by Dean Murray
No, Hunter thought. Another wrong word. This was nothing like her night. “We have to go,” he told her.
She rubbed her eyes. “What?”
He touched her arm, let her hear his urgency. “It’s time to go.”
She nodded, sitting up and patting a hand around her. Reaching for her bag, Hunter realized, until she recalled she didn’t have it anymore. He took her elbow. “We need to go.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m awake now. I’m good.”
She followed him out the maze of rooms, this time more aware of the walls that surrounded her. The look on her face made him feel no better about the world he was going to drag her through, but at least she was alert, out of that shocked daze.
It would resemble concrete and stone, all of it polished or painted or not quite normal, but it would look nothing like home. It would feel nothing like her world. Outside though, outside was the brightness and color in whorls and ringlets that would feel like a dream.
He wished he could fly. Hunter was healing, but Azral had rent open the first cut, and the poison wasn’t quite flushed from his system, not well enough to support both his and Mackenzie’s weight. At this point, staying beneath the trees was their best hope.
There was a call from the foliage behind them, a croaking squawk that might have once been a curlew’s song. He wondered if it missed its home, the water, the lapping shores and salted air.
Mackenzie jerked on Hunter’s arm, leaning toward him. “Do we have to be quiet?”
“No reason to make yourself a target,” he said. “But you’ll be fine to walk and talk until I warn you otherwise.” Sound was not how the hounds would track them.
She let out a long breath. Resignation? Fear? She rubbed her nose with a knuckle, stepped carefully over the blood-red patches of moss. “Why don’t I want water?”
“Hmmm?”
She hopped two steps closer, brought her voice up to near normal levels. “Water. Usually when I wake up, the first thing I do is chug a glass of water.”
The energy, he should have told her. The energy will change you, faster than you can imagine. He said, “Climate,” glancing into the treetops, surreptitiously checking for tracks.
“Oh.” Her brow wrinkled, though the air was temperate, never too cool or too mild. But Mackenzie wouldn’t be put off. “Where are we going, then?”
“Away,” Hunter answered. “Out of reach of the hounds.” He had told her they’d be looking, had mentioned it would be time to move, but he’d not described the beasts in detail. Only a fool would have done that.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” she started, “about this reaping.” She bit her lip, gripping his arm to steady herself over a crack in the ground. She didn’t seem to notice the earth that lay beneath it, that the color, the scent was all wrong. She dropped her hand from his arm. “Why don’t you just close it? If the only thing coming is more of your men, then why not seal it now?” Her head shot up. “I mean, as soon as I’m out. Just lock it up tight and throw away the key. Let our army figure out what to do with the thousands out there now.”
“The source doesn’t come through to your side,” he told her. “Whatever they have, they must bring it when they come. If I were to close the gate with the Iron Bound on the outside, their energy would fade.”
Mackenzie shrugged. “Even better.”
“Their souls are not born, Mackenzie. They are taken from your side. Once the energy fades, the Iron Bound will not revert to human. They will die.”
She watched him, waiting for there to be some issue she’d object to.
“They are still your people, Mackenzie. Despite what they look like from the outside.” The sudden guilt on her face made him regret the reprimand; how could she possibly understand? “Ideally, there could be some solution that did not require thousands of either race to be exterminated.”
She pressed her lips and he could see that he was not getting through to her. “I am the chosen, Mackenzie. The key to survival for this entire realm. Without the reaping, there’s no guarantee my world will survive.”
“So we make the sacrifice?” she asked. “Humans die, humans are stolen from their homes so that you can live all happy and fly around Fantasia with your fluffy little—hey,” she said. “Where are your clouds?”
“There is no sun or moon, Mackenzie. We are in another realm.” The dying lands.
He stopped, turning to look at her, and she drew up short, mouth partially open as she prepared her next bid.
“I have borne this knowledge the whole of my life. If I knew some way to solve it, I would. I have lived in your world, Mackenzie. I have dwelt more among your people than my own. I cannot save them. It doesn’t matter that being the son of sons is nothing I ever wanted, nothing I could ever undo. The gateway will reopen.”
