Page 24

The first time I saw her, afraid but beautiful, fleeing down the moors road as I materialised atop Mort, cloaked in shadow.

The way she’d looked at me when I removed the helm.

The way her silver eyes turned smoky and dark when she was needy and aroused.

The easy affection she showed with casual touches, rolling to the tips of her toes to kiss me, her hands splayed across my chest.

I thought of the way she clung to me when she was breathless with panic, the trust I saw in her eyes, the way she reached for me for comfort and reassurance. It was an honour to be that for her, to be steady ground under her feet, to be the darkness shielding her from piercing, ruthless light.

“Have you got it yet?” Ender asked.

I reached across and shoved him, keeping my eyes closed, letting the memories wash over me, fill up all my hollow places until I could almost smell peaches and cream, and hear the soft, husky rumble of her laughter, and feel her eyes on me, stroking from my face down my body in the way she looked at me when she thought I wasn’t paying attention.

I didn’t know what the bond felt like, or how I’d know I’d found it, let alone how to follow it through Exile to my wife.

But I held tight to those memories until I felt the imprint of Cat sitting on Mort in front of me, nestled close to my body, her hand resting on my arm and her head tipped back against my chest.

And I got the sense, she could show Mort where to go—and show me how to find her.

“Now that’s more like it,” Ender said with approval when I picked up Mort’s reins and angled her where Cat guided me. In my fantasy she tipped her head back to gaze at me and feathered her lips over my jaw, the touch so soft and full of love that my heart clenched outside the illusion.

I felt Mort pick up the pace, trotting and then full-out sprinting, but I didn’t open my eyes, didn’t look away from Cat as she guided me across Exile.

The image of her grew so strong that I could count the individual eyelashes framing her silver eyes, the freckles scattered haphazardly across her nose.

“Ah,” Ender said, threatening the perfect image of Cat curled up against me. The only thing that could make this fantasy better was Miz and Tor riding on either side of me. Instead I had the irritated grey stallion and Ender, a man whose special talent was finding the edge of my temper.

“What do you mean ah?” I muttered, tightening my grip on Cat with my eyes closed. Magic shivered around me, like the air was full of it, and I wanted to open my eyes to see what the fuck Ender was doing but I resisted the urge. I couldn’t lose the fantasy now, when I finally had a way back to Cat.

“The good news is I know where the chasm is, and your death magic should make it possible for you to cross. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be possible.”

“That good news sounds a little shaky,” I remarked tightly. Should was not a word I wanted to hear right now, when my loves were realms away.

“You haven’t heard the bad news yet,” he drawled, and that was enough to make me open my eyes.

The chasm lay a hundred feet ahead of us, not a crack in the ground as I’d been picturing but a rip in the atmosphere like the veil was made of actual fabric and someone had taken a razor-sharp sword to it.

Part of it hung open, revealing darkness on the other side.

The sight of that black void was a welcome relief after days of white, blank nothingness. Or was it weeks?

That wasn’t Ender’s bad news. The thick mist that stretched between us and the chasm was.

It had grown hands, grown arms that reached out as if to deter us from getting closer.

I ducked flat to Mort’s back to avoid the grasping hand that blasted from the mist to my right, and she let out a sharp cry of alarm.

The illusion of Cat was thoroughly gone, but the chasm was here.

I refused to get so close only to fail now.

“How do we stop these things?” I demanded as Ender jerked his horse aside, narrowly avoiding a white, clawed hand.

“How the fuck am I supposed to know? I never got this close before. Duck!”

I did as he said, throwing myself aside.

My heart leapt into my throat when Mort reared with a screech, only the tension in my thighs and my grip on the reins keeping me on her back.

I began to slip, the terrifying way I hung to her back making my heart thunder, but then she dropped back to the ground and I encouraged her to run.

She didn’t argue, sensing the threats all around us as she sprinted towards the chasm. I’d never loved this horse more than this moment, with her running headfirst into danger when it mattered most.

“Faster!” Ender yelled, even surlier than normal. He was flat to his horse’s back, dark hair flying back from his face, and so much wrath darkened his expression that it unsettled even me for a moment.

I grabbed a fistful of death magic, relieved I could access it this close to the chasm, and wrapped Mort’s hooves in shadow so she could fly faster, darkness trailing behind us like it had that day we hunted Cat.

The day Tor called her our little bride.

The day I decided she was mine, for all eternity.

The chasm came closer, that dark slash within twenty feet.

“What happens when we go through?” I shouted to Ender.

“You,” he yelled back. “You go through. I can’t.”

“But—”

“No time to argue,” he snapped. “You ride into the darkness and follow your bond out the other side.”

I could do that. I knew if I concentrated enough, I’d feel Cat in my arms again, nestled against me atop Mort.

Sharp fingers raked through my hair and grabbed hold, wrenching on my head so suddenly that I pitched off Mort’s back with a cry.

“Get back up!” Ender roared before I’d even smacked into the fog-wreathed ground.

The impact rattled every one of my bones, the mist not cushioning my fall one bit. I groaned at the flash of pain and the sharp, misty hands that latched around my arm, my legs, my throat.

“For fuck’s sake,” Ender growled, closer, and then his hand was in front of me.

I latched onto it like a lifeline, and fought the sudden sea of hands ripping at my clothes, my hair, scratching my face and throat.

It took immense effort to jump off the ground.

Not even a stream of darkness pushed away Exile’s grip on me.

It had me now, and didn’t want to let me go.

But the void beckoned, promising relief and love and comfort once more.

“Thanks,” I grunted when I was on my feet, Mort letting out a berating cry as she ran back to me, the shadows trailing from her hooves obscuring the white, clawed hands.

The moment she was close enough, I threw myself up onto her back and grabbed the reins tight, pushing her faster and harder than before, until we were both panting.

The void came within ten feet, then five, then three.

“Death,” Ender shouted from behind me, further than I’d expected. I glanced over my shoulder and found him stationary on his horse, watching me. “You’re not the only one who’s gone missing.”

“Who?” I demanded.

But his gaze went to something beyond me, and I looked up in time to see the darkness rush over me and Mort.

In the void, I reached for the memory of Cat and my loves, and followed them like a beacon in the night. I couldn’t look back, even if guilt nagged at me. Even if Ender was once again alone in Exile.