by D. D. Miers
“Please help me, Aedan.”
I felt a hum of energy through my scorched palms as I drowned my thoughts and focus with images of him healing. There was no way for me to know if what I was doing was working, and I dared not stop to look for fear of somehow making things worse.
My own head began to spin, and though I was hunched over Aedan on my knees, I wavered and nearly tumbled over atop him. I could have been draining myself for all I knew, but I didn’t care. I had to help him. I was loathe to admit it still, but I couldn’t lose him, not now, not ever.
I pressed on, my focus narrowing to a pinprick. I lost all notion of my surroundings. Footsteps could have borne down upon me, and I never would have known. Aedan’s health was all that mattered.
“Sloane.”
My name sounded as if it floated past in a dream, forgotten and left to the mists. I pressed on farther, now somehow certain that what I was doing was right—that I was healing Aedan.
“Sloane. Stop.” A firm grasp upon my wrist yanked me from my reverie. I inhaled sharply, stopping a shriek from coming out. Aedan stared back at me, life in his amber depths.
“You’re…you’re okay?” I threw my arms around him, his warmth blanketing me.
“Thanks to you.”
He lifted my chin with the gentle nudge of his fingers. His eyes glanced between my mouth and my eyes, as if seeking approval first. I froze, but then nodded firmly. My eyes closed just before I felt the tender press of his lips against my own. Soft and fleeting, it brought a curl to my lips that had otherwise been placed with a permanent frown.
Scarlet flooded my cheeks, and I jumped up, surprised to find my own head spun with a new sense of dizziness. Aedan followed, his arms once more shoring me up.
“I believe you may have somehow used some of your own energy to bring me back.”
Whatever had occurred, I wasn’t about to complain. Instead, I set to checking the wound I hadn’t even dressed. Barely a pinprick remained where a gaping hole had been minutes prior. Blood, of course, still covered his skin and had drenched part of his shirt, but he otherwise seemed entirely fine.
“The runes,” I said with a start, now that I realized I could lean on him for support. “We have to find the runes. Whatever Caitrín is planning, we have to stop it.”
“I don’t know where to begin looking,” he admitted.
“Well…did she have any favorite spots? Places of meaning to her?” If it even mattered now that she wasn’t truly herself any longer.
“Killion’s…” Aedan’s eyes lit up. “Killion’s room.”
“My brother had a room here?” Through everything I’d already faced, this was what shell-shocked me the most.
“Well, yes. He spent many nights here while we trained.”
I felt almost betrayed, even if I could see the good in his actions. The fact I’d thought he’d gone on long hunting trips when he’d been here stabbed me straight through the heart. Even now, knowing his purpose, a sense of jealousy burned at me.
“Okay, lead the way.”
We hadn’t made it all that far up the corridor before Aedan settled his hand upon a doorknob. All we could hope for now was that no one was waiting on the other side.
My hand rested on the short sword’s hilt, leaving me grateful I’d tucked it into the security of my belt. I’d been worried it would nick me, but it was better than being left with only a pocketknife.
Aedan shoved the door in, our halted breath exhaling in relief the moment we realized no one stood within. The space was identical to the one I’d slept in, save for a few extra touches. A couple of my brother’s sketches hung upon the wall. My fingers drifted over their dark smudges in the hope that this would all come to an end and I’d realize it had simply been a nightmare.
Aedan upended furniture and flung what little belongings had been left across the room. In no time, it looked like a tornado had blown through, but we’d found nothing out of the ordinary. There was no pack, no runes.
“I don’t know where else to check,” he admitted. “Except perhaps the meeting room, where you first met Caitrín.”
“Maybe.” Something about it just didn’t feel right, though. “Unless…Ronen put them somewhere for her.” If they hadn’t already taken them out of the building, a thought which made my heart sink.
“The room you were interrogated in.” Aedan hurriedly captured my hand and yanked me out the door. “He was always strangely attached to that room.”
