King of Ash and Bone

by Melissa Wright

  Hunter bit down against an impulsive reply. He would not be baited. Azral had seen him flee, as had countless others. He would have seen Hunter with the human girl; he’d have scented her from that day in the park.

  But Azral wouldn’t admit that here, not in front of the Iron Bound. Because admitting one would be to expose the other, would lead to questions regarding the whereabouts of some fifteen men. The men Hunter had killed when they’d attacked—under Azral’s command—and left him for dead.

  The men that human girl had never seen.

  “It is time,” Hunter said. “We go back, discourse with our king.”

  Azral’s wing flipped, an impatient gesture. “We wait for their armies, my prince.”

  The reminder was level, his words a barb, and it was the second time in so many minutes. Hunter stepped forward. “Do you question my order?”

  Azral smiled, a wicked, sharpened grin. His hand drew wide, turning before his open wing, encompassing all around them. “I assure you not, Nightsbane. We are at your command.” His hand went down, lips curling into a snarl, as he whispered, “Shall your human girl come within?”

  Hunter moved, too fast for human eyes, but Azral was faster. There was a solid boom, the draw of air, and they were being dragged, Iron Bound and atmosphere alike, through the gateway to dying lands.

  Azral crashed into him, a flurry of wings and fists, his raven claw a knife through Hunter’s side. “I’ll carve her to pieces, my prince. Your toy. I’ll hand her around as undying coin.”

  Hunter slammed head-first into Azral’s chin—both of them spinning through empty air—and twisted, jerking the other man’s claw from his side in a sudden, determined resolve.

  It snapped.

  Azral roared.

  Hunter fell through the edge of the void.

  And then the door was collapsing, his power yielding to the pain in his side, remnants of poison and spite and the burden that was his lot in life. His fate. The gateway to that other world narrowed, falling closed like a blinking eye with the ebb of his power, sealing shut over Azral’s howl.

  There was a sudden bellow, the curse of his name, and then Azral’s stump of a hand—clawless and bloody—rushed forth, every last bit of the power within seizing the girl and deciding a new fate for them all.

  Changing the game.

  Chapter 13

  There was a legend among the Iron Bound, one amid many. But as they spun through the void of the gateway between lands, this particular tale echoed through Hunter’s mind. The story of the reaper who’d stolen a human girl before her time.

  Hunter had always considered it myth, because no human could survive the journey without the energy imparted in them before the reaping, without being Marked. But that didn’t stop him from reaching for her, his own human girl.

  Hunter was able to grab Mackenzie by the tail of her shirt, a thin cotton weave the only thing keeping her alive. It would have happened so fast that she might not have seen it, might not have known how she’d gotten pulled through, but the others had. They would know a human rested in the dying lands.

  They would know she was his.

  He and Mackenzie had landed far from their reach. Whatever Iron Bound were drawn through would have fallen into the darkness of the western flats, not here in the outer forests. But there would be those beastly dogs, searching. Azral would release the hounds the moment he got the chance.

  Mackenzie had tumbled free of Hunter, lying in jacket and jeans among the fallen pine and scaling moss of the forest floor, her boots partially veiled by a kaleidoscope of bracken. His fingers worked open, releasing their grip on the tattered gray threads he’d pulled from her shirt. “Are you injured?”

  She sat up, light dappling her warm skin, and blinked. She ran a hand through her hair, glanced behind her.

  “Mackenzie,” he started, but she swayed, holding up a hand to stop him.

  It was only a moment before she pushed to her feet. “Whoa.” Her voice was reasonably calm, but she winced at the scenery. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What just happened? Where are we?”

  “You were pulled through the threshold. I had to drag you aside; the forces would have been too much for you, so we landed near the outlands, far enough from the foundation’s core to keep from crushing you. The others will be looking for you soon. We need to find a place to hide.”

  She pressed a palm to her temple. “Did you just say we walked through a portal to another dimension?”

