Page 24

While many doubted the truth that a creature of love could have truly struck down the Grand Duke of Inavihs, this scholar can offer a firsthand report on the Lover’s skill with a blade. He is perhaps one of the finest I have ever seen.

Untitled Manuscript in Progress

by Guildmaster Klement

Aleksi’s world was on fire.

Pain was simple. Agony, facile. This was anything but. Gone was his faded, grayscale vision, and he almost missed it. Everything around him was awash in color, and every color had an accompanying sound that he did not understand.

Swords clashed in deep red. Green smelled like the flowers and trees that Inga grew in the depths of the Witchwood. Purple wine on his tongue.

The dull blue sensation of Naia’s hands wrapped right around his, her soft voice pleading. The darker sound of Einar’s quick, halting footfalls as he paced the room.

They were standing vigil, bless them. Did they mean to protect Aleksi from further attempts on his life? Or were they keeping up a deathwatch by his bed?

He did not know. But their mingled ocean song, the lilting one that tasted of sunlit shallows and the cold embrace of the deep, was muted now. Mournful.

Perhaps he did know, after all.

He longed to look at them, to fix their faces more firmly into his being so that he could carry the images with him into the unknown. But his body refused to cooperate. He managed to open his heavy lids only long enough to catch glimpses.

Naia’s hair, long and lustrous, the dark curls spread over the coverlet.

A soft frown marring her brow as she dozed fitfully.

Her head on Einar’s shoulder, her entire body heaving with silent sobs.

Einar’s slumped form, his forehead pressed to Aleksi’s hand.

His lips moving in silent prayer.

Everything hurt, and nothing did. Aleksi had tried so hard not to do this, not to break them. But he had wanted them both so fiercely, and his longing had made him careless.

No, worse than careless. Cruel, in a way, because now he was going to die. And he knew in all modesty that his death would devastate them. And what sort of person would weigh their own desires against that sort of pain, and still forge ahead?

Naia’s voice. “I think he’s waking up.”

But he wasn’t. He couldn’t , because he wasn’t asleep or unconscious. He was fading, and Dream help him, he did not know how to do this.

How to die.

He had failed in his mission. Ash and Sachi and Zanya had trusted him to win over Gwynira’s friendship and allegiance in their stead, and he had not been able to do it. His work would remain unfinished, and who knew what the consequences of that would be?

Worse, who knew how the rest of the High Court would react to Aleksi being murdered on arguably hostile foreign soil?

Elevia would be livid , but would ultimately make the pragmatic decision. Without proof that Gwynira had killed him, the Huntress would stay her hand. And Ulric would follow her lead, as he usually did.

Ash’s anger would be a living thing, as would Zanya’s, but both could be allayed. Sachi would see to that. She would mourn Aleksi to the very depths of her soul, but she would not let his death lead to more. She would comfort her lovers, soothe their pain, keep it from manifesting in the pure, destructive violence of fire and the Void.

Inga and Dianthe were different. Nothing could prevent them from avenging him. And neither would stop until everyone who might possibly have had a hand in his murder was utterly destroyed.

That fact alone might be enough to put the High Court at odds, to shatter it for the second time. Inga and Dianthe would go to war, and the others would either have to join them ... or break from them for good.

And, oh fuck , Anikke. The young queen fancied herself in love with him. Would her grief be enough to drive her to stand with Inga and Dianthe? Would she invade the island, even the rest of the Empire, bolstered by his followers’ rage and loss?

Would Naia and Einar join them?

No.

Aleksi could not let that happen. He had to stop it. Somehow.

Energy gathered like static in a storm. It was the same feeling he’d had before, as if his iron control had deserted him, leaving him at the mercies of instinct. Pure animal drive.

Naia’s voice again, alarmed this time. “Einar ...?”

And then the room wasn’t just on fire or awash in color. It was spinning, twisted by magic. Aleksi opened his eyes easily, fueled by desperation and determination and resolve .

The very fabric of reality tore, and a hole opened up in the space past the foot of his bed. Through it, Aleksi could see the Dream and Void, mingling and swirling until they were inextricable. Two halves of the same whole.

Naia screamed. In his peripheral vision, Aleksi saw her dive for the bed moments before Einar caught her, dragged her to the floor, and covered her body with his.

The rift exploded, and a naked woman fell out of it. Her hair flew wildly around her as she dropped from the swirling, blinding vortex and to the floor, out of sight.

She sprang to her feet a moment later, her face pale and her eyes wide with fear and confusion. Her eyes met Aleksi’s and, for what seemed an eternity, they simply stared at one another.

Then he laughed.

It was not the proper response, that much was certain, but he couldn’t help it. He was wounded to his soul, a god slowly greeting his own demise, and ... what? Strange women were falling out of nowhere next to his deathbed?

It was absurd. So he laughed .

The sound galvanized the woman. She snatched up Aleksi’s sword from where he’d left it near his dressing table, slid it free of its scabbard in one fluid, practiced motion, and jumped onto the bed. Naia and Einar tried to intervene, but she flung out a hand, and a wall of shadows blocked their approach. They tried to push through the churning darkness, only to be flung back and onto the floor.

Aleksi stared up at the woman, heedless of the blade kissing his throat. But his voice was strong. “No need for that, now.”

But the woman was unmoved. She glared at him with eyes the same steel-gray color as his blade, which was beginning to slice into flesh.

“Very well, love. You have the upper hand.” It did not matter what happened to him, not at this point. Only one thing did. “I ask that you not hurt them.”

His request seemed to confuse her. She frowned, opened her mouth—

The door crashed open. The woman sprang off the bed and into the far corner, brandishing Aleksi’s sword in front of her.

Arktikos rushed in, similarly armed, and stopped short at the scene before him—the naked woman, Aleksi’s bleeding throat, a sobbing Naia and frantic Einar being held at bay by a wall of shadows.

“The fuck ?” he growled.

Gwynira ran in, her untied dressing gown flying around her, ice already forming at her fingertips. “What in the frozen—?” Her words cut off abruptly as she caught sight of the woman in the corner.

A woman who spoke now for the first time. “Gwyn?”

“It cannot be.” Gwynira swayed and nearly sank to the floor. “ Isa? ”

The naked woman dropped Aleksi’s sword with a clatter and scrambled over the bed in her haste to get to Gwynira. Arktikos made an enraged, wordless sound of protest, but Gwynira ignored him and caught the woman in a wild embrace.

The wall of shadows dissipated, and Einar and Naia rushed to the bed.

“Aleksi!” Naia pressed the hem of her sleeve to his throat. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine.” Whether the words were true or not, he did not know. All he could see was the glow that enveloped Gwynira and Isa, and everything made sense now.

A lost love, returned. That was what Gwynira had needed from him all along.

“How beautiful is that?” he mumbled.

Then everything went black.