“So he was always an odd jerk?”
“Something like that.”
The corridors were still eerily quiet, and we faced no resistance on our way back to the windowless room that had been part of a nightmare. Just stepping into it brought back memories vivid enough I swore I could smell the vile substance Ronen had tortured me with. My throat constricted, nearly gagging me at the same moment I realized my pack lay upon the floor…empty.
Aedan held a cylindrical container that looked better suited for holding flowers than gracing an interrogation room’s floor. Several times over, he yanked at the lid, its lack of movement frustrating him to the point of throwing it across the room. With a crack, it hit the wall and tumbled downward, yet it wasn’t the container that cracked. The stone wall splintered, the crack spider-webbing from ceiling to floor.
Aedan scowled, his next kick of it doing nothing but rolling it unharmed across the room. “It’s sealed and protected by magic. We may never get into it.”
“Oh, like hell.” I hadn’t come this far to give up now, and if there was one thing I’d already learned, it was that magic alone wasn’t enough to stop me.
I snatched up the container and settled my hands upon it with certainty flowing through my veins. If I’d broken us free of the cell, why couldn’t I break through this, too?
Aedan’s audible insistence I stop faded away under my all-consuming focus that had me thrusting as much of my will behind breaking into the pot as possible. I imagined my fingertips melding into it, changing it to a brittle glass before it would shatter into thousands of pieces.
None of that happened.
I cried out like a warrior on the battlefield, but a sudden blast threw me across the room, slamming me hard enough into the wall to shove the breath from my lungs. In a daze, I saw Aedan shove off the floor and rush toward me.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” I shook him off and looked beyond the stalks of his legs to where the container still sat, untouched. “It…didn’t work.”
“No.” He sighed, and yanked me to my feet. “I’m not sure what just happened, but I’m lucky to still be standing.”
“I’m sorry.” Apparently, caution was not my specialty when I had my mind set to something. Childishly, I kicked the vase over. The lid fell, spinning like a tossed coin for several turns before it settled in silence on the floor. “Did that just…”
I raced toward it, a choked laugh escaping my throat as I pulled the runes from deep within the container. “They’re here! We’ve got them!”
“Here.” Aedan shoved my discarded pack into my hands and glanced over his shoulder. “Pack them up, because I think someone’s coming.”
25
I filled my pack and tossed it over my shoulders quickly, the sing of steel from Aedan’s withdrawn sword echoing.
Beyond the door, footsteps thundered, heading straight for us. There would be no escape, except through whomever was right outside that door.
I stood behind Aedan, my scavenged sword held at the ready. The door splintered inward, nearly coming off its hinges from the force of the kick it endured. Three men piled into the room, flanking across the only exit in a bid to stop us from leaving. My heart sank as I recognized one from my initial meeting with Caitrín. He was old and wilting in energy, yet he stood as a soldier before us.
“Please, don’t do this.” Aedan held his ground, but his voice wavered in defiance of his actions.
“We’ve been told of your traitorous ways,” t
he old man spat as he lifted his blade farther. “You can’t kill your own and expect to leave alive.”
“We didn’t kill them!” I shouted, but it was too little, too late. One of the men lunged, setting off a cataclysm of clashed weapons that had me battling a man old enough to be my grandfather. I saw only hatred in his eyes as he bore down on me with a strength he shouldn’t be able to possess. Perhaps it was only me who’d been the ignorant one, though.
His movements pushed me back in a dance of defensive clashes that rattled my bones and left my heart stammering. “Please, we’ve been set up! You don’t have to do this!”
The downward cut of his sword left me lifting my own in a stark rattle that left our blades mere inches from my face. With all my might, I pushed, but no ground was gained.
His lips curled into a deep snarl. “You do realize that’s what a traitor would say, don’t you?”
“But it’s the truth.”
“Hold your tongue, girl, before I cut it off!”
