Page 39

“Keep behind me,” he murmured once he’d regained his composure.

He eyed the opening, trying to determine where the Low One was in the larger space beyond.

He could feel Him out there, the insidious cold that rolled off Him in waves.

Kael’s shadows pulled towards the dark god, aggressively fighting against his own attempts to force them back into submission.

After having had free rein to do as it pleased, his magic felt more uncontrollable than ever before.

He wanted—no, needed —to ask for Aisling’s help, but he hadn’t the right to ask anything more of her.

Aisling shook her head. “Look,” she said, and gestured to his hand.

Kael glanced down. The blackened veins that had been so prominent beneath his scars were fading slowly as his magic’s grip on him loosened.

“Your eyes, too—they’re clear now. He’ll notice.” She was studying his eyes intensely when he looked back up at her. It took him a moment to react when she reached out a hand and said, “Here.”

Kael bent down and Aisling reached behind his neck to raise the hood of his cloak.

He leaned into her touch automatically when her hand brushed against his ear, sending sparks of electricity down the back of his neck.

He was desperate to trap her hand there beneath his own, but instead straightened back up and pulled the hood lower over his brow. She nodded her approval.

“Better.”

It was strangely exhilarating to let her take charge of the situation for a moment.

It brought him back to Nocturne, when she was a pixie and he’d let her take the lead, take him down the back corridor, and take him into her arms. It occurred to him, just briefly, that it was only because she made him feel safe enough to do so.

The King of the Unseelie Court would not willingly relinquish control to anyone but his Red Woman.

A voice sounded from the adjacent space, quiet, half-muted by the wall of trees. Both Kael and Aisling stilled, straining to hear the newcomer’s exchange with the Low One.

Kael pressed the tips of his fingers into the small of Aisling’s back, urging her forward. “When I tell you to run, run,” he instructed. He hoped the intrusion would be distraction enough to give her time.

Aisling dug her heels in and threw a glare over her shoulder. “No,” she argued, “you don’t get to call the shots this time. I told you, I’m handling this. I’m getting you out of here. And if I have to use your full name to do it, I will.”

Her willful obstinance almost, almost brought a smirk to Kael’s lips. He’d missed that fire. He nodded and said, “As you wish.”

When they emerged from the alcove, the cathedral was lit by hundreds of candles. The entire space was washed with their golden glow, and in that flickering light the shadows of the trees and shrouded figures loomed large and menacing.

The Low One’s back was to them as He stood facing a barrel-chested centaur. In the creature’s hands, a large sack glimmered faintly.

“It has been some time since you’ve come with aneiydh, Fenian,” the god crooned to the centaur. “It is a true pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.”

Fenian dipped his head. “I had hoped to come sooner, but they’ve been scant. I wished to collect a number of them to deliver at once, rather than disturb your peace repeatedly.”

As the pair conversed quietly, Kael felt the temperature begin to lower around them.

The drop was subtle, barely noticeable at first. He might not have felt it at all if it weren’t for the raw, over-sensitive nerves exposed by his wounds.

Aisling’s fists were clenched at her sides and her shoulders were raised, tense.

A fine mist began to gather at the bases of the trees that formed the sylvan cathedral.

It rolled in slowly, silently, and soon it swirled around their feet.

Then, it began to thicken. And as it thickened, it rose.

“Your timing is impeccable, Fenian; we were just preparing to conduct a rather special rite. Our Shadowbound King is readying his beloved Red Woman as we speak.”

The fog was nearly chest high now, and creeping towards the Low One. From beneath his hood, Kael stared in awe at Aisling’s trembling form.

Fenian’s eyes flicked over the Low One’s shoulder. Kael thought he saw a hint of recognition there when they snagged on Aisling, but he turned his focus back to the dark deity so quickly it was impossible to say for sure.

“It would be an honor to bear witness,” the centaur bowed at the waist, where male became equine. Through the coalescing fog, Kael caught the beast subtly readjusting his grip on the sack.

The next moments seemed at once both eternal and fleeting.

As the Low One began to turn, He noticed the fog that had swallowed the hem of his robe.

It deepened rapidly, condensing as it moved, and had reached the god’s waist before He was even fully aware of what was unfolding before Him.

Aisling stood rigid with concentration as she drew in the billowing fog.

Kael had once likened her to a force of nature; here, she truly was one.

Then the deity noticed Kael, his clear eyes and the absence of shadows pouring from his fingertips.

He roared in fury, and the sound was so great and terrible it might have shaken all of Elowas.

A third hand emerged from within His robes, beckoning.

Searing pain ripped through Kael’s gut, forcing him to double over as the Low One called to his shadows.

One long, angry tendril shot out before he could stop it, reaching and reaching for that third hand.

Just as the two nearly connected, Fenian loosed the neck of the sack he held and tore it open.

Scores of tiny, glowing orbs spilled from it, launching themselves at the Low One.

Blindly, He swatted at them as they dipped and danced just out of reach.