Her expression melted into something that might have been sorrow or sympathy or loss. But her gaze found the earth beneath their feet, her hands sliding into pockets as she continued the trek once more.
“The reaping is coming,” he said to her back. “It’s coming and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
Mackenzie was quiet for a long while, her dark hair hanging still, as if even it yearned for a breeze. There was nothing he could say to her, nothing he hadn’t thought for himself. It was about keeping the most of them alive. It was about staying in either world until he was sure he could get the gate closed again. Until he could be certain each realm was safe.
She didn’t speak for so long he began to miss it. He missed her questions, he missed her annoyance. He missed her voice. But he was being foolish, aching for a girl who didn’t have much time, one he should never have had the chance to be around in the first place. He cleared his throat, ran a hand over his breastbone. He couldn’t protect her for long.
They passed into a clearing, a field of flowering grass lying low against the ground.
Mackenzie still didn’t say a word. She stepped through the scraps of grass, their blades crushing beneath the soles of her black leather boots.
When she finally spoke, her words were soft, but pierced him no less. “There was a story I read to my brother once. When he was young.” She didn’t look up at him as she walked, but Hunter knew she felt his attention. “It was a fable,” she said. “The King’s Son and the Painted Lion.”
There was a flash of alarm at the words king and lion, but Mackenzie was calm, her tone even. She was merely telling him a story. “I’ve not heard it,” Hunter said.
Her eyes remained on the path before her. “This king had a dream,” she said. “A dream in which his son was killed by a lion. The idea of it terrified him so badly, the king built a special palace, far away from any danger of the beast.” Her gaze flicked up then, toward some imagined horizon, and the hint of a smile played at her lips. “He wanted to keep his son entertained though, so he painted the walls inside the palace with all the animals of the forest, including the image of a life-sized lion. One day, so upset with being caged and abandoned by his father, the king’s son looked upon the image of the lion and screamed. He detested the lion, blamed it for his imprisonment, and so he took to the thorn tree, meaning to tear free a branch and whip the false lion in his anger.” She breathed in the still air—like the idea that she’d not yet become winded was strange—and continued. “But the young prince pricked his finger, piercing the skin with a thorn from that planted tree inside the safety of his palace. The wound became infected, so that he died in only a matter of days.”
This was how fables worked. They were to make a point, no matter how sharply it stung.
“And the moral of the story?” Hunter replied, his chest tight.
“Is that we’d better bear our troubles bravely than try to escape them.”
He gave a short, mirthless laugh. “Am I the lion or the prince?”
She smiled, face still turned toward the ground. “You are the king.”
Chapter Sixteen
Hunter wasn’t afraid of the reapi
ng. He wasn’t afraid of the gateway, or the consequences, or losing Mackenzie. He was afraid of all those things. He would face his responsibility, because he had no other choice. But he could see no way out that didn’t call for the sacrifice of at least one aspect that mattered. And as far as he was concerned, one was too many.
“Hunter,” Mackenzie said, stopping to examine a an indigo vine that corded its way through several other plants, “if the gate was going to open anyway, then why did Azral and the guard attack you and rush through? Why not just wait?”
He stepped beside her, kneeling down to show her it was safe. The vine trembled, drawing back from his touch, and then raised its tendrils, feeling out, able to sense his energy. “I think,” Hunter answered, sliding a finger beneath the vine thing’s root, letting it crawl across his hand, “Azral has other plans.”
Mackenzie was so absorbed in this new creature’s display, she barely acknowledged the words. She rocked forward as if to stoop, and then hesitated. Hunter raised his palm to her, offering the creature up for inspection. Mackenzie’s hands tightened into her shirt. Hunter lifted a brow. “Facing our fears, are we?”
