The Shattered Dark

by Sandy Williams

  Silently, I sit down beside him.

  Minutes pass. I’m not exactly sure how many—ten, twenty, maybe a half hour—but the moon reaches its zenith and is well into its descent when I finally say, “I’ve missed you.”

  Starlight outlines Aren’s profile, and a cool, gentle breeze ruffles through his hair. With the palace beneath him and Corrist’s mountains in the background, he’s exotically alluring.

  He rests his hand on top of mine, squeezes it. Hope loosens some of the knots in my stomach. I watch my edarratae zigzag down my arm, but when they reach him, he takes his hand away.

  “I can’t do this, McKenzie.”

  My heart breaks. It’s a tangible thing. The pain is deep inside my chest, slightly off centered and sharp. There’s no way I can hide it from Kyol. I feel alarm pass through our bond, then understanding, I think, when he realizes I’m not injured. Guilt and sadness follow that. I swallow and try to block out his emotions.

  “You’re giving up on us?” I ask Aren.

  “You don’t understand, McKenzie. The life-bond…I can’t compete with that.”

  “I’m not asking you to compete with it.” I turn toward him, take his hand. His mouth tightens, but he doesn’t pull free this time, not even when a bolt of white lightning skips from my skin to his. “I love you, Aren.”

  He draws in a breath. I move closer until I’m pressed against his side. Just over two weeks ago, right after we took the palace, he came to me in Vegas. He told me he’d fight for the chance to be with me, and I chose to give him that chance. I made the right decision. He might have a dark past, but he was strong enough to overcome it. He’s become something good. He’s become someone I respect, and if I have to fight for him now, I will.

  I reach a hand up to turn his face toward mine. His expression is pained. I have to make that go away. I press my lips against his. He doesn’t resist. The feel of his mouth against mine, the taste of his breath, it’s an exquisite combination of the exotic and the familiar, and when he shudders, I deepen the kiss. I pour myself into it, ignoring the tangle of emotions sitting alone somewhere in the palace.

  Aren murmurs my name. He murmurs it over and over as he gives in to me. His hands go to my hips. He pulls me away from the edge of the palace and closer to him. Pressed together like this, on our knees, with no space between our bodies, I can feel just how much he wants me.

  The edarratae are alive inside of me. I move my lips to the curve of Aren’s jaw, then to the base of his neck, transferring little shocks of lightning to him with my kisses. He’s still so tense, though. I run my palms down his biceps.

  “Aren.” It’s the softest whisper, but once his name touches the air, I’ve lost him. His grip on my hip isn’t pulling me closer now, it’s holding me away.

  He puts an inch of space between us; it feels like a gulf.

  “I love you,” he says. “Sidhe, I love you, but I can’t do this. You’re his, McKenzie.”

  Those last words hit me like a physical assault. I’m still holding on to Aren’s arms, but like him, I’m not pulling him closer anymore.

  “Kelia wasn’t Lorn’s,” I say. My voice sounds frigid to my ears.

  “Kelia never loved Lorn.” He releases me to stand.

  I stand, too. “You’re holding my past against me.” He has no right to say who I belong to.

  He faces the Imyth Sea. “You should talk to him.”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  “He could explain the bond,” he continues. “You could work things out.”

  “Work things out?” I ask, feeling the coldness in my voice seep into the rest of my body. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He looks over my shoulder. His expression is closed off.

  “You’re pushing me into his arms.”

  “I’m giving you the freedom to choose,” he counters. “You need time, McKenzie, to understand the bond.”

  “You’ve already given me all the time I need.”

  “Please, go.” He says those two words as if they mean The End. My throat closes up. The Silver Palace is Lena’s now. Aren and I should be celebrating. We should be in each other’s arms, wrapped in lightning and loving each other. We should be laughing. We shouldn’t be breaking up. But there’s a finality in the way he turns his back on me to lock his gaze on the sea once again.

  “This is your decision, Aren,” I say softly. “It isn’t mine.”