The connection between Kael’s magic and the deity snapped, and Kael dropped to his knees with the effort it took to rein in that ribbon of shadow.

And then all four of them were consumed by Aisling’s fog.

The impenetrable cloud of white was cool; its dampness was oddly soothing as it caressed Kael’s ruined skin.

But it stifled all sound, too. When he called Aisling’s name he could only hear his own muted voice, and again when he cried out in pain as he lurched to his feet.

She hadn’t been that far ahead of him, hadn’t been so out of reach as she seemed now.

Kael swept his hands frantically through the haze, pushing it aside.

He had to find her before the Low One could.

Aisling’s fog grew heavier and heavier, blanketing them in a gray so total that Kael could no longer tell if his feet touched ground or if he was floating, untethered once again.

He might have drifted away with the mist had her fingers not interlaced with his in a firm, assured grip.

It grounded him; a wordless command to keep moving. To fight with her. To fight for her.

Then, a loud voice in his ear: “I’ve come on behalf of your friends; I can lead you out.” Fenian’s shape emerged from the haze, a broad silhouette with features dulled by the mist. Aisling’s hand tugged at Kael’s sharply, urging him onward, pulling and pulling until—

Her hand was gone, her fingers no longer curled around his own. It wasn’t sudden, but subtle: a loosened grip, a faltering step. He tightened his hand instinctively but found only cool air.

“Aisling?” He wheeled around blindly. “Aisling!”

His cries were swallowed by the billowing gray, and almost as though his anguish were fuel, the fog began to change.

It shifted, swirling and thickening until the weight of it forced him to his knees.

Laced through that choking vapor was a stench all too familiar to Kael: blood, rot, death.

Home. The smell of a ruined battlefield, of the Cut after a ritual.

Shadows danced on the edges of his vision—too fast to catch, too near to ignore.

They grew darker, crept closer. Took on sharper forms, strange versions of figures he recognized: fallen Unseelie Warriors, dripping black from devastating wounds.

Laure, laughing at him with her throat slit open.

Aisling, eyes white and runes seared onto every inch of her bare, beautiful skin.

His own voice echoed in the fog: coward. Traitor. Weak.

The fog was a living, breathing thing now as the Low One’s rage turned it poisonous and violent. Pressure in Kael’s head built until he thought his skull might crack when from somewhere behind his eyes, his god hissed, You are mine.

A new shape materialized before him, mist and shadow coalescing into a demented figure: hulking, silent, with eyes that burned like twin embers.

It slunk towards him, one clawed hand dragging through the fog like it could carve the air itself.

It wore black armor and its gaunt, grinning face was framed by bone-white hair.

Kael was frozen as he stared up at himself.

The creature was a monstrous version of what he might have become, a manifestation of the unbridled power he’d spent his life chasing after.

Cloaked in shadow, tendrils curled from its hands to wreathe its form in dark currents.

When their eyes met, Kael could have sworn he felt his own lips twist into a similarly cruel smile.

It lunged, and Kael barely rolled out of the way in time to avoid its knifelike talons slicing down. The creature struck the ground where Kael had knelt and the earth split open in a jagged wound. More shadows rose from the depths, followed by voices. Dozens. Hundreds. All of them calling his name.

“Aisling!” Kael scrambled to his feet, his breathing fast and ragged as he resumed his search through the mist.

A flicker of warmth touched something in his chest. Her affinity, calling to him. She hadn’t left him there. He turned towards it and ran. The creature that wore his face stalked behind him, still grinning, relentless in its pursuit.

But Aisling was searching for him, too. She found him before he even registered her form in the fog, seizing him as he nearly passed her by. He gasped out loud when her grip closed over his raw scars.

“This isn’t me,” she insisted, looking anxiously at the solid walls of gray closing in. “I’m not doing this!”

An insidious chuckle tumbled from the creature’s mouth when it saw the pair of them clinging to each other, the sound like scraping stones and splintering wood.

Aisling’s face became a mask of horror as she realized what the Low One had conjured.

Kael didn’t hesitate; he stepped in front of her and summoned what little control he still possessed to call on his magic.

Shadow met shadow, and the creature recoiled. Kael was hardly a match for it, but that he would even attempt to fight back against his beloved god seemed to strike enough fear into the abomination that it fell back to leer at them from a distance.

Fenian reappeared from the fog and grabbed Kael’s arm. “Run!”

He did so gracelessly. The movement, the press of the corrupted mist, and the Low One’s radiating fury all brought such agony that to do anything else seemed a monumental task.

He needed to rest, to breathe, to clear his head enough to restore his glamour and calm his magic.

The weight of everything he’d faced, everything he felt, was overwhelming.

Do not forsake your god, the Low One whispered in his mind. His tone was vicious. Venomous. He’d never spoken to Kael this way before. I chose you, raised you. You will not abandon me.

For a moment—just one brief, infinitesimal second—Kael nearly listened. He nearly stopped, nearly turned back. But to do that, he would have had to let go of Aisling’s hand. And that was something that no god, no force, no single thing in any realm could have made him do again.