The Sharpest Blade ml-3

by Sandy Williams

  “Where’s Naito?”

  “Derch,” Trev answers. “It will take him six hours to reach the nearest gate.”

  Aren’s hand is still fisted in my hood. It brushes across the nape of my neck when he faces me again. The soft, brief contact is all that’s needed for my edarratae to come alive. He feels the lightning’s heat the same as I do, and he immediately drops his hand.

  I clench my teeth together so hard my jaw aches. It’s ironic, this reversal of roles. Two months ago, I was the one withdrawing from his touch and struggling with my attraction to him. Now, just because of a life-bond I had no control over forming, he doesn’t want me anymore? I don’t buy it. His behavior makes no sense, and it’s pissing me off.

  The life-bond and our relationship isn’t something I can discuss in front of Trev, though, so I just meet Aren’s gaze, making sure my expression is grim and determined. I’m here. He has to accept that.

  He laughs. It’s the last reaction I expected from him, and my anger dissipates a little.

  “Okay,” he says, a sideways grin stretching across his lips. “But there are conditions.”

  “Conditions?”

  He nods, taking a step closer. I have to crane my neck to look up at him, and even in the pouring rain, I can smell him, all woodsy cedar with a mouthwatering hint of spice. I’m aching for the condition to be a kiss, but he only grips the front edges of my cloak.

  “If I call it off,” he says, his smile fading, “we walk away, no questions asked. If I tell you to run, you run.” He takes my hand in his, then wraps it around the hilt of my sword. “If I tell you to kill, you don’t hesitate.”

  It’s that last condition that keeps me from responding immediately. The Realm is a violent world, and killing is a common thing. It’s not common for a human like me, though, and in the last two months, I’ve killed more fae than I have in the last ten years. Even though every one of those lives was taken to defend myself or my friends, I wish I hadn’t had to end them. I don’t want to end any more. It’s one of the reasons why living a normal life is so appealing. If I choose to remain involved with the fae, I’m accepting the fact that I may have to kill again.

  I nod once, hoping that this shadow-reading will be simple.

  Aren just shakes his head like he can’t believe my response. Then he tucks a lock of my rain-drenched hair behind my ear, letting his fingers graze my cheek when he takes his hand away. It’s a decidedly tender gesture, and I don’t know what to make of it. The life-bond can’t be the reason he’s keeping his distance from me. I’ve come up with a few other theories—someone from his past is threatening to reveal some terrible secret about him, a high noble is blackmailing him into some shady dealings—but Aren’s not one to let himself be manipulated. Something else is tearing him away from me.

  I reach for his hand. “Aren—”

  “Nimael is here,” he says.

  Nimael. The fae who slipped away from Naito and could be the false-blood’s second-in-command.

  “Is there any sign of Caelar or the remnants?” I ask, focusing on what we’re here to do.

  “No,” Aren says. “But, technically, there’s no sign of Nimael either. He’s an illusionist. A powerful one if my information is good. Making himself and half a dozen other fae invisible is simple for him, even while fighting.”

  Damn, that’s impressive. Illusion is a common magic, but most fae who are adept at it can only keep themselves unseen while they’re fighting. Those who are stronger might be able to hide an additional fae or two, but concealing half a dozen fae who are all moving and fighting and lunging in different directions takes some serious magical skills.

  Which makes our job anything but simple. I’ll have to assume every fae with him is invisible.

  “How do we know he’s here then?” I ask.

  “He’s recruiting.”

  At my frown, Aren gives me his signature half smile then motions me to follow him over the low wall. I slide over the wind-worn stone and grimace when my feet squish into the ground. There are no cobblestones on this side of the wall. Or, if there are, they’re underneath an inch-thick layer of mud. The city is built on a hillside, and we’re standing in a shallow canal that cuts between tall, stone buildings.

  Trev sinks into the muck beside me. Without a word, we both follow Aren. Since the fae are silent, I keep quiet, too, suppressing a number of curses because it’s hard as hell to keep my shoes on my feet. The mud keeps suctioning them off. It’s slowing me down more than usual, so when Trev glares over his shoulder at me for the third time, I throw off the impractical dress shoes, hoping there’s nothing in this sludge that will slice open my feet.