  I don’t want to walk away from him, but I do, leaving the roof and heading…I don’t know where. I half expect Aren to realize his mistake and to come running after me. That’s what should happen. He’s risked his life for me over and over again, but he’s giving up on me because of this life-bond? I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t ask to be linked to Kyol like this.

  I swallow as a wave of pain rushes over me. It’s hard to tell how much of it is Kyol’s and how much is mine. He lied when we were in Spier. He said he was okay, that he accepted and understood my decision to leave him, but he wasn’t okay. Every second he’s been near me, every second I’ve spent with Aren…I’ve been hurting him this whole time.

  I bite the inside of my lower lip, focusing on that pain instead of the other. I’m not ready to talk to Kyol yet.

  “McKenzie.” Naito’s voice pulls me out of a daze I didn’t know I’d fallen into, but I’m not on the roof anymore, not even on the stairs leading back into the palace. I’m in the sculpture garden, and Naito is off to my left, sitting on the floor with his back against a square, ivory planter.

  I walk toward him, and say, “Hey,” when I sink to the floor beside him.

  “You doing all right?” he asks. That’s the question everyone’s been asking him off and on these last few weeks. I answer the same way he does most of the time, with a shrug.

  He toys with a frayed hole in his jeans. “Kelia said it was easier to ignore Lorn when they were in separate worlds.”

  Kelia said. Past tense. And there was a certain acceptance in the way he said her name. He’s still hurting, but he’s healing.

  “I’m sorry we can’t bring her back,” I say.

  “We knew there was a chance…” He stops, clears his throat. “I thought I’d be the one to die. She’s fae. She could fissure out if she got into trouble.”

  I wrap my arms around my bent knees. “Do you ever wish you’d never come to this world?”

  He gives a short, humorless laugh. “If I hadn’t come to the Realm, I’d still be one of my father’s pawns.”

  He doesn’t regret killing Nakano. Good.

  “What will the rest of the vigilantes do now?” I ask.

  “The same thing a cult would do if their leader died. Some of them will find new lives. Some of them will continue to hate and hunt the fae. And, apparently, in a few months, some of them will die.”

  “Paige has the tablet I took from the compound. She’s going to give it to a friend of hers. Maybe they’ll find a way to live.”

  “I hope so,” he says. “My brother…We never got along. My father all but ignored him because he couldn’t see the fae. Lee went off to school a few years ago. I don’t know why he went back home. He shouldn’t have.”

  There are a lot of shouldn’t haves when it comes to the fae, and to life in general.

  “I’ll let you know if I hear anything from Paige,” I tell him as I stand.

  “You’re going to leave, then?” he asks, looking up.

  “Yeah. For a while,” I tell him. I wish I knew how long that while will be.

  TWENTY-NINE

  LENA FISSURES ME to my Vegas suite. She’s been meeting with nobles and merchants and normal citizens with complaints every hour since she was voted the interim ruler of the Realm. I think she’s here because she needs a break, just a few minutes without someone beating on her door to remind her of issues and obligations.

  She sets the anchor-stone we used to fissure here on the center of the coffee table. She’s never been here before. She takes in the balconied window, the elegan
t pictures of the city—black and white except for touches of reds and yellows here and there—hanging on the wall, and the tech scattered about the room. Her gaze rests on the flat-screen TV a few steps in front of her. It’s not on, but her edarratae register the power running through the cord. I keep unplugging it; the maids keep plugging it back in.

  “What will you do?” she asks, turning her back on the tech.

  I set a satchel down on the couch. It contains my photo album and a few other trinkets. I cleaned out my room at the palace.

  “Sleep,” I answer. “Enroll in a local college. Maybe look for a job. An apartment.” Shane was looking for a place for us to live. He said he found a house for rent, but I don’t know where. None of the fae Lena sent to London has seen him. “I’ll try to find out what happened to Shane.”

