Page 24

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A strangled shout rips through me. “Eamon! Eamonnn !”

I call out for him again, and again, each cry more strangled than the last as I barge and duck and push my way through the street.

But the shouts are useless.

Between the bangs of the drums, the thrums of strings, the songs flooding the air, the shouts and cries—my own pitiful voice is silenced.

My shoving is violent now. I smack and shoulder and barrel into everyone in my way.

I duck under arms and jump up to look over too-tall heads; but I am not near the edge, yet.

The sharp strike of an elbow hits my spine.

The force of the barging is enough to stagger me into the female in my path, and I grunt at the impact.

The female whirls around to glare at me.

Niamh.

She blinks, a twist to her mouth, the recognition starting to soften her glare. “Narcissa—”

“Not now!” I start and shove by her, my shoulder hitting hers, hard, and staggers her back. “ Eamonnn !”

Her hiss is fast swallowed by the sudden explosion of sparks in the dark.

I jerk back, my spine colliding with the snarl of another fae, but my gaze is fixed above, bursts of sparks alighting the dark skies.

It’s loud.

Deafening.

Even when I get to the edge of the parade, there is no way either Daxeel or Eamon will hear me over the crackling above.

The panic is clawing through me.

I smack the shoulder of the male ahead of me. His kind eyes turn on me, the joy of the festival a lazy grin on his mouth.

I flap my hand in his face. “Pull me!”

His brow knits for a beat, then I swear he shrugs before he’s snatched me by the wrist and yanked me into him.

“Lift me!” My hand is a frantic flurry aimed at the lane, at the direction I need to go. “There, there— ah !”

Hands on my waist, he’s hoisting me overheads.

I lean back.

My weight falls on the rising hands of the fae, grumbling and some pinching at my flesh in annoyance. But they have little choice, since there is sparse room to drop me down, so they must manoeuvre me over them.

It takes just a few heartbeats before I’m thrown, and I flip to land on the cobblestone. My bare feet smack down on the chalky ground, inaudible over the cracks splitting the air.

I swing for the edge of the lane.

Darkness yawns ahead of me.

I squeeze between the damp wall and the table, the blasts of the sparks alighting the skies in flickering moments that illuminate the lane.

Motionless against the wall, I squint at the darkness that flashes bright white, and I can make out the glare in the distance.

Eamon and Daxeel, planted in the middle of the lane, both looking upwards, I assume watching the sparks.

I call out for them, but it’s useless. The thunderous blasts are enough to shudder the buildings of Kithe and silence the songs of the parade.

My voice isn’t getting through that.

I push into step.

The soles of my feet are padding on the stone floor, quickening as my pace does—

Then the blast of bright blue sparks erupts above. The light washes over the lane… but just for the quickest of moments, then it’s gone, then returns, a flash, a blink, then gone…

It goes like that, a constant assault to my gaze.

But in those fleeting, fractured moments, I see them.

I see the litalves.

They keep to the shadows, shoulders pressed to the wall as they prowl up the lane, gazes hooked on the backs of Daxeel and Eamon.

My mind flutters with rushed thought, lingering on the idea of screaming at the top of my lungs as though the strangled sound will somehow break through the blasts of the sparks, and alert them both to the litalves advancing on them. The thought passes quicker than a heartbeat.

If Daxeel can’t hear me, if Eamon can’t hear me—then the litalves can’t, either.

Eamon drops his head; then there is the sudden red hue of a flame. He lights a valerian stalk, Daxeel watches the sparks.

And the litalves peel away from the wall—

My heart flings through my body and in a blink, I am fumbling for the strap around my thigh.

I have time enough to save only one, a heartbeat to act, and no voice to call out strong enough.

That heartbeat’s moment shudders into the slowest gods-damned moment to ever occur. Time on the summit whirled by me, it was panic and adrenaline and terror and urgency…

This, this is different.

I blink and time slows.

My body knows to act before my mind can order it to do so. They are separated now, body and soul.

It’s a strange thing, five silhouettes in a damp alley moving with such slowed determination.

Both Eamon and Daxeel sense the intrusion, smell the scents in the lane drawing closer, closer.

Eamon drops the rolled stalk and the ember flickers on the stone ground; he fumbles for his sleeve.

I watch him, moving as slowly as I do, as the litalves do, as Daxeel does as his hand reaches around to his waistband—and time is moving so, so slow that I can’t even hear the blasts above anymore, it is silent.

Their boots remain planted as their bodies start to twist around; both litalves stand with their backs to me, their own throwing knives firming in their grips; and me, alone, unnoticed, at the end of the alley, shrouded in the shadows of dark, my hand clasping around the hilt of a throwing knife I have strapped to my thigh.

