I try to keep my mind grounded in the present, but my vision narrows as if I’m in a tunnel, and all I can see is the image of the false-blood who first pulled me into this world. I’ve had enough nightmares about Thrain to know every feature on his face. There’s no mistaking the resemblance between him and the Taelith. They’re brothers. Or, perhaps, father or son. I have no idea how old Thrain was when we killed him, and I have no idea how old this fae is. All I know is he’s full of shit. He’s not Tar Sidhe. He’s a con man.
My mouth has gone dry. I swallow, trying to loosen my throat, when something moves in my peripheral vision. I turn my head, see two elari dragging a limp and bleeding body between them.
My heart stops beating. The world seems to go still as a fae yanks back the injured person’s head.
A chaos luster flashes across the man’s face. It’s not Aren. It’s . . .
It’s Shane.
I’m not sure when I moved, but Trev and I attack the Taelith simultaneously, Trev swinging high, me swinging low. Neither of us hits our target. The Taelith moves back with the uncanny speed of a fae. I hear his elari move forward, hear Lena yelling and Lorn cursing, but I’m already following up my attack with a lunge forward and another swipe at the false-blood’s legs. It’s a move I perfected when training with Kyol, but it’s a move Kyol always easily blocked. The false-blood blocks it aside as well, his sword suddenly appearing in his hand. And that’s when I slide into the secondary form Kyol taught me, the one I almost broke through his defenses with. I feint right, lift my left shoulder in a blatant tell, only I don’t swing my sword in a wide arc. I let it intercept the false-blood’s blade even as I spin to the left, letting go of the hilt of my sword with one hand so I can strike the false-blood in the jaw.
It’s a powerful hit, one that sends a sharp twinge through my elbow. I ignore it, try to slash my sword across his body, but his armor protects him. He grabs my wrist and twists.
My sword lands on the ground with a loud clatter, and it’s only when the echoes fade that I hear the struggle behind me. I yank my wrist free of the fae’s grip, then turn in time to see an elari carve a strip of flesh from Shane’s left arm.
He’s not unconscious. He screams. The two fae holding him keep him on his feet but immobile. Blood pours down his arm to the floor. The cut is so deep, it might as well be a canyon.
“Shane!” I yell, forgetting my fight with the false-blood to try to help him.
I don’t make it two steps before something slams into the back of my head. Then I’m being held facedown on the floor, black splotches swimming through my vision.
“You can’t help him,” Lorn says quietly. “Stay down. Stay still . . . Oh, damn.”
A shadow falls over me before Lorn’s weight suddenly vanishes. I turn my head in time to see him land hard on his back, then an elari fists a hand in my hair and lifts me to my feet. I try to free myself, try to elbow, kick, and head-butt the elari away, but he doesn’t let go.
I grab the elari’s wrist, struggling to get loose, when I see Lena pick up my dropped sword. She stalks toward an unworried false-blood, unworried because an elari raises his sword behind her.
I shout out a warning, but Trev’s thrown a fistful of fire. The elari’s scream pierces the air.
The elari holding me slams a fist into my face. Adrenaline blocks out the pain. I ram my knee into his stomach, then aim for his groin, but the bastard won’t let go of my hair.
Another fae charges Trev. Then another. Trev’s sword meets the first one’s attack, fire meets the second’s. Even to my eye, the flames are weaker this time. Trev’s too exhausted to wield his magic anymore.
But Lena’s not. She sweeps her hand through the air, and a blast of wind hits the false-blood. He staggers backward, and Lena’s on him the next instant, her sword slashing and stabbing and nearly breaking through his defenses.
For the first time, the elari are alarmed. They move to aid their Taelith. I use the opportunity to grab the arm of the fae holding me, putting my weight behind me and pulling him around as hard as I can.
My hair rips out, but he stumbles over the leg I kick out, and I throw him to the ground. Lena has my sword, but I still have my dagger. It’s in my hand then, sinking down through the elari’s exposed neck, quick as any fae could do it.