She huffed. But she didn’t touch it. Hunter smiled, returning the vine to its place on the ground, and Mackenzie said, “Are they all like that?” She raised her hands, gesturing toward the world around them, grasses and trees and flora-like things, each of them a distorted mirror of their kinsmen at home. “Everything? Magic?”
Hunter brushed the palm over his knee as he stood, a gesture from her world. Nothing here would leave soil or residue. There was no dirt, no rain. “The vine was from the undying lands. It has always been a living thing, but when it was brought over, the energy of this world altered it to this.” It would have more life than it ever had.
So many things in this realm were not real. So many things were props, reminders and constructions from their memories of home. From a time the older Iron Bound could barely recall.
“It’s not just humans,” she whispered. “You bring everything?”
He reached for her, touching her sleeve as he explained they would only move a portion of it—some small part of that whole so that both realms could live—and he heard the hiss. It echoed through the forest like a stone over water, skipping unpredictably from spot to spot to spot. His grip on her tensed, and both of them froze.
“What is it?” Mackenzie whispered.
He met her gaze for one heartbeat, and then pulled her to his chest. “Hounds.”
Arms wrapped tight around her, he lifted them both, darting through the air only paces above the ground. The blue-green limbs and iridescent leaves rushed past, motionless despite his speed. Mackenzie clung to him, pressing her face into his shirt to not see. Her weight was too much for him with the poison still lingering in his blood. She was human and this was not the human world. He would not outrun them with her, not the king’s best hounds. He could feel them gaining, their low, slithering forms scooting across the forest floor. Giant salamander-like bodies with sharpened claws, snakes merged with dogs in some ancient dragon form, too fast and too smooth and able to maneuver better than any other beast. And he couldn’t fly.
“Hunter, what’s wrong?”
Mackenzie’s words were cut by their speed, her cheek brushing the skin of his neck. He was holding her, she was wrapped in his arms, and he could do nothing but sacrifice her to the dogs. To Azral. To the king. He faltered, her back brushing the greensward, and he whispered into her ear, “I’m sorry.”
They crashed to the ground, Hunter taking the full force of the contact. Mackenzie gasped, clutching him tighter, and they rolled onto the soft blades of grass. His fingers slid across her back, finding her arm to pull her to her feet, and they were running, the hiss of the hounds echoing off the trees around them. Sssssskkk. Ssskk. Ssskk-kk-kk-kk.
It was too late. There was nowhere to hide.
Their feet landed in the ash fields that bordered the forest, a wasteland that could be mistaken for sand. “I’m sorry,” he said again.
Mackenzie’s fingers dug into his arm as she forced him to look at her. “What is happening? Hunter, what—”
The ssskk, ssskk, ssskk interrupted her, her dark eyes going wild. It was like a knife in the gut. “I can’t get away from them,” he said. “I can’t—”
A hound jumped at her, bursting through the ash at their feet. Its body was wide and flat, a slab of black amphibious skin. To Mackenzie, it would look leviathan, a horned snake with teeth and arms.
She screamed.
“Halt!” Hunter ordered, pulling her behind him and slamming the poison beast to the earth. Clouds of ash rose, covering its massive form with dust and sand. If it got past him, it would eat her alive. The ssskk, ssskk, ssskk echoed through the trees, so close behind them, and more beasts struck, their ecstasy in the hunt surpassing his command.
“Halt!” Hunter yelled again, taking a free hand beneath the neck of one beast to flip him back into the third. They were drooling, snarling, overcome. They’d found a human, a human in their realm.
The first in nearly three thousand years.
Mackenzie was in hysterics, all but crawling up his back. It only incited them further, their hooked jaws snapping and barking as they leapt at Hunter’s back. He twisted, repeating the demand and infusing it with power, but he’d not yet recovered from his wounds and their flight had drained him. One of the monsters shot past, thrusting hard from its tail to clear Hunter’s frame with incredible speed. He grabbed it midflight, yanking down and twisting the beast’s jaw. It landed on its back with a solid thump, letting loose an earsplitting yowl.
