Page 40

A s they ran, the forest began to fade back into view.

Just shapes at first, solid outlines of those trees closest to them.

Then, colors. Fenian still led, his long strides slowing slightly as they put more and more distance between themselves and the sylvan cathedral.

Aisling’s other hand was wrapped in his tail, fist clenched around the strands of coarse hair.

“Just a little further,” she begged when Kael stumbled over an exposed root. His feet were leaden and so, so difficult to lift. It didn’t matter; he would have done anything she asked of him. So he kept moving.

Two figures were waiting on the trail just ahead.

Kael squinted to make out their faces through his doubled vision.

Raif, his expression grim and drawn, and another faerie with tall, twitching ears and a worn leather jacket.

By the way his worried expression melted into sheer relief at the sight of Aisling being towed behind the centaur, Kael knew it was Rodney.

They approached quickly as Fenian shook his tail loose from Aisling’s grasp. Raif sheathed his sword and ducked down, coming up beneath Kael’s arm and shouldering more than half his weight. Rodney—or whatever he was meant to be called in this form—ignored him entirely.

“Jesus, Ash,” he breathed. Wide-eyed, he scanned her torn sweater, the runes inked on her bare stomach.

The rest of her, too: she looked disheveled.

Exhausted. Haunted. Kael hadn’t noticed before the way her fingertips were stained crimson.

Rodney shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over Aisling’s shoulders.

When she tugged it around herself gratefully, Kael ground his teeth.

He should have thought to give her his cloak; it would have seemed an empty, jealous gesture for him to do so now.

“We need to go,” Fenian said, unmoved by the group’s reunion.

Raif looked pointedly at Rodney, who nodded and beckoned to them.

“Get in closer. I don’t know if this is going to work, but—”

“Just do it, Weaver,” Raif growled. Kael sucked in a sharp breath as his friend shifted him closer to the others.

Weaver. The púca was a Weaver. Kael had to bite back a surprised laugh. It would only stand to reason that the most unassuming member of their group would turn out to possess the most powerful magic—behind Kael’s own, of course. He wondered what else had been uncovered since he’d been gone.

Rodney moved to the center of the group and lifted his hands, palms up.

What little sound there was in the forest hushed when he closed his eyes, heavy brow furrowing in concentration.

Against his sensitive skin, Kael felt the magic shift.

It was thick here, almost solid once it started to move.

There was an edge of resistance that Kael could sense in the vibrations, and he could see the challenge of it written plainly on Rodney’s face.

It was as though the magic was keen to show off just how savage and untamed it had become here in Elowas: like a wild mare, bucking before it was broken.

I will find you, King, the Low One hissed.

You are mine; your shadows belong to me.

Kael squeezed his eyes shut, pushing back against that voice in a way he never had before.

He used his anger, his pain. Thoughts of Aisling: memories of her smile, of the warm waves of calm she washed over him.

It quieted those cruel whispers, and the god’s words were dampened further as Rodney finally let a heavy blanket of magic settle over them.

“Holy shit,” Rodney murmured. He reached out one hand, letting long fingers play against the mantle he’d Created. “I can’t believe that worked.”

“A glamour?” Aisling guessed. She looked around like she hoped to catch a glimpse of the magic that lay over them. But it was almost seamless; if Kael hadn’t felt it fall into place, he might not have known it was there, either.

“Celebrate your success later, púca. This illusion might protect us from the god’s Sight for a time, but it won’t hide us for long. He’ll feel its frayed edges,” Fenian said gruffly.

The group moved slowly, steadily, staying close together beneath Rodney’s glamour. Despite Raif half-carrying Kael, the effort was immense. Not one of them spoke besides the occasional direction from Fenian or Raif. Both seemed to have a destination in mind, though neither acknowledged as much.

Their path ended at a great chambered cairn, encircled by a perimeter of young rowan trees.

A towering, blackened oak grew from its center.

And guarding the space, poised with a small blade and a fierce expression, a winged alseid awaited their party’s arrival.

All five of them sucked in a deep breath of fresh air once Rodney let the glamour dissipate.

Kael winced when the threads chafed against his raw skin as they withdrew.

“I see you’ve found your king,” the alseid acknowledged, eyeing Kael warily.