The elari dissolves into mist, and I look up. My gaze finds Lena. She’s fighting three elari, her back turned to the false-blood. Trev’s by her side, Lorn’s slowly getting to his feet, and Shane . . . He’s trying to lift himself off the floor. His hand slips in his own blood, and he collapses.
I scurry to my feet, grabbing a sword on the way to help Lena. She has to survive this. I have to get her out of here. I need to—
The false-blood steps behind her and lifts not his sword, but his hand. He rests it on her exposed shoulder, and she goes limp, collapsing to the floor.
“No!” Trev screams. He slays one of his opponents, hits the next one so hard the elari stumbles back under the blow, then he’s swinging at the false-blood, trying to get to Lena.
I’m yelling a warning and trying to get to him. Another elari steps behind him, sword raised and arcing through the air.
It keeps arcing, severing Trev’s head from his shoulders as if it’s cutting through air.
His body drops to the ground, pouring blood across the white tiles, and his head rolls until it hits the dais.
My body lurches as one painful, grief-filled sob bursts from my chest.
Lorn blocks my path with his arm. “We must buy time.”
My heart slams against my chest and my breaths come quick and shallow, but I nod, acknowledging Lorn’s words. Time. Time for Kyol to get here. Time for Lena to wake up and escape. Time for Aren to . . .
I close my eyes, draw in a slow breath so that I don’t fall apart. My mind knows that Aren’s dead, but my heart is clinging to the hope that he isn’t.
Drawing upon the strength and steadiness Kyol’s offering me through the life-bond, I open my eyes. The so-called Taelith stands in front of me, that cruel, Thrain-esque smile plastered on his face.
“I know who you are,” I say in Fae. My voice doesn’t sound like my own. It doesn’t crack or shake, but it feels hollow. Foreign.
“I’m Tar Sidhe,” the false-blood says. “Everyone shall know who I am soon.”
“Oh, that’s absolutely ridiculous,” Lorn says suddenly at my side.
The Taelith’s gaze shifts from me to the fae. “Tread carefully, Lorn. You’re alive only because I may find you useful.”
“You’ll find me quite useful,” he says, pulling on the cuffs of his no longer white sleeves. “But this fiction you’ve created and all the unnecessary violence”—he waves his hand in Shane’s direction—“is the reason why I couldn’t become one of your followers. You’re only antihuman when you have an audience.”
The Taelith lets out a single snort of laughter. “Any fae can see that the Realm’s magic has weakened over the centuries. It’s due to the humans’ influence. They taint our world, and they will be eradicated.”
“Thrain,” I say loudly. “You’re related to Thrain.”
The false-blood’s grin falters, and I know I’m right. Making the accusation out loud, though, might have been a mistake. When he plasters his smile back on his face, it takes on a more twisted edge. If this fae is anything like Thrain, he has a fiery temper. Thrain could go from calm and reasonable to violent and irate in under a second, and his fists were like steel. I had more than one broken bone when Kyol discovered me.
“Thrain?”
In my peripheral vision, I see Lorn tilt his head to the side. Studying the false-blood, perhaps? I can’t be sure without taking my eyes off the Taelith, and I’m not about to do that. His eyes narrow, and he takes a step toward me.
I’ve lost my sword and my dagger, but I don’t retreat. I can’t. The elari are behind me.
The false-blood stops a few feet away.
“You,” he says in a whispered sn
eer. “You have changed.”
It feels like a fist is squeezing my heart. He knows me? I’ve never seen him before; I only recognize Thrain’s features in his face. But Thrain kept me in a windowless room. It was dark except for my chaos lusters. Fae checked on me from time to time, but Thrain was the only one who ever entered with an orb of light. Maybe the false-blood was one of those other fae. He could have been in Thrain’s camp the whole time I was there. I don’t know.
But Aren might.
I bite the inside of my cheek hard to keep my whole body from trembling.
“Where’s Aren?” I ask. I wish my voice were strong and loud, but I’m terrified of the false-blood’s answer. Just over twenty-four hours ago, Aren said it was likely the false-blood had killed anyone with knowledge of his past. That list would include Aren.
But Aren can fight, I tell myself. Kyol’s the best swordsman in the Realm, and even he would have trouble killing Aren.