“Halt!” he repeated, his voice a roar. One of the hounds went to heel, a second whimpered, and a third slithered its tongue out with a hungry growl. There were too many of them. They were too eager. The first taste of blood was going to drive them beyond this frenzy.
The leanest of the beasts stared Hunter down, lingering just behind the others as it waited for a clear shot, a dangerous glint in its eye. It wanted the girl. Wanted her bad.
Hunter pointed a warning hand toward the beast, the metal of his medallion hot in his fist. They could see the spark of it between his fingers, they would know what metal could do to their blood. It was a reminder of his power. A reminder of his position. Three of the dogs let out high-pitched whines, but the last wasn’t backing down. Mackenzie’s chest heaved behind Hunter, terrified breaths her only sound. She knew not to run, didn’t she? She knew to stay there, behind the safety of his command.
“Heel.” Hunter’s voice was low, deadly. The offending beast flipped its head, baring teeth in a snarl. Hunter didn’t flinch, daring it to move with his glare.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Azral, standing before what was left of the guard at the edge of the grasslands. His lips were curved into a vindictive smile.
Chapter Seventeen
“I am bringing her to the king,” Hunter said as the guard made their way across the field of ash.
Azral smirked, his sharp gold eyes never leaving Hunter. “By all means. We wouldn’t want to spare the king the pleasure of this extermination.” He nearly purred the words. “It is a rarity indeed.” He ran a finger over his lip, the jagged bits of what remained of his raven claw on full display. “Carac, the girl.”
And then Carac slammed into Mackenzie as Hunter turned, every fiber in his being wanting to reach out, grab onto her as her feet were lifted from the ground. But he could not, even as she screamed, even as the dogs nipped at her heels.
He could not.
Azral gave a second command, and the rest of the guard took to the air, where they would no doubt parade their human prize into the palace walls, taunting and tormenting the entire way.
Hunter had time before they killed her. The king would make a show of it, festivities before the great reaping day.
He had to stop it. He didn’t know why, how this girl had become so important to him, but his chest felt as if it was being torn from w
ithin, the rest of him afire. He couldn’t stop seeing the way she’d looked at him, feeling the touch of her skin. The scent of her was still on his clothes. He turned to Azral, only the two of them and a pack of savage dogs remaining atop a field of ash. Hunter couldn’t fly. Azral was waiting for him.
“Go,” Hunter said. “I will be along.” He’d be dead if he showed the other man weakness, and they both knew it.
“Are you well, gatekeeper?”
Hunter let his chin drop a fraction of an inch, his voice even lower. “Are you questioning my order, kingsman?”
Azral’s lip quirked. “Very well. I shall inform the king of your arrival.”
Hunter waited only until Azral’s form was fading into the aether before he released a call to the sky. He had never voluntarily called on his father’s prize, but there was no way he could allow Mackenzie to be on her own for the amount of time it took him to walk.
Drawing all of his power, he stood tall, waiting for the beast to drop down upon him. He’d have only one chance to take her, a blink of an eye before she was gone. The virago liked to play games with the king’s men; she could just as easily roll him and move on as allow him the shot at seizing hold.
The virago was ancient, the mother of so many human legends. Her body had the lines of a horse, wings broad and strong, charcoal feathers streaked with black. Up close her magnificence was terrifying. Raven hair flew over her shoulders in a silken mane, hiding the slant of her ears. The sharp lines of her dark face held the only clue that a hint of humanity might remain behind her gloss-black eyes. And Hunter knew that beneath those full lips rested sharp teeth, had seen them stained with blood. The lean limbs ended in talons capable of severing a man’s head in one quick move.
The virago’s wing beat echoed far away, and the dogs began to tremble at Hunter’s feet. “Cease,” he told them, a release from command. They scrambled to escape, claws digging into ash and bodies falling over each other in their haste. Hunter watched the sky, waiting for the virago to swoop in, graze him with her talons, and give him that instant’s touch to catch a ride.