  When I catch up with Aren and Trev again, I realize we’re not alone in this canal. We’re following a fae. I only see the back of his shaggy head, so I can’t recognize him, but he’s not dressed in any kind of armor. And, if I’m not mistaken, he looks young, too young to be one of Lena’s swordsmen.

  “He’s imithi,” Aren says, slowing his pace until I’m at his side.

  Imithi? Curious, I squint through the darkness as the fae stops and faces us. Aren used to be one of them. They’re orphans, fae who have no parents, no homes, and no roots linking them to anywhere in the Realm. They fissure from city to city, stealing, looting, and generally creating havoc wherever they go.

  When we reach the imithi, the boy cocks his head at me, his silver-blue eyes openly taking me in from rain-drenched head to sludge-covered feet, which feel like blocks of ice now. I think he’s young, but I’ve always had trouble guessing how old fae are. They age slower than humans do, except in their early years. From birth until the teens, we mature almost at the same rate. It’s a good thing, too, because it would be freaking bizarre to talk to a twenty-year-old man who looks like a five-year-old boy. Still, it’s difficult to figure out those later teenage years. The boy looks like he could be a high-school freshman, but he could just as well be the age of a college graduate.

  “She’s the shadow-witch?” he asks in Fae.

  “She is,” Aren answers.

  The boy makes a face. “She doesn’t look like she could slice a leaf.”

  Slice a leaf? I glance at Aren and see the corner of his mouth lift into a smile.

  “Careful,” he says. “She’s stronger than she looks, and she has the willpower of a kasnek.”

  I have no idea what a kasnek is, but Aren’s words are clearly complimentary, and his tone is warm and affectionate. It makes me warm. And it makes me want to slide inside his embrace. As soon as we have a moment alone together, he’s going to tell me what’s really making him put distance between us.

  “Really?” the boy says. He shakes his head, flicking his wet, curly brown hair out of his eyes. “Can I touch her?”

  “If you want to damage your magic, sure,” Aren says with an it’s-your-funeral kind of shrug.

  I glare at Aren. It’s human tech that damages fae magic, not humans, but most fae are so paranoid about their magic that they’ll believe almost anything about us. It doesn’t help that Aren’s spread more rumors about the “shadow-witch” than I can count, turning me into some kind of mythological creature.

  Aren just grins back at me. “This is Dicer.”

  It takes an effort to ignore the way that smile makes my stomach flip.

  “You’re letting the false-blood recruit him?” I ask, forcing my gaze back to the boy and remembering that Aren said recruitment was the reason Nimael was here.

  “We’re here to capture Nimael,” Aren says, “so no one’s going to be recruited. But, yes, that’s the purpose of the meeting. I’ve been talking to Dicer and a few other imithi for the past few weeks, waiting for this to happen.”

  He says that as if he was all but certain the false-blood would eventually reach out to the imithi. But maybe he was sure of it. That’s how Thrain found him. He was imithi until the false-blood decided to use him.

  “How much farther?” Aren asks Dicer.

  “It’s just
up here,” the imithi says, walking a few more paces through the sludge, then stopping when he reaches the corner of the stone building that makes up part of the right wall of the canal. “Straight ahead.”

  Aren’s gaze follows Dicer’s pointing finger. He’s just tall enough to see over the edge of the canal. I’m not. I move to the wall where a stone juts out from it, and use it as a foothold.

  Aren steadies me with a hand—a subconscious touch, I think—then points to a detached home about thirty feet away. Two tall, short-needled plants sit in pots to either side of a dark door. Drapes cover the two windows I can see, making the interior look as black as the sky.

  “Is it just us three?” I ask.

  “No,” he answers. “Jacia and Taber are paralleling us. They’ll circle around to the back.”

