The Shattered Dark (10 page)

“Taltrayn.”
Jielan uses Kyol’s family name, not sounding surprised or concerned.

Kyol advances slowly now, moving away from the ladder in deliberate, measured steps.
“You’ll lose this fight,”
he says, stopping several paces away from Jielan.

Taber holds his position to Kyol’s left, waiting for his commander’s order. Kyol and
his swordsmen are the most disciplined soldiers in the Realm. They’re all duty and
sacrifice, and even though I can’t see Brayan’s face from my rooftop position, I’m
sure it’s as unreadable as the others’. He’ll accept whatever action Kyol takes, even
if it leads to his death.

But Kyol has never been one to needlessly sacrifice his men, not if there’s another
way to achieve his goal.

“Release him, Jielan,”
he orders.
“We don’t have to be on opposite sides of this war.”

Jielan lets out a sharp laugh.

“The daughter of Zarrak does not belong on the throne,”
he says.
“She and her fae should be banished from the Realm, but you’re supporting her. You’re
supporting her despite her refusal to turn…”

I don’t understand the last part. It’s something about a king or a Descendant, but
the conjugation doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t matter, though. It’s clear Jielan is
firmly against Lena and anyone who supports her.

“The high nobles choose who sits on the silver throne,”
Kyol says.
“Not you or I. Drop your sword.”

“Nobles can be bought and blackmailed. No, lord general.”
He makes the title sound like a slur.
“You’ve chosen your side. It’s the wrong one.”

The air erupts with a staccato of
shrrip, shrrip, shrrips
as three fissures flash into existence. The three other fae who were in the house
step out of the slashes of light.

I realize this is a trap at the same moment Kyol grates out,
“Taber!”

He doesn’t have to say more than that—it’s clear he’s ordering Taber to go for help—but
before the fae can open a fissure, Jielan says,
“Brayan dies if he leaves. So does the shadow-witch.”

The hair on the nape of my neck prickles. I start to turn, but a sword presses into
my back. It’s the fae wearing the black necklace.

I close my eyes in a silent grimace. It had to happen eventually. Aren argued against
allowing any former Court fae to remain in the palace, even if they swore fealty to
Lena, but Kyol vouched for them. He trained them and trusted them, and he said that
they would protect her with their lives. He was wrong.

The scabbard belted around my waist moves when the fae behind me confiscates my dagger.

“Down,”
he orders. Even if I couldn’t understand his language, his meaning would be clear.
I grip the part of the ladder that attaches to the roof, then start down before the
traitor decides to draw blood. My mind works furiously on the descent. The fae doesn’t
have his sword on me now—he can’t because he’s following me down—so I’m safe for a
very limited amount of time. We’re outnumbered, though, and I’m human and I’m unarmed.

I’m three rungs from the ground when I decide I have to act. I leap off and to the
left, landing on Jielan’s shoulder. He snarls as he swings his fist, not his sword
around, aiming for me. It’s a mistake. His blade is no longer against Brayan’s neck.
I let go of Jielan when Brayan grabs his wrist and flips the remnant over his shoulder.
Then, almost in synch, every other fae vanishes into fissures.

I back against the stack-house wall. The fae reappear an instant later, all in different
locations. With the shadows replacing the white light, I’m disoriented. I have no
idea who’s where, not until Kyol grabs my arm.

“That was foolish,” he grates out, pulling me alongside the building.

Alongside the building and directly toward a fae who’s standing ready with his sword.

“Straight ahead. Illusionist.”

No need to say more. Kyol lunges forward, sword slicing out in front of us. The attack
takes the remnant by surprise, but he’s still able to deflect Kyol’s swing. Touch
breaks a fae’s illusions, though, so Kyol can see him now, and in two efficient moves,
he kills the fae.

As soon as the soul-shadow rises into the air, I turn, searching for more remnants
who might be invisible. The only way to tell if Kyol and his swordsmen can’t see someone
is to watch where they look. If they don’t react when a remnant approaches, I assume
they’re hidden. I think there was only one illusionist here, though. Everyone’s fighting
somebody. Unfortunately, the remnants outnumber us, and one of them focuses on me.