I snapped into action, realizing with a heavy weight of guilt he would never relent. He would kill me given the chance, and it seemed that was exactly what he was aiming for. Our blades sang as I pulled away, my attention narrowing solely to my fight alone. I would have to just trust Aedan would be okay.
Through several more swings, my defenses barely kept the steel of his weapon from grazing my skin. His weapon barreled down, this time aimed straight for the top of my head. I ducked, the swing of my sword arcing perfectly for his torso. His gasp of shock and agony was loud before his blood hit the floor. It had been my only choice for survival, but there was no shoving down the guilt that overwhelmed me.
The man collapsed, his blood gathering into a thick pool beneath his stilling form. I’d killed him, a man who could’ve been innocent and fighting simply to survive. In a hurried moment, Aedan was at my side, my mix of emotions no doubt darkening my face.
“You had to do it, Sloane.”
His words did nothing to ease the bile that threatened to break free. Especially not as I drank in the sight of the other two men who’d befallen the same fate.
“They were innocent in this.” How many more would have to die over a trio of stones?
“Imagine what will be done if we don’t stop the Dark Fae. It won’t be a few, but all.”
I hoped he was truly right.
We ran out the door, but we weren’t in the clear yet. All throughout the halls, shouts echoed, crying out for our discovery, or lack thereof. We were being hunted, and there was a chance none of them knew we were trying to save their lives.
We barged into the next room. The door slammed behind us in an effort to avoid the hurried footsteps that had been rushing toward us. They all made so much noise in their search we had no worries they’d hunt down the sound of our single door. Yet, we’d never expected anyone else to be on the opposite side.
The woman’s mouth fell open just before I heard her scream. The slam of my hand atop it wasn’t enough to muffle her entirely as she thrashed. She was unarmed, unskilled, and terrified, and I wasn’t about to jab a knife into her heart for simply being in what looked like a small reading room.
Outside our door, the chattering hunters stopped.
“Did you hear something?” one woman asked, giving way to a silence I imagined could only be born of their imminent entrance.
My eyes connected with Aedan’s, even as I continued to struggle against the thrashing woman. Things were about to go from bad to worse yet again.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I snarled quietly at the woman, but she wasn’t listening. I moved my arms, letting a bloodcurdling scream spill from her lips. Immediately, the door slammed open, drawing Aedan forward with a slash of his sword. The woman’s flailing attempts at escape lessened until she simply went slack in my arms. Carefully, I dropped her to the floor, and hoped she would later awake with no more than a bruised neck.
Beyond Aedan, figures dove for us, their attempts at flaying me short-lived as I flipped the minute sword from my hip and drove it straight through their chests, one at a time. They collapsed to the floor alongside Aedan’s victims, their restlessly settled limbs ones I imagined would haunt my visions for forever. Somehow, in all my years, I’d ignored the fact that killing Dark Fae was still taking a life, but this…. This was ten thousand times harder.
“We better be right about all of this.” I checked the sturdiness of my pack’s straps before we trekked out the door.
“We need to keep going. Otherwise, we risk being caught in the corridor and ambushed on both sides.”
I had no argument with that, and the next few rooms into which we sought refuge were empty and devoid of any angered faces. It was there we caught our breath, and I reached back, just to be certain my pack hadn’t somehow vanished in our fights. It hadn’t.
“What now?” I asked, knowing Aedan would never have all the answers I desired.
“Escape? I don’t know. We need to get the runes as far from here as possible.”
“We can go to my old encampment.” If it remained where I’d left it.
Aedan nodded. “Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
We ran down the empty corridor, our footsteps echoing like thunder down the narrow space. Ahead, I could see the door that led to the training grounds, the one I knew had a gate to the outside world. To Sonola proper.
We’d almost reached it, when from that very door burst five more Fae wielding weapons that had probably never seen a true battle.