  Automatically, I look to the left but only see the other wall of the canal. If the two fae are paralleling us, they’re on street level. Which means they’re not in this sludge. Lucky for them. Still, it’s comforting to know they’re here, even Jacia. Atroth wanted Kyol to form a life-bond with her. The king thought they were a good match, but Kyol refused the bond. I’m sure Jacia knows I was the reason for that rejection—anyone who wasn’t blind realized it—but she’s given no indication that she resents me for it. She’s fully capable of annihilating a whole contingent of fae, and so is Taber, who’s one of Kyol’s top swordsmen. Aren doesn’t have an army set to encircle Nimael, but he’s brought powerful backup.

  “Nimael is an older fae,” Aren says, making me turn my attention back to the target house. “He’s close to two centuries old and has streaks of gray in his hair. We need to capture him. The other elari in there won’t be able to lead us to the false-blood. Tholm’s silver wall will keep him from fissuring, so you shouldn’t need to read his shadows, but you’re all of our eyes. Make sure we know where he is.”

  I nod, then ask, “Are we going in or making them come out?”

  “We’ll see what happens when I knock on the door,” he says.

  My foot slips off the stone protruding from the canal’s wall. “Knock on the door? That’s your big plan to capture the false-blood’s second-in-command?”

  He gives me a devil-may-care grin. “You have no idea what I’ve accomplished by the simple act of knocking on a door. King Atroth was overthrown because I tapped on the right ones.”

  This is the Aren I fell in love with—confident, carefree, and sexy as hell. If he’s still trying to push me away, he’s doing a crappy job of it.

  He reaches inside a draw-stringed purse that’s attached to his weapons belt and takes out a coin. Tinril, the currency is called here. I have no idea what the different colors and sizes are worth, but Dicer catches the coin in the air.

  “Now, run off,” Aren says. “Far off.”

  “Of course.” The boy grins in a way that makes me think he’s not going to listen to Aren’s instructions at all, and the way Aren watches him climb out the opposite side of the canal gives me the impression that his thoughts match mine. I’m betting imithi aren’t so great at following orders.

  There’s nothing Aren can do about it, though.

  “Are you two ready?” he asks, turning back to me and Trev. I nod, pull up my hood, then climb out of the canal behind the two fae. That’s when I feel a flicker of anxiety from Kyol. He feels my focus, my slightly elevated heart rate, and he knows that I’m moving now.

  Relax, I tell both him and myself. This should be simple. I don’t even have to read the shadows; I just have to point out what I see.

  We’re halfway across the street. My focus is riveted to the narrow house’s single window. Fae don’t often use bows and arrows—their enemies rarely stay in one place and, many times, they’re invisible—but we’re in a part of the city that’s protected by silver. If I were Nimael and thought there might be a chance someone was hunting me, I’d have at least one bow stashed somewhere inside.

  But he has no reason to use it on us, I remind myself. He doesn’t know we’ve found him. He’s here to recruit elari, and we’re just a few innocent, sludge-covered people crossing a street.

  Suddenly, the front door opens. Three fae step out, and everything—the air, the rain, my heart—goes still.

  * * *

  “DON’T let them back in!” Aren yells. Before the last word leaves his lips, Trev’s already acted, launching a ball of flames from his hand into the door behind the fae.

  “Bring Taltrayn!” Aren grates out. The order is unnecessary. There’s no stopping Kyol from coming. He felt the cold terror slide over me the second that door opened.

  Aren grasps his sword in both hands and takes a step forward. “Where are they, McKenzie?”

  “Shoulder to shoulder just outside the door.”

  “I can hide you,” a voice pipes up just behind us. Dicer. No surprise there.

  Aren doesn’t hesitate. “Do it,” he says. To me, he adds, “Tell us when and where to swing.”

  I nod, then both he and Trev are rushing forward. Dicer must be a decently strong illusionist. I see the moment the elari lose sight of Aren and Trev. Two of the three fae take a half step backward as they bring their swords in front of them. They don’t have humans to see through Dicer’s illusion, and they can’t fissure out of here. They’re screwed.

  But the fae in the center with gray-streaked hair doesn’t look concerned. He doesn’t even unsheathe his sword. With the door burning behind him, he—Nimael—takes a rustic red cylinder from his belt and untwists a cap. A thin, coiled rope falls to the ground, then, with a flick of his wrist, the rope snakes out in front of him.