But the false-blood dropped Lena with a touch. He could have done the same to Aren.
“I do believe I see the family resemblance,” Lorn pipes up beside me.
I refocus on the Taelith, see his expression darken.
“Thrain was your brother,” Lorn says, switching to Fae. “That would make you . . . Cardak, I believe?”
“I’ve only recently returned from the ether,” the false-blood—Cardak—lies.
“You must have been busy these last ten years,” Lorn continues without pause. “King Atroth conveniently slaughtered most of your brother’s followers, but you slipped through his fingers. Just like McKenzie slipped through Thrain’s.”
None of the elari react to our accusation. I shouldn’t be surprised. What was I expecting? They’d accept the word of a human and a fae on the false-blood’s shit list and turn on their leader?
Cardak points a single finger toward Lena. Immediately, an elari puts a sword to her throat.
Lorn opens his mouth to speak. I hold my breath, worried he’s going to say something to make Cardak order Lena’s throat slit, but wisdom must enter Lorn’s mind at the last second. He snaps his mouth shut.
The false-blood smiles. “Good. Perhaps you and I can come to an arrangement where you are allowed to live.” He turns his attention back to me. “You, however, must be destroyed.”
Something sharp presses into my back. I can feel the elari breathing on my neck. I don’t have to see him to know he’s anxious to make me bleed. They all are.
My gaze goes to Shane, who’s lying on the floor. He’s alive—I can see his chest moving—but I almost wish he weren’t.
I almost wish I weren’t. No one should have to endure that kind of torture. But if I fight, if I force the elari to kill me, Kyol will die. If I live, he has a chance to get out of Corrist.
The elari grabs my left arm and places his blade just under my elbow. I hold my breath, order my shaking body to stay still, but the second the dagger sinks into my flesh, I break. I twist away from the fae as I grab for the dagger.
My hand wraps over his, preventing him from slicing my arm off, but I’m not strong enough to—
Something white streaks across the floor.
Sosch!
He leaps into the air just like he usually does to perch on my shoulders, only his aim is off. His sharp teeth latch onto the elari’s arm.
I wrench the dagger from the fae, then immediately plunge it into his gut. Sosch hisses, then leaps behind me.
I spin toward my new opponent the same instant Lorn decides to react. He uses the distraction to dodge around the nearest fae, disarming and slaying him. I evade an attack from the elari in front of me and order Sosch to get out of the way. The kimki doesn’t listen, not even when the elari grabs him by the scruff of the neck. I can’t get a clean kill.
Lorn kills a second elari. I have to turn my back on Sosch to defend myself against another attack. I fall back under it, barely managing to withstand the power behind the blows. I try to remember Kyol’s training, try to draw upon the instinct the life-bond has given me, but this fae is fully trained, and he’s furious.
With a viscous chirp-hiss Sosch finally releases the fae he latched onto. He comes to my rescue again, this time doing a double leap from the ground to the elari’s arm, then to his face. I ram my sword through the fae’s side. When his body disappears into the ether, Sosch hits the ground with a squeak, his long body rolling until he scurries to his feet again.
The false-blood curses. He finally looks like he’s going to join the fight.
The kimki readies himself to leap at another elari.
“Sosch! Goldfish!” I yell, faking a throw to the left. I can’t let him get hurt.
His bright blue eyes follow my fake crackers, and I charge forward, catching the elari’s sword before it can sever the kimki in two.
I try to push his sword away. He’s so much stronger than I am. My blade hits the ground, and he kicks it out of my reach. I back up, look for Lorn. He’s fighting the Taelith. I don’t know how he’s still on his feet. Half his face is bloodied and there’s a deep gash on his upper left shoulder. He’s killed more than a few elari, already. Only five are left standing. If he hurts or kills the false-blood . . .
Cardak sidesteps and extends his arm. His fingertips barely graze across Lorn’s jaw, but Lorn collapses like a corpse.
“Tchatalun,” the fae in front of me hisses. There’s an echoing hiss at his feet. Before Sosch can leap up and attack, the elari launches a vicious kick at his head.