  “No, Mackenzie. I did not.” He didn’t know why she insisted on her science-fiction movie comparisons when he’d been trying to tell her that her life was in danger.

  She glanced back at the spot, no sign of the expected doorway. “Portal,” she repeated, gaze going to the expanse of land before them, lit by blue and glowing with preternatural life. “Another dimension.”

  “I understand this is a shock for you,” he said. “But we need to get you inside.”

  He could see the idea connect with her, the knowledge of what was meant by inside. She was cataloging their conversation, taking notes of the foreign trees and curling limbs, the painted lights in so many shades he couldn’t even be certain her eyes could classify the color. Her shoulders squared, a command. “Take me back.”

  Hunter moved a step forward. He expected her at any moment to turn and bolt. “I can’t.”

  She stared at him, mouth a thin line.

  “It doesn’t work that way, Mackenzie. I can’t just take you back.” He would have to wait, sneak her out closer to the culling. He was amazed they’d made it through at all.

  He couldn’t understand how she’d lived, let alone managed to stand.

  She said an ugly word. A very ugly word followed by a string of cursing so creative a virago would have blushed. It didn’t help. She was in the Land of Oz. He didn’t know what that meant precisely, but she said so. Repeatedly.

  “Dorothy,” she muttered. “In the Land of Oz. Flying monkeys and tornados and click your heels and let me go home…” Her eyes were closed, dark lashes fluttering as she swayed like a tree on the breeze. There were no tears.

  And there was no breeze. The air here was flat, stale. This was the dying lands. Not her home.

  It could never be her home.

  “Kenzie,” he said, ever so gently. “We really shouldn’t stay here.”

  “Here,” she whispered, voice no more than breath. “Here.”

  Hunter slipped a cautious hand beneath her arm. She was a creature so changed from his first glimpse of her at the park. “I’ll get you home, Mackenzie. But not today.”

  He hoped it wasn’t a lie, but deep down, Hunter knew the truth. They were both likely to be killed among these trees. Both of them lost to the dying lands.

  They walked over low grass, the soft green blades a distorted echo of her home. Hunter knew what the shock of finding another world felt like, even though his own had come so many years before. Life here was flat, a paper drawing of the existence in her world. It would be beautiful—color and light, soft edges and curled lines—but a drawing no less. The dying lands lacked the wet leaves and drops of rain. It lacked the bite of a chill wind and evidence of constant growth. Of renewal. That was how the translation was made, from his language to hers. She lived in a place of renewal, the undying lands.

  Everything that was here, on his side of the plane, had been acquired, stolen from those lands to be cultivated with a power that required fuel. The energy of her world. Things could be brought over and fostered, things could and unquestionably did change, but nothing was born here.

  Nothing but him.

  He glanced over his shoulder, the chittering nightbugs hidden in blue-green undergrowth the only thing watching their stride. He shouldn’t be forced to walk on this plane, but between the wound in his side and the draw on his power, he’d have to leave Mackenzie if he wanted to fly. And he couldn’t seem to do that anymore.

  “It isn’t much farther,” he promised, though his assurances didn’t receive
a reply. He was taking her to an outpost, the place that would most resemble her home. They might be safer outside, but only until the bloodhounds trailed them. And Hunter needed supplies.

  A cabin, if he were to translate it, the terms falling with each step through his mind. Human language had surrounded him, but there were still words he rarely had the chance to speak. Every word he wanted to say felt like that now. Unfamiliar. Wrong.

  He felt nearly as disoriented as he suspected Mackenzie did. Not because he was lost, but because he knew exactly where he was, and just how much trouble he’d gotten himself into.

  She stumbled, the toe of her black leather boot catching on one of the desiccated vines. The grommets holding her laces had already started to turn, the thin metal unable to withstand the energy around it. Hunter steadied her arm, helping her through a latticework of roots and vine. He could feel the change in himself as well, the return of a power that had been leached from him. It was hard to say whether it was a relief or not.