They charged, their makeshift knives and pickaxes child’s play in the hands of those who knew not how to wield. Both Aiden and I aimed to harm, to wound, but at all costs—not to kill. As more blood spilled, I couldn’t watch. I couldn’t be a part of the massacre, but I had no choice. It was fight, or die.
Ahead of me, Aedan fell three others, his moves attempting to knock them unconscious or ineffective. I darted out of the way of a loosed pickaxe, and the weapon plunged into the floor. Aedan grabbed me then, yanking me from that which I could not peel my eyes away from.
If we were wrong, I had just become precisely what we thought we were fighting against.
26
We flung ourselves out the door to where my earlier pulled strands of ivy lay upon the ground, wound upon no man’s neck.
“He lived,” I breathed. Suddenly, I was uncertain if that was a good thing or not. It was one less soul I had extinguished, but one more that could come back to tear the life from our lungs, given the chance.
Aedan was already across the courtyard, his sword slashing at the thick vines that covered the gate that would provide our escape. “We’re already on the edge of Inorah. This will exit just outside the city.”
My heart hammered as Aedan pulled with all his might upon the gate. Its hinges cried out in a deafening creak that left no hope for a quiet and quick escape. Then, I looked beyond the open doorway’s curtain.
A line of soldiers awaited us with weapons drawn and the telltale rings of the Dark Fae encircling the various shades of their eyes. There would be no walking away from this as easily as we’d escaped the building, and there was no need to say it aloud. I could feel the worry swirling off Aedan in waves.
He gave me a last look and we charged forward, clashing with the first attackers. Aedan was relentless in his swings, and my heels dug into packed earth to hold my ground against Fae warriors.
I was decent with a blade, but I’d kill for my crossbow. It was like an extension of my arm and the only weapon that ever felt like it was made for me.
Beyond my immediate adversary, I heard the strain of Aedan’s offensive, his sword seeming to deal more than a mere attempt at simply staying alive. I focused, certain I could find a weakness to exploit eventually.
The man made my search difficult as he barraged me with swing after swing that left my arms weak from the shaking blocks that kept him from slicing me to limb to limb. Then, a single step upon unsteady footing left me tumbling
over backward. His sword plunged, aiming square for my center.
Visions of Killion’s corpse flashed through my mind. I flung myself sideways and saw the same blade bearing down upon me in a vicious slice once more. The sharpened edges of our blades met, crying out against one another as he pushed, far harder than I could bear. He was stronger, weightier, and I had nowhere to go.
In a sudden, rash decision I wasn’t certain would work, I tilted my blade, sending him careening off to my left as I grabbed the knife from my pocket. Before he’d had a moment to readjust for another attack, the small blade had found the base of his throat and plunged in deep, coating me in a shower of crimson.
I spat against the intrusion that coated my lips with horrid warmth and hurriedly jumped to my feet to see Aedan had left a trail of bodies in his wake back to my side. “Get up! Get up!” he shouted as his blade bounced off a breastplate and careened with a man’s face in a bloody mess that would surely leave him blind.
The moment I rose, Aedan caught sight of me, fear flooding his eyes. It took a moment’s realization for me to vehemently deny what he believed he saw.
“I’m fine, I’m fine! It’s not my blood!” A glint of light beyond his shoulder left me screaming, “Look out!”
Without rational thought, I shoved him aside and thrust my blade upward, barely deflecting the hefty attack. The attacker was a brute, and his every swing left me beaten down and relieved of what little strength I held against him.
“Aedan!” I needed his help, I couldn’t hold out, but from beyond the brute, two more men barreled, the clash of steel no doubt with Aedan. I was on my own, and couldn’t let this man’s strength alone cut me down.
“Hang on!” Aedan cried, but that was all I was doing as I ducked beneath a swing that stripped me of a healthy lock of hair. I tumbled beyond the man’s reach, his turn back toward me slower than my jump back to my feet. That was my in—my speed—long as I could get close enough without him ending my life. The ground shook beneath his hammering steps, but I held my ground until the last possible second as he thundered toward me.
