The Shattered Dark (3 page)

My aim is perfect, and Trev is good enough with a sword to take advantage of the distraction,
finding the weak area on the side of the remnant’s cuirass and plunging his blade
between his enemy’s ribs. The remnant cries out, then disappears into a fissure. Whether
he survives that injury or not, I don’t know.

“You’re copping an attitude?” The manager grabs my arm. “I’ve already let you slide
three times this year.”

“Sorry,” I say, watching the fae behind him. When it’s clear she’s moving toward us,
I use the manager’s grip on my arm to try to pull him away. “We need to go.”

“You need to pay your rent.”

The fae lifts her sword.

“Move!” I yell, this time throwing my shoulder into him in an attempt to shove him
out of the way.

“I’m calling the cops—”

The fae slams the hilt of her sword into the side of his head. He drops, pulling me
down with him. His hand goes limp when he lands, though. I’m off-balance, but I’m
free.

I scramble back as the fae approaches. A quick glance over my shoulder shows that
Trev is still occupied with the taller remnant. I’m unarmed. If they wanted me dead,
I’d be thoroughly screwed. The fact that I’m still alive means I might have a chance—and
I think I might be able to buy some time. She knocked out the manager—I
hate
that he was caught up in this—so there’s a good possibility she doesn’t want to draw
the attention of normal humans.

Before she reaches me, I slam my heel into the nearest car. Its alarm blares a second
later. It’s loud—loud enough to startle me even though I’m expecting it—and it stops
the fae in her tracks. She shuffles back, staring at the car as if it’s about to attack.

I throw myself over the hood, scramble off the other side, then sprint deeper into
the parking lot before she realizes the alarm isn’t a huge amount of tech—it’s not
going to screw with her magic. I’m near the apartment building on the opposite side
of the lot when my skin tingles.

A fissure opens to my left. Trev. He steps to my side just as two more bright slashes
of light rip through the atmosphere, one in front of us, one behind. The remaining
male remnant stalks forward, bloody sword raised. I glance behind us and see the woman,
who’s trying to gauge if she can get to me without Trev interfering.

I look at Trev, see blood gushing from the gap between the lower part of his cuirass
and the
jaedric
armor protecting his right thigh. Shit.

“Get out of here,” I tell him. He’ll bleed to death if he doesn’t get the help of
a fae healer soon.

He shakes his head and takes an unsteady step forward, putting himself between me
and the approaching remnant. For one brief moment, I consider letting them take me.
Trev could fissure out, and it would be the quickest and easiest way to get to Paige.
But then, I have no way of knowing if she’s alive.

My throat tightens, but I force my worry for my friend down as I face the woman. When
she raises her sword, I say, “There’s tech trained on this parking lot. It’s recording
everything. Drag me out of here, and the whole world will
see.” My words might be true. I’m sure a few security cameras are trained on the parking
lot, but I have no clue where they are or how many.

“They’ll see only you,” she says.

Yeah, me being hauled across the parking lot kicking and screaming. People would most
likely write me off as crazy rather then guess that fae exist, but she doesn’t need
to know that, so I start to point out how suspicious that would look when half a dozen
fissures erupt around us.

Rebels. Nalst has fissured back with more fae wearing shoddy
jaedric
armor. The woman recognizes whose side they’re on the same instant I do. She opens
her own fissure and disappears before Nalst, the nearest rebel, can attack. The remnant
fighting Trev isn’t as lucky. He opens a fissure, but isn’t able to leap through it
before Trev kills him.

“The shadows,” Trev says, his voice strained. “Read them.”

Since the dead fae disappeared into the ether—into the fae afterlife—and not into
a fissure, those misty white soul-shadows tell me nothing, but the shadows from the
woman’s fissure are weaving themselves into a pattern. I focus on them, my fingers
itching to draw a row of…houses? Storefronts? Without actually sketching the shadows,
I can’t be sure what they are or where she went. They don’t really become concrete
unless I draw them out. All I know is she’s gone to the Realm. Possibly someplace
in the north.

“I need a…” My sketchbook. It’s in the suitcase left behind in my living room, but
even if it was safe to go back for it, the shadows wouldn’t remain in my memory long
enough to map them.

“There’s no time,” Nalst says, stepping to my side. “The remnants will return with
reinforcements.” To Trev, he says in Fae,
“Go.”

Trev nods, then fissures out as the rebels Nalst brought with him take up positions
around me. I don’t recognize anyone else, but that’s not surprising. A month ago,
I was the rebels’ prisoner. They didn’t exactly make a lot of introductions.

“The nearest gate’s ten minutes from here,” I tell Nalst. A gate is the only way I
can enter a fissure with a fae and survive. They’re places in the atmosphere, always
over water,
where fae can enter the In-Between while escorting a human, or anything else they
can’t wear or hold themselves. The magic of how to make more is lost, so we’ve always
had to work with the ones that already exist.

It would take me twenty minutes to get there if I walked, but I head to the north
side of my apartment complex at a run. If a fae doesn’t have an anchor-stone imprinted
with a location, or if they haven’t been to a place before, they can only fissure
within their line of sight. My apartment is still within view. I need to get the hell
out of this parking lot before a new wave of remnants arrives.

I’m just a few strides away from the walkway between the buildings when I sense the
fissures. A second later, just as I’m darting into the narrow space, I hear them opening.
I have no clue if they’ve seen me, but I’m certain they’ve seen the rebels, so I force
my legs to move faster, stretch farther.

I reach the back of the building, sharp
shrrips
and flashes of light erupting behind me.

“Get to the gate!” Nalst orders. A tall, thick hedge lines the back of the property,
so I have to cut to the right. The hedge is to my left as I run. The rebels hold their
position at the junction of the back alley and the gap between the buildings—that’s
where the remnants have to be to get a glimpse of me. If they make it there, they’ll
be able to reappear at my side.