  By the time they reached the outpost, a substantial gray building between massive wood-like posts, it was clear he was the only one whose condition was improving. He ushered Mackenzie through a carved plank doorway to the deepest depth of the structure. Seven rooms between him and the entrance. Seven rooms to hear them come.

  Mackenzie hadn’t said a word.

  She was in shock. Or some kind of waking coma. He wished he’d learned more about human medical conditions. He settled her onto a sofa—some mix of a loveseat and cot. Her words didn’t work here; none of these things were as real to him as the world she called home.

  Hunter tugged off his jacket, careful of his injured side, and laid it over Mackenzie’s lap. She didn’t blink. He thought he might feel her skin, check for fever, but when he brushed the back of his fingers across her cheek, they lingered. Words came softly from his lips, of their own accord. “Kenzie, you’re—”

  He wasn’t sure what he’d intended to say, but she flinched. An outright recoil, as if he’d slapped her.

  He dropped his hand, sorry. But that word didn’t come. Of all the words to slip, not the apology.

  She sat up, as if coming awake, and tugged the jacket tight around her.

  It wasn’t cold.

  “What are you?” she asked.

  Hunter wet his lips, not wanting to ever have this conversation. “One of them,” he said. “Iron Bound.”

  “Why did you bring me here?”

  He shook his head. He could tell her it hadn’t been him. But Azral hadn’t been the one who’d swiped her up, snatched her struggling body from one of the Iron Bound at the army outpost and dragged her to the gate. Azral might have pulled her in, but he hadn’t made Hunter save her.

  Azral hadn’t forced Hunter to keep her, hide her within.

  “Were you using me?” she said. “Was I bait?”

  Hunter flinched, a reaction not so different from her own. “No, wh—” But she had been bait, hadn’t she? Azral had used her against him.

  “Mackenzie, I never intended any of this to happen.” He ran a hand over his neck, suddenly tired. “I never expected you to find me. For a human to stand up to…” Monsters. They were monsters to her.

  They were monsters to him too. And no matter what else he was, he was one of them.

  “You’ll take me back,” she said.

  He wasn’t sure if it was a question or demand. “I can’t. Not yet.”

  “When?”

  “In a few days, when the gateway is closer.”

  Her brow lowered.

  “It’s complicated,” he said.

  Her eyes narrowed further, a look that could only be followed by violence.

  “I won’t be able to reopen the… portal,” he explained, grimacing at the use of her term. “Even if I could, the forces… the gravity of it would crush you. I won’t let you die here, Mackenzie. Not like that.”

  Not like that.

  “So we’re stuck, on this side—” She shook her head, corrected herself. “Me. I’m stuck here.”

  “It’s only for a short while. I’ll try to get you out as soon as I can.” It was all he could give her. Because the truth was, in that short while, they might both be dead.

  “What am I supposed to do then?” Her voice quavered. “In this place. What am I supposed to do?”

  She was alone. In another world.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But you can’t go now.”

  Chapter 14

  She stared at him. Since the moment he’d met her, Mackenzie Scott hadn’t been able to keep her gaze off him for long. Hunter understood why. She’d spent the whole of her life pushing people away, keeping them free of the bubble she’d created for her and her brother, the safety of no one knowing they’d been abandoned. But Mackenzie had let Hunter in. The one person she shouldn’t have.

  For his part, he hadn’t taken his eyes from her either. But it wasn’t any sort of interest. It was wariness. Because he’d spent the whole of his life knowing he could never allow a human to discover the truth.

  He rubbed a hand over his face, unable to keep from glancing again at this girl. Who was he kidding? It wasn’t merely interest, it was outright covetousness. His. Just like the story said, he wanted her for his own. He frowned, angry at his own loathsome idea, and pulled at the cloth of his shirt where it was irritating his injured side.

  Mackenzie leaned forward. “You’re hurt.” Her voice was flat, and he couldn’t decide whether it had been a question.

  He answered anyway, turning to face the chiseled wall to bring his side away from her view. “I’ll be fine. It’s healing.” The energy here was feeding him.