Shit.

I don’t call out for help—I don’t want to distract the rebels. Instead, I turn and
run, sprinting around to the front of the stack house.

Its door is a few strides away. I pray it’s unlocked, reach out for it…

.…and hear a
whoosh
fly past my left ear. I throw myself to the right, hit the ground as something slams
into the stack house.

Heat explodes behind me. On hands and knees, I scramble away from the burning door,
look to the right for the remnant who must have thrown the fire. Taber is occupying
him.

I leap back to my feet and make a dash across the thirty-foot stretch of land between
the stack house and the building Jielan and his cohorts emerged from. The outside
walls have silver mixed in with the paint. The fae won’t be able to fissure inside.

Lights erupt around me as I run, but I ignore the fighting fae. As soon as I reach
the front door, I turn the knob, shoulder it open, then slam it shut behind me. Almost
instantly, I realize I’m not alone.

I
’VE ALREADY LOCKED
the door. My back is to the dimly lit room, but I hear the softest
tap, taptaptap, tap
behind me. In my rush to get inside, I didn’t even think about the possibility of
there being another fae in here. I draw in deep breaths, trying to calm my racing
heartbeat. I listen for movement—the pad of a footfall, the swish of clothing, or
creak of
jaedric
armor—but the only other sounds come from outside, and while I’m standing here trying
to decide what to do, they, too, fade away. It’s silent except for the rhythmic tapping.

I stare at the door handle. It’ll take a couple of seconds to unlock it. Some gut
instinct tells me not to try it, that it might trigger the person behind me. Slowly,
carefully, I turn.

In the center of a sparse living area, a tall, slender fae woman stands between two
backless couches. She’s ramrod straight except for her right arm, which is fully extended
so she can rest her hand on the hilt of her sword. Its blade is pointed straight down,
digging just a little into the surface of a low, wooden table. Aside from one index
finger drumming down on the pommel over and over again, she doesn’t move; she just
stares.

I stare back, not daring to breathe. Pale, wavering bolts of lightning fade in and
out on her face and hands. We’re in the
Realm. She shouldn’t have any chaos lusters here, but she’s not a normal fae. Even
if the lightning weren’t visible on her skin, I’d know she was
tor’um
. Something about her feels off.

Her inky black hair is pulled back into a high ponytail, and she’s wearing
jaedric
armor. The treated bark is dark, well oiled, and molded to the curves of her body.
Etched across her chest is an
abira
tree with thirteen branches, the symbol of Atroth’s Court. Does she fight for the
remnants? She’s standing there silent and unwavering, projecting the feeling that
she’s competent with her sword, but
tor’um
are so magically handicapped that they can’t fissure. That makes her odds of surviving
a fae swordfight not much better than a human’s.

“Your skin is bright.”

The bluntness of her statement makes me stare down at my arms. White lightning bolts
around my left wrist. Another one scurries up to my right elbow. Chaos lusters always
appear and disappear quickly, but I guess my skin could be considered bright. I just
don’t get why it’s important enough to say out loud, or why it seems to annoy her.

“I told him you wouldn’t turn it off.”

Turn my skin off? I frown at the lightning again, and that’s when I realize: she’s
speaking English. It’s a skill very few fae have. Usually, only those who work with
humans learn my language. Maybe she lived somewhere on Earth for a time? That’s what
the
tor’um
in Vancouver did before King Atroth attacked their homes.

I focus on her again, watch as she tilts her head to the side, wrinkles her nose,
then tilts her head back upright.

Understanding sweeps through me. Some fae are born unable to fissure. They’re magically
handicapped, but they’re sane. This fae isn’t. She lost her magic sometime during
her adulthood and, now, her mind is broken. Whether that makes her more or less dangerous,
I don’t know.

Without warning, she’s in front of me, grabbing my wrist. Her cold touch makes more
chaos lusters shoot down my arm. They pool beneath her hand, almost as if they’re
trying to keep my skin from turning to ice. I attempt to pull away, but she’s strong,
and her dull, dark eyes are locked on me.