I’m at a full sprint, passing another gap between buildings, when a strip of white
light splits the atmosphere directly in front of me. Not only does it cut off my escape
route, it’s so close, I nearly run into it. I lose my balance evading it, but I’m
not able to avoid the fae stepping into this world.

My fist rises instinctively, aiming for the fae’s face, until I recognize Aren. Even
though my heart thuds at the sight of his silver eyes and wild, disheveled hair, I’m
tempted to keep swinging. His fissure could have killed me.

He grabs my fist in the air, then uses his body to maneuver me out of the back alley
and into the narrow space between the buildings.

“You’re missing something,
nalkin-shom
,” he says before I can yell at him for opening his fissure so close to me.

Missing something? “My suitcase? That’s hardly import—”

He ushers me farther down the walkway. “I gave you a weapon.”

I scowl at him over my shoulder. The sun is directly overhead, so even though we’re
hiding between two tall apartment buildings, his light brown hair is streaked with
gold. It doesn’t quite touch his shoulders, which are protected by
jaedric
armor, but it’s long enough that, if we had more time, I wouldn’t be able to stop
myself from touching the slightly curled ends.

“You gave me a sword, Aren. Where am I supposed to hide that?” He can run around this
world all he wants with his sword waving about, but I can’t. Not even the strongest
fae illusionist can make a human invisible.

“Then you should have asked for a dagger,” he says, coming to a stop just before we
reach the front edge of the apartment building.

“My apartment was supposed to be safe.”

“Shh.” He puts a finger to my lips as he presses me against the side of the brick
building and, of course, that’s when the
edarratae
, the chaos lusters, decide to react. The blue lightning leaps from his fingertip
to my lips. I suck in a breath. It’s an involuntary reaction to the hot, addictive
sensation traveling down my neck. It sinks into my core, making my stomach tighten,
and even though I try to hide how much the sensation affects me, Aren sees it.

The tiniest smile pulls at one side of his mouth. A month ago, that smile would have
infuriated me. Now? Now, I recognize the spark in his silver eyes. He doesn’t just
want me because I’m an asset that can help the rebels keep the Silver Palace; he wants
me because he’s fallen in love with me.

He’s fallen in love with me in less than two months. It’s insane considering we were
enemies for the majority of that time.

He takes hold of my hand, keeping me in place while he cautiously peers around the
edge of the building.

“The closest gate is back in the other direction,” I whisper.

“The remnants know that, too,” he says. Then, he loops
his arm around my waist and inches me forward. “See anything?”

Only a human with the Sight can see fae who are hidden by illusion, so I scan the
parking lot, searching for anyone Aren can’t see. A car is slowly driving around,
probably looking for a specific apartment—the numbers on the sides of the buildings
are tiny—but that’s to our advantage since the remnants apparently don’t want to cause
a scene. As long as Aren remains invisible to normal humans, the driver shouldn’t
take notice of anything unusual.

“It’s clear,” I say. I check over my shoulder to make sure no remnants are in sight.
I can hear them fighting somewhere in the back alley, but the rebels must be doing
their job, keeping the former king’s fae engaged long enough for me to escape.

Aren unhooks a sheathed dagger from his belt. Then, meeting my gaze, he hands it to
me and says, “Don’t go anywhere unarmed again.”

No one should be allowed to have eyes like his. You can get lost in them. The silver-gray
irises are flecked with light, and they’re darker on the outer edges. A fae’s eyes
darken and lighten with emotion, and right now, Aren’s are as determined as steel.
He expects me to use the dagger if I’m threatened.

I wrap my hand around the weapon’s hilt. I’ve killed before. It wasn’t deliberate—I
wanted to ward off the fae attacking me, not slash open his stomach—and I hope I never
have to again.

Aren draws his sword, then we step off the narrow walkway. The car cruising the parking
lot circles around again. We walk past one row of parked vehicles and are almost to
the next when my skin tingles. Fissures, four of them, cut through the air to our
left. Aren curses and disappears into his own slash of light just as an arrow whistles
through the air. It vanishes when it hits his fissure, and before I have time to duck
or run or come up with another plan, Aren reappears on my other side.

He lunges behind me. The sound of swords clashing rings in my ears. A cry tells me
Aren’s killed or injured a remnant,
but I remain facing the pair in front of me. They press forward.

I draw my dagger out of its sheath. It looks tiny compared to the fae’s swords, but
it’s all I have.

The fae on the left disappears. I spin around, knowing he’ll reappear behind me, and
slash out with my dagger. The remnant is just far enough away to avoid my attack.
He grabs my arm before I can bring my weapon around for a second swing.

I gasp when he digs his fingers in between the tendons on my wrist, trying to force
me to drop the dagger. I hold on to it, try to pivot its point toward him, but he’s
ten times stronger than I am, and his grip
hurts
.

He brings his sword up, issues a threat in Fae.

In my peripheral vision, I see Aren charge forward. The remnant notices him, too,
but not soon enough. Aren rams into us, sending both me and the remnant stumbling
across the parking lot.

Across the parking lot and into the path of the approaching car.

I swear to God the driver speeds up. It hits hard, sending me and the fae onto the
hood. Pain shoots through my thigh, then through my ribs and right arm, as the sky
spins.

It’s still spinning when the driver slams on the brakes. I’m suddenly sprawled on
the asphalt in front of the car. I try to push myself up to my hands and knees, but
before I reach my feet, Aren’s there, yanking me up. He jerks open the vehicle’s door
and shoves me into the passenger seat. I tumble awkwardly inside, look up in time
to see a remnant fissure in behind Aren just after he slams my door shut.

“Watch out!” I shout, but the remnant’s sword is already swinging.