  The reaper had brought a human girl before her time, the legend said. His plaything. The girl had been paraded about the palace, on show for all to see. The Iron Bound had hissed and cursed, watched in outrage as she was toyed with, made a game. And then she’d been brought back to the reaper’s side. She had been pulled through before the reaping, and her senses had not been dulled by the process. In front of the entire gathering, she’d drawn a crude blade from her wardrobe, carved iron. She’d been a sheep herder’s wife, the legend said. She’d used that blade to cut him through the heart.

  Though it had been close, the reaper had not died. The culling had carried on. When the last of the humans were brought through the gate, the reaper was left on the other side. Punishment, for what he had done.

  He would be turned to ash, faded away in the undying lands.

  Hunter’s punishment would be worse. Hunter would be taken to pieces.

  On this side.

  Mackenzie shifted, as if to move for him to tend his injured side, and she winced with the movement. Hunter bit down his automatic response, because the words would have been in the language of the dying lands. She had gotten hurt in the fall. “What is it?” he asked, sliding onto the edge of the seat beside her.

  The pain must have been too sharp for her to notice his approach, because she didn’t shy away. “It’s nothing,” she said. “Just cracked my shoulder again when we landed.” Her gaze fell to the tattered material of his shirt, now on full display. The borrowed shirt was torn, shredded by the raven claw Azral had lodged in his side. The claw Hunter had snapped.

  It was a severe thing to do, worse than the injury the other man had inflicted, because it was taboo. Splintering a raven claw was something only the king would do. But Hunter couldn’t feel regret for it. The humans Azral had Marked would be his last.

  Mackenzie pulled her shoulder in, hugging it close to her body, and Hunter realized she was purposefully not touching the carved plank walls. “It’s all right,” he found himself saying. “It won’t hurt you. It’s like the shell of your coral. Nothing in this place will do you harm.” This place. This outpost.

  Not this world. Not his realm.

  “That man,” she said. “The one who cut you.” She wet her lips, eyes going to the blood staining his shirt, back to him. “He was the one from the park.”
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br />   Hunter nodded.

  “You knew him. That day, he was talking to you.” Spitting on you. Cursing your name.

  Had poisoned you.

  “Yes,” he said. He was going to have to tell her this. She was going to have to know. And as soon as the hounds found them, none of it would matter. “Azral. The king’s guard.” It wasn’t quite the right word, but it would have to do.

  “King’s guard,” Mackenzie repeated numbly. She glanced around the room, taking in the statues, polished floor that would look to her eyes like marble, all of it pristine. An undersea castle from one of her storybooks, the palm-like leaves swaying in a current that wasn’t there. She drew a deep breath. “King’s guard.”

  “Mackenzie—”

  “You were telling him what to do,” she said. “Agsral. He was standing there, all of them bending to you, and you were telling them what to do.”

  “Azral,” he corrected, all too aware that her grasp of their tongue was not the issue at hand.

  She scowled. It was fearsome, probably honed by years of wrangling a teenage boy, and he had to restrain himself from reaching up to loosen the collar of his shirt. He shrugged a shoulder, though the feeling of being strangled was entirely phantom.

  He brushed a thumb across his chin. “Malkyn is not my father,” Hunter said. The words felt like blasphemy, even here. “But he is king. And I am his possession.”

  She blinked, pulled a hand over her eyes. “Wait. I know… I mean… I’ve been through a lot lately. Just, just help me process this.”

  “There is an order to things here,” he said. “A succession. Not unlike your stories of kings, knights, and heirs.” Knights was another wrong word, for so many reasons. But he could not explain that to her, not here. “There are things expected of me, of each of us among this realm. Azral betrayed me, Mackenzie. He used me, misled me.” Hunter shook his head. “I was a fool. But that doesn’t matter. We are here now. What’s done is done. The danger on this side of the wall is no different than in your own home.” It was worse, so, so much worse. But he couldn’t tell her that, either.