“You’re not Paige.”

I go still. Her Fae accent is faint; I’m certain I heard her right. “You know Paige?
Where is she?”

“Why aren’t you Paige?” Her hand tightens to the point where it hurts. My back is
against the door. I can’t move away when she leans forward, her face coming within
inches of mine. Her eyes are narrowed, agitated. “You feel like Paige.”

“McKenzie?” Kyol’s voice from the other side of the door. He pounds on it, jiggles
the handle.

The
tor’um
hisses, then swings me around with so much momentum, my feet leave the floor. My
hip hits the table, sending a sharp lance of pain down my leg, and I slide off the
other side.

A dagger is on a couch cushion, not ten inches from my face. I grab it, spin toward
the fae, and slash at the air.

The
tor’um
isn’t near me. She’s standing above me with that same mix of anger and confusion
in her eyes. My gaze moves to the sword in her hand. Her knuckles go white then back
to normal as she tightens and loosens her grip. Then, all of a sudden, she looks 100
percent sane.

She whispers,
“Nalkin-shom.”

“Kyol!” I yell, scrambling away because I’m certain she’s going to kill me.

“McKenzie!” There’s a loud
bam
as Kyol rams into the door. I reach it and manage to get it unlocked before the
tor’um
leaps forward.

The door slams open and Kyol is there, putting himself between me and the fae. His
sword is raised to deflect her attack, but there’s no need to. She swings her blade
well short of us, then stands there, looking utterly perplexed. After glancing around
the room, she scowls at her feet.

“My fissure is broken,” she mutters.

Kyol’s muscles were already tense in preparation for her attack, but his stance changes.
He’s somehow stiffer now.

The
tor’um
stomps a foot on the ground as if that will make a fissure appear.

“Outside,” Kyol whispers in my ear. I don’t protest. I back through the doorway, keeping
my eyes on the
tor’um
until
Kyol gently shuts the door. He stares at it a few seconds before he turns to me, then
he takes a step back, looking for injuries I presume. That’s when I notice the wound
just above his right elbow. A remnant aimed perfectly, slicing at one of the few areas
not protected by
jaedric
. Kyol’s undershirt is dark with blood, but he doesn’t seem to be favoring the arm
any.

“She knows Paige,” I tell him. His gaze returns to my eyes. His mouth thins before
he nods once, then he motions Taber over. They speak quietly in Fae. I don’t catch
everything that’s said, but Taber’s eyebrows go up briefly, and he stares at the house.
They have to be talking about the
tor’um
. They know her, I’m sure of it.

A dozen of Kyol’s swordsmen are standing alert and ready in the space between the
tor’um
’s building and the stack house. They’re spread out in a honeycomb pattern. If a remnant
fissures into the clearing, he’ll be surrounded by no less than four of Kyol’s men.
I want to order them to break their pattern. We need someone watching the back door
so the
tor’um
can’t escape. She may already have.

“They’ll take care of the
tor’um
,” Kyol says.

I stop midnod. Fae have told me some form of that sentence often over the past ten
years. I assumed it meant that Kyol and the Court fae would fissure after and arrest
a fae, but that wasn’t always the case.

“They’ll fissure her to the palace,” he says, as if he can read my thoughts. He can’t;
he just knows me well enough to know how I think. “We need to leave before the remnants
return.”

This time, I finish my nod. I slip the dagger I found in the house into the scabbard
at my back. Fortunately, it fits, and less than two minutes after exiting the house,
we’re on our way, heading east. I’ve memorized a map of the Realm, so I’m fairly certain
we should reach the outskirts of a forest in an hour or two. After hiking through
it, the river curves its way to the north. A gate is on the western bank. It’s one
of the gates that was lost during the
Duin Bregga
, an ancient war that resulted in the loss of a good portion of fae history, and the
locations of an unknown numbers of gates. This gate isn’t labeled on any public maps,
but I don’t think fissuring
from there is going to be as safe as it used to be. It’s likely that at least one
of the remnants was high-ranked enough to know the locations of all the Missing Gates
Atroth knew about. I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to set up an ambush there.