“You would still grant us sanctuary, Sudryl?” Raif asked as though he knew the tiny faerie. He’d been here already, Kael guessed, to secure safe haven before moving into battle. A true soldier.

“This is not right.” Her appraising glare remained on Kael even as she lowered her blade slightly. She looked then to the forest behind them and the furrow between her brows deepened. “He is not right. Where did you find him?”

“It hardly matters where.”

“It matters.” The small faerie’s tone was harsh. Kael considered what he might do should she refuse them. She’d take in Aisling—he’d make her take in Aisling, even if she were the only one.

“We took him from the sylvan cathedral.” Sudryl’s verdant skin paled at Fenian’s declaration.

“You’ve stolen something from the dark god,” she warned. “He will not part with his possession so easily.”

Kael stiffened, but he hadn’t the energy to argue. She was likely right.

Raif stepped forward. “We had a bargain. I told you why we came here.”

“I did not think you would be successful.” Sudryl shifted, her gaze beginning to flit nervously between the darkening woods and the perimeter that stood between them. Kael could still feel the Low One hiding in that darkness, watching. Waiting.

“Please,” Raif insisted.

“You recall your promise?” she demanded.

“Vividly. Orist will be healed yet.” The soldier released his hold on Kael’s wrist to move his hand to his heart, a solemn vow.

Sudryl nodded finally and stepped aside for them to cross into the circle of rowan trees. “Do not disturb the trees, and do not topple the stones. You must leave the Enclave exactly as you found it.”

“What is this place?” Aisling looked hesitantly at the darkened entrance to the stone structure.

“Antiata,” Fenian supplied. “The sole place in the realm safe from the god’s Sight. He will not find you here.”

“Us,” Raif insisted. He shifted under Kael’s weight to look up at the centaur. “He knows that you are involved now, my friend. You must remain here with us.”

Fenian smirked. “I have my own methods of staying out of his reach. I will not be far, and I will likely return, but as I told you once before: I will not hide.”

“See to it that you do return. As I told you : you have a place in our party if you desire it.” Raif held out a hand and Fenian gripped his forearm firmly.

Raif did the same, both dipping their heads in respect.

The centaur nodded to each of them, then galloped back in the direction from which they’d come.

“I need my sweatshirt,” Aisling murmured, more to herself than anyone else in the group. She was shivering, her teeth chattering loudly, cold even beneath Rodney’s jacket. A sliver of her marked stomach showed as she wrapped her arms more tightly around herself.

“What is all that?” Rodney asked. He reached out to pull back the edge of the coat but she swatted his hand away before he could expose her further. Aisling looked down, then over her shoulder. Her movements became more frantic.

“My bag—I left my fucking bag.” Still speaking to herself, she wheeled around to scan the ground outside the ring of trees.

“It’s okay. Look, I have a spare. See?” Rodney dug in his pack and withdrew a wadded-up sweater. He held it out, voice low as he tried to placate her. Kael’s jaw tightened.

“It’s not okay!” she shouted at him, at all of them. She sounded breathless now. “I packed…I packed everything in there, everything I thought we’d need. Food, extra clothes, my water bottle—I packed everything I needed.”

“I know you did, but we all brought extras too,” Rodney insisted, still holding the sweater out for Aisling. Even from a distance of several paces away, Kael could feel the rising panic radiating from her.

“You hardly brought anything!”

The alseid hushed the group sharply. Kael glanced to where she stood, a protective hand pressed to the trunk of the nearest rowan tree. “Quiet down, all of you. This is a place of peace.”

“You’re freezing Ash, please. Take the sweater.”

Angrily, she snatched it from Rodney’s hand.

She shrugged out of his jacket and it fell to the forest floor with a light thud.

When she tore through the rest of her own ruined sweater and threw it to the ground, too, Raif and Rodney both went cold at the sight of the archaic runes inked across her bare flesh.

“That is not Rhedelas,” Raif observed. His eyes narrowed. “Who made those markings, Aisling?”

“I did,” Kael said. Though it pained him, he shifted his weight off of his friend’s shoulder to stand on his own.

Every aching bone in his body protested the motion, but the sight of Aisling’s bare arms, trembling with cold and rage and panic, drew him forward.

She’d become so adept at calming his tempest; now, it was his turn to soothe hers.