips. He stood, his huge frame towering above me. The movement of air sent his aroma drifting over me—earth and rain and thunderstorms.
“Get some rest, Kenna. I will have your meal brought to you here.”
He strode toward the door.
“Wait!”
He paused, hand on the door knob.
“When can we start training?”
A surprised snort erupted from his mouth. “Once you can stand unaided.”
I pondered his words. “Hang on, what does that mean? Unaided. Is that a trick clause? I need my prosthetic to aid me.”
He opened the door and slipped out.
“Erebus. Erebus, explain yourself!”
But he was gone.
CHAPTER28
M y butt ached from all the spills I’d taken, and my leg screamed at me to stop, but that’s just what Erebus expected me to do. The realist in me wanted to curl up in a ball and sob through the pain, but the stubborn bitch inside me knocked her out and took over.
I pulled myself to my feet for what felt like the hundredth time and adjusted my grip on the slender stick that was my substitute for Frieda.
We were in a wide room, stripped of all furniture and perfect for these sessions. Training was nothing new to me. Fighting, falling, and being hit was no novelty, but until now I hadn’t allowed myself to accept how the changes in my body had affected my skill.
Erebus didn’t take long in pointing that out, not with words, but with action.
I was slower, clumsy, and my balance was shot. Yeah, I knew it was to be expected, but it was still a punch to my pride. I’d always revelled in my agility, taken it for granted at times, but it was clear now that all those cases I’d taken on the sly had been ones where subconsciously I’d known I wouldn’t be tested physically.
“Again,” Erebus beckoned me with his fingers, like something out of a bad action movie.
If I hadn’t been in so much pain, and if he hadn’t looked so forbidding in his loose pants and bare chest, I’d have found it funny. Instead I adjusted my balance and attacked. This time I managed to make contact before he took me down. I lay there, with his foot on my chest, fire shooting up my back, and a stupid grin on my face.
He cocked his head, his eyes narrowing to silver slits. “You find this funny?”
I shook my head, giving myself a moment to catch my breath. “No, but I got a hit in.”
Erebus rolled his eyes and removed his foot. “A tap, nothing more. You can do—”
But I was up on my feet and in full attack mode. Leaping up onto his back I pinned him by his neck, my stick pressed against his throat.
“Got you!”
“Really?” He drawled. And then he dropped.
I realised what he was doing a fraction too late. The air whooshed out of my lungs as his mammoth frame pressed me to the ground. Black dots danced in my vision, and my lungs burned, desperate for oxygen. I released the stick and slammed my hand on the ground beside me in gesture of surrender.
He rolled off me, and sweet air rushed back into my lungs. Long minutes passed, and the dots receded to reveal his concerned face hovering over mine.
He was leaning over me. His knees planted on either side of my body, his hands to either side of my head. I froze, trapped beneath this primal beast. My heartbeat, which had just fallen to resting pace, kicked up, hammering against my chest in the primordial quest to fight or flee. Something in his expression, in the depths of his eyes, shifted. The pinpricks of his pupils dilated, drawing me in, and I was acutely aware of every point of contact between our bodies. His thighs brushing mine, the warmth from his hands fanning against the side of my face. Heat pooled in my belly and my mouth went dry.
Erebu
s tensed. His chest, which had been rising and falling with every breath, stilled. My lungs ached. We were both holding our breath.
“Interesting training position,” Sabriel said from the doorway, his arms folded across his chest.
Erebus was off me in a fraction of a second. Crap. I rolled to my feet, wincing as my ribs complained.
Today Sabriel was dressed in a blue cotton shirt and matching pants. His golden hair was swept back off his forehead and his crystalline eyes surveyed the scene with obvious amusement. This was the first time I’d seen him since the denizen attack. It was almost as if he’d been avoiding me. The hot feeling behind my eyes every time I thought about him had calmed a little, but now that he was here, looking as if nothing was wrong . . . Well it would take a damned good reason for me to forgive him for leaving me to die.
“We’re done for today,” Erebus addressed me, but kept his attention on Sabriel.
Sabriel reached into his pants pocket and retrieved a small tub of something. “I have what you asked for.”
Erebus nodded and then strode passed Sabriel to the door. “Give it to her.”
I watched him leave, my heart somewhere in my throat and my head a tangle of thoughts.
“So, the training is going well?” Sabriel asked.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak just yet. My body was still re-equilibrating from Erebus’s proximity and an ache had formed at the back of my throat in response to Sabriel just being here.
Sabriel held out the tub. “An ointment for your leg. Erebus was insistent you have it.”
I plucked the tub from his fingers, unscrewed the lid, and took a sniff. Peppermint and cloves, just like the stuff Lauren had used on me. “He asked you to get this for me?”
“Yes, I’m sorry it took so long.”
“Long? We’ve only been training for a week.”
Sabriel’s brows shot up. “Oh, my dear, he asked me for this ointment three weeks ago.”
I did the math. It had been over two weeks since the night in the library that we’d actually begun training. I’d had to recover from the denizen attack first, and it had taken almost five days to get back to my old self. If he’d ordered this three weeks ago, it meant he’d ordered it when I’d first arrived. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, and I didn’t know what to make of Sabriel. He was acting as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t just stood back and watched that thing attack me while I lay defenceless. And now he was jabbering on about something completely unrelated instead of saying sorry.
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