  And I’ll try to find a way to save Paige. I don’t voice that out loud, though. If Paige and Lee survive more than six months, the remnants will know they worked out the problem with the serum. Caelar might decide to re-create it and use it. That could cause a problem for Lena’s new Court. That’s something I have to risk, though, because for me, Paige’s life comes first.

  Lena walks to a desk that’s set against the back wall. A phone is there, a spiral-bound book with things to do, and a pad of paper and pen with the hotel’s name on it.

  “You’ll help us if I need you?” she asks.

  “Naito is your shadow-reader,” I tell her. “You shouldn’t need me.”

  A small lamp is mounted to the wall beside the desk. She taps it with her finger, watches the blue lightning spread across her hand, then taps it again.

  She drops her hand to her side. “Aren is doing the right thing. The pull of a life-bond is intimate. It would be wrong for him to be with you now, before you understand how deeply it will affect you. You might not want Aren a month from now.”

  My jaw aches. I realize I’m clenching it, force it to relax. Lena and Aren both talk like they know how it feels. Neither of them has been bonded to another fae. They’re repeating rumors and making speculations. They have no idea what it’s like to have two sets of emotions twisting inside them. Kyol’s feelings aren’t as potent now that we’re in separate worlds, but they’re there. I know when he’s alone and hurting, when he’s numbing his thoughts by sparring with another fae. I know when he’s thinking about me.

  He’s thinking about me now.

  Warmth spreads through my chest. It’s some kind of desire.

  “What about the garistyn?” I ask Lena. I try to make the question sound casual, like an afterthought. The truth is, if I know there’s a chance something will happen to Kyol, I’ll return to the Realm without question.

  “The high nobles should be appeased until a false-blood is found and killed.”

  “You think Lorn is innocent?” I ask.

  “We’ve been…acquaintances for a long time,” she says, her gaze turning inward. “I don’t want it to be him.”

  I understand that all too well. Maybe I’m wrong about a third-party manipulator. If so, the war should be over soon. Caelar is already losing supporters. One of them will betray him to the rebels soon.

  Lena returns to the present, shaking off whatever thoughts she let herself get lost in, then asks, “If you leave here, will you leave a message for Naito? I’d like to know you’re okay.”

  She’d like to know where I am in case she needs me.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I can do that.”

  She gives me a small smile. “Thank you, McKenzie, for helping us. I know it wasn’t easy to turn against the fae you worked with for so long.”

  She doesn’t wait for my response to that. She leaves this world in a flash of white light. The shadows dance in my vision when she’s gone, making my fingers itch to draw them. But I’ve officially retired. I’m beginning a new life now, the life I should have had all along. Without the fae calling on me, I might actually be able to get a job and finish my degree.

  My gaze goes to the pad and pen on the desk. A few quick lines, a curve of shadow here and there, and I could relieve the need I feel to map her location.

  I draw in a breath, let it out, resisting the temptation. I’m going to try my best to forget the Realm.

  The suite has a minifridge in its small kitchenette. Inside are an assortment of cold snacks and drinks. I’m sure it costs an arm and a leg to touch anything in it, but I grab a Diet Coke and pop the top. Can’t remember the last time I had one of these.

  The fridge squeaks when I kick it shut. Sipping the Coke, I head back to the living area. My gaze sweeps the hotel, not knowing what’s next. What would a normal person do now?

  Shower. Order room service. Maybe go down to one of the casinos…

  A squeak interrupts my thoughts. The same squeak I heard before, but it’s not from the fridge; it’s from the couch.

  I’m behind it, so I walk around to the front, knowing what I’m going to find curled up on one of its cushions.

  Sosch. Obviously, he’s not going to let me forget the Realm completely.

  “You’re going to get me banned from this hotel,” I tell him.

  His big blue eyes blink up at me innocently.

  I scoop him into my lap after I plop down beside him. His fur flushes silver. I scratch behind his ears until he purrs. And then, for the first time in ages, I pick up the remote and click on the TV.

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  Ace Books by Sandy Williams

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  THE SHATTERED DARK