  Aren and Trev are almost on him.

  “Jump! Jump!” I scream, but they don’t understand, and with another flick of his wrist, Nimael’s rope whips out. It’s long enough to swing into both fae’s legs. They crash to their knees, are up in an instant, but the damage is already done. Dicer’s illusion breaks, revealing them both to the elari.

  My sword is in my hands, and I’m rushing forward already, yelling for Aren to swing right and Trev to swing straight ahead. Both their blind attacks miss, and they roll, attempting to get out of the way.

  Aren makes it, but Nimael’s whip is wrapped around Trev’s calf. It wraps around his knees during his roll. He curses, swings defensively once more, and his elari attacker hesitates the second I need to get there.

  My blade cuts through the air, clashing against the elari’s with an impact that rattles me to the core. The elari’s invisibility breaks, and Trev’s sword stabs upward, sinking home into the fae’s gut.

  I don’t wait for his soul-shadow to appear. I whirl around to find both Nimael and the second elari closing in on Aren from both sides. Nimael has dropped his whip; I assume he’s invisible again.

  “Back, Aren!”

  He misunderstands my order, twisting around to swing behind him. I won’t get there in time, so I palm the pommel of my sword and thrust it into the air. It soars javelin-style and clips the elari’s side. Only strong enough to break the illusion, not to draw blood.

  Dicer gives me a what-the-hell-was-that look, then the kid splits. Maybe he’s decided we can handle this? It’s two-on-two—three if you count me—and after a quick sidestep and an incredibly fast counterstrike, Aren sends the second elari to the ether.

  “Where’s Nimael?” he demands, rounding on me.

  “There,” I point, “to the left of the darker part of the street.”

  Nimael’s nostrils flare. The glare he gives me reminds me of how cold the rain-drenched night is.

  Aren grabs my arm. “The whole street’s dark.”

  “The ground,” I say. “The smudge on the ground that looks like a . . . a smiley face.”

  He pushes me back, then rushes forward, nowhere near where Nimael’s standing.

  Or was standing.

  My cry of, “He’s running!” is nearly drowned out by Jacia’s, “They’re coming!”

  Five fae—all with the red-and-black-stoned name-cords th
at mark them as elari—burst out from the passageway between Nimael’s building and the one next door.

  “Nimael!” the dark-haired fae leading the way shouts, his gaze scanning the street for the fae. But Nimael is invisible behind his illusion, and speaking would give away his location, so with one last hate-filled glance at me, the older fae turns and runs.

  “Aren, to the left. He’s leaving!”

  But Aren can’t follow my directions. The dark-haired fae is on him. Their swords meet in a loud clash, clash, clash. Then the second fae is there, with Jacia right behind him.

  We’re outnumbered, even with Jacia’s help. Taber was supposed to be with her. I don’t know where he is, but it looks like none of these elari are illusionists. Aren doesn’t need my help, and Nimael is getting away, fleeing down a road that will take him to the eroded silver wall.

  Half a second passes, then my decision is made. I scoop up my sword as I sprint past it, then run at top speed down a passageway that parallels Nimael’s. If he’s the false-blood’s second-in-command, we need him captured and questioned, and since he’s running roughly in the same direction Kyol’s approaching from, we still have a chance to do both.

  The storm and late hour have made Tholm more deserted than a ghost town. Not a soul hinders me, and the rain splattering onto the ground covers the sound of my footsteps. Buildings made of stone and stucco fly past me in a blur. I shrug out of my heavy cloak and keep running. I don’t have to reach the silver wall the same second Nimael does; I just have to be near enough to read his shadows when he makes it to the other side and disappears.

  I’m at an all-out sprint, practically flying over the wet pavement. The alley is clean, well maintained, but I’m heading up an incline, and the rain, the damnable downpour that let up for all of two minutes, has returned.

  I reach a cross street, veer down it, and am spit out onto Nimael’s road. He’s there, so much closer than I expected but still running for the wall. He’ll reach it soon.