“Bastard!” I yell, as Sosch skids across the tile. He’s on his four little feet a second later, but that’s when Cardak grabs him behind the neck. He lifts the snarling and hissing kimki, places his other hand on his haunches, then twists.
There’s an audible crack when Sosch’s spine breaks, then the most horrific, despondent high-pitched squeak fills the air. It echoes through the chamber again and again.
I’m screaming, and Sosch is still squeaking when Cardak chucks him over his shoulder. He’s still squeaking when he hits the floor beside Lena. His body twitches once, twice, three times.
Soft chirps, almost like hiccups, interrupt his squeaking as he tries to make his body work, to pull himself across the tile toward me.
He lets out one last, gut-wrenching chirp-whimper, then goes still.
Fury blinds me. I ignore the fae closing in on me and launch myself at the false-blood.
One of his elari clotheslines me. I barely register my head cracking against the floor. I’m back on my feet, still screaming, still trying to get at the bastard, but someone grabs my legs, pulls them out from under me.
I slam into the floor again. The false-blood stops in front of me. I want to keep screaming, I want to claw his fucking face off, but Kyol shoves his way into my mind.
Steady, his emotions tell me.
I don’t want to be steady. I want to kill the son of a bitch crouching in front of me.
“The Realm will love watching you suffer,” Cardak says.
Steady, Kyol urges again.
“I’m going to kill you,” I whisper, as the elari pulls my arms behind my back.
Cardak smiles. “Sure you will.”
He lifts his index finger, and with a wicked twist to his lip, he touches my forehead. A wave of dizziness passes over me, then . . . nothing.
TWENTY-SIX
LITERALLY NOTHING. IT takes a whole half a second for me to realize Cardak’s magic isn’t working, then, after the briefest oh hell moment, I collapse to the floor, doing my best to fake unconsciousness.
It’s one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life. Sosch is dead, but I can still hear his squeals in my mind. I can still see his body twitching, see it go still. I want to fight and scream and kill the bastard who broke his back, but I can’t give up this one advantage. I’ll lose my chance at revenge if I do.
So I lie still, ignoring every protest of my heart.
“Lock them in the back chamber,” the false-blood says.
Someone grab
s my right ankle. I’m facedown on the tile, and it takes everything in me to stay limp as I’m dragged across it. I screw up a few times, tensing when my face slides through something wet and again when my shoulder hits what I assume is the edge of the dais. If the fae paid close attention to me, if they had any idea there might be a chance that Cardak’s magic hadn’t worked on me, then they would have noticed.
My head bangs down the chamber’s first step.
Stay limp! I silently scream.
Another step. My cheekbone cracks.
Stay limp! Stay limp! Stay limp!
The fae sits me up just enough to plant a foot on my chest and shove. I tumble backward, land hard on my spine, and slide the rest of the way down the stairs.
The chamber door slams shut, and I have to fight the instinct to curl into a ball. I’m alive. I’m awake. How is that possible? Surely, the false-blood tested his magic on other humans. On Shane even.
God, Shane. I left him behind in London. He’s upstairs, cut up and half-dead.
I’m shaking with sadness and fury and . . . adrenaline. Kyol’s fighting now. He’s trying to get to the King’s Hall. He’ll never make it. He . . .
He has to be the reason I’m awake. This adrenaline I’m feeling—it’s making my heart pump so much faster than it should be. It’s keeping me conscious, just like my adrenaline helped Kyol regain consciousness.
I push up to all fours and lean my back against the wall, waiting for the dark room to stop spinning. Only a single orb lights the table, the chairs, Lena . . . and Aren.
He’s on his back, unconscious and with blood pooling beneath him, but I can see his chest rise and fall. I crawl to him, gasping when a sharp lance of pain strikes down my back. I ignore it and only stop when I collapse between the two unconscious healers.
That’s when I laugh. It’s the laugh of someone who’s lost it, someone who’s seen too much and can’t take anything more. Despite closing my eyes, tears leak out. I don’t have time to cry. I have to pull myself together. I have to find a way to survive so that Kyol will survive, and I have to get us out of here.
The Sharpest Blade Page 27