I call out—but whose name I call is indecipherable. It is a strangled sound, perhaps a blend of Daxeel and Eamon, or perhaps a plea to the litalves who each raise their blades.

But like each time before, it does nothing.

Instinct charges through me.

The knife spindles through my fingers as I fall my weight back onto one leg and raise my arm, and arch it back—

I have only one.

But there are two threats.

I can only save one.

Without a beat of hesitation, I make a choice. I aim.

But then something takes over my mind, my muscles, like the hand of a god reaching into me, a puppet—and I pitch the knife at the other litalf.

It sinks into the spine of his neck, a perfect strike that has him crumbling, and I realise who I have chosen to save.

Instinct chose him.

Love chose the other.

The other…

His eyes flash—before a knife slams into his throat. He wobbles once before his legs give out under him, and his knees hit the ground with a sickening crunch.

The other stands as motionless as a stunned statue… just as I do… but his cousin bleeds out, choking on it, on the dewy and dirty ground of an alleyway.

Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.

My throat bobs.

Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.

The litalf turns on me, a wild flare in his eyes—and his mouth curls into a snarl. The litalf who threw a knife… into the neck of my beloved Eamon.

A flutter of lashes disturbs my suddenly watery view.

Bodies crumpled, one litalf… and him.

Eamon…

My Eamon.

My brother.

The scream that rips out of me is hollow.

It shudders urgency through the lane.

Daxeel lunges over the crumpled litalf for the one still standing and turned on me. He barrels into his back, hard, and they both are sent sprawling.

I turn my dazed gaze on Eamon.

There, on the dewy ground, on his back… he bleeds.

Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.

A hollow sound rips out of me.

That hand that reached into me, it slips away—and that cry splits the lane as I run for Eamon.

I crumple to the puddle-strewn cobblestone.

Thump, thump, thump, thump…

The horror slacks my face as I grab him and hoist him onto my lap. My mouth parts around words that don’t come, words that might explain that I chose him, not Daxeel, that I chose to save Eamon, but something switched in me, instinct, and it forced my hand.

But all I manage are moans, moans of distress, breaths that come out in hopeless whimpers, and I press my hand to the gush of hot blood.

I understand…

This is my sacrifice.

This is my punishment.

How dare I demand of Mother. How dare I demand she hear me. How dare I fail to deliver on the death of Daxeel, and how dare I offer her something I didn’t even want… my womb.

A wail folds me. I hold him tighter, fingernails cutting into his flesh, his body jutting with those harsh, choking breaths. And all I can do is wail.

I did this.

Eamon’s blood is on my hands…

He chokes on it.

In my arms, his body jerks against the loss of life, and his eyes are glazed up at me. His breaths are sharp and grated, they shudder his chest, yet gargle in his throat.

I hold him. I rock, back and forth, back and forth, my wail hitching into garbled, pitched words, murmurs, ‘ stay with me, stay with me, stay with me .’

Eamon’s answer is a whisper.

‘Kill him.’

I blink down at him.

Eamon frowns, his face ruined with trails of blood. His gaze flutters aside, silent, but wide.

‘Kill him…’

Eamon’s muscles tense in my arms. He recoils from the whisper—the whisper that shouldn’t… reach us, find us here… the one that should be silenced by slumber.

And Eamon hears it, too.

Darkness shudders at my side.

I throw a wild gaze at Daxeel as he lands on his knees beside me. Hands are reaching out for Eamon, honeyed and lovely and familiar—but I strike out at them, my face twisting with that eternal scream.

“ Get away from himmmm !”

Daxeel flinches back, his eyes flaring in the dark, blood slicking him head to toe.

‘ Kill …’

I flick my gaze to the knife protruding from Eamon’s throat… A knife that, if I pull out, will certainly leave a gaping hole and he will bleed out much, much quicker.

Not that he won’t bleed out if I leave it in.

Eamon is dying.

Eamon will die.

He hears Mother… because he is near her in soul.

My lashes flutter, wet, with the understanding.

Eamon’s frown is aimed up at me, but his eyes are dim now, less panicked…

He pleas.

He… pleas.

‘… him .’

My breath shudders in my throat.

Eamon blinks, a flutter of his lashes—

He urges me.

We agree.

And I act.

My hand snatches for the knife in his neck. I grip the hilt, fast, a moment too quick, and as I wrench it out of my beloved Eamon, I twist my wrist—and backstab it into another throat…

The throat of the male kneeling at my side… the throat of the male leaning over to touch Eamon’s wound, to find a solution that is impossible to find.

Because this is the solution.

Eamon’s life is saved—only if Daxeel’s is taken.