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The words shake from the marrow of my bones, joining Puck’s gruff voice and Cerulean’s whisper. We speak separately and together.

“For the eternal wild.”

As the humans reach the border, their collective shout finally hits the sky. And we charge to meet it.

28

The ground shudders under the weight of a thousand pairs of feet. A tumult whips through my hair. My limbs burn as they pump toward the clamor.

The atmosphere whirls, too many scents clashing—smoking iron, pouring sweat, ripe florals, and sharp brine.

One natural world against another. And somewhere between the two, a medium exists. It is the pause between one breath and another, between an exhalation and an inhalation. It’s a sliver, a small chamber of space where their realm and ours converge—neither one, nor the other.

It is humanity and Faerie. Here, every sound, scent, texture, and taste merge.

Few recognize it. But I do.

We race toward that spot. The earth’s quaking intensifies as we expunge the distance between us, a great percussion throbbing under my soles. The tangible beat of hooves and limbs. High grass oscillating like a tide.

I charge ahead while tearing off my robe, crossing my arms, and ripping the forked daggers from my baldric.

A wall of bodies spread on either side of me. Another wall of black expands ahead.

One second before it happens, sound floods my ears like a wave smashing into breakers. It’s the sound of Cove when she first blocked my daggers with her spear. It’s the jagged bedrock of The Deep before a flood tore through its foundation and sucked us into its depth. The convulsion of noise swallows me whole.

Howls slash the air. Whinnies slice through the quagmire. Steel rings, and arrows whiz.

And we collide.

At the rim between Faerie and the mortal world, bodies hurl themselves at one another. My canines grate together. A shift of wind pushes my way, coming from the right.

I duck as a mace spiked in iron swings overhead. I swerve and lurch upright while thrusting one dagger into a mortal’s stomach. Fluid spritzes my jaw, and I imagine crimson spraying my skin like ink. With a thud, my kill hits the ground.

Puck’s heavy panting blusters beside me. The crunch of bone signals he’s just rammed his fist into someone’s skull. After that, his longbow quivers, nocked and firing what sounds like a pair of arrows.

The projectiles dissect the air. Two more bodies go down.

Once, gratification and validation had consumed my waking hours as I contributed to human suffering. Now the divide claws through me. My fists and capped fingernails prickle with the urge to strike out and strike down. Yet my chest tightens with each fallen figure.

These are Cove’s people. She came from them, as I came from my kin.

We were supposed to find a second way. I’d been expected to see what others cannot. This wasn’t meant to happen.

It’s them or us. It’s them or my family. It’s them or Cove.

It’s fight now or die soon.

The stench of iron fire pulls on my joints, festering them like an infection, urging my reflexes to lag. The reek of it singes my throat with a single whiff.

A weight sprints in my brother’s direction while he’s driving an arrow into another figure’s heart. Approaching flames emit the stench of more iron. The blaze will seize Puck like a match to oil.

The former half of me resurrects with a vengeance. I snatch Puck’s attacker by the scruff before the man can turn my brother into a bonfire. The pockets behind my retinas burn, and heat pours from my pupils. I envision gold skewering the male’s eyes, roasting the light from them.

The man screeches. His footfalls stagger in desperate confusion as I release him.

I don’t bother finishing off the human. He won’t last.

All the while, my eyes swerve. I hunt through the black abyss, ice-cold fear splashing through my gut until an oval of teal glows before me.