Page 48

T he empty silence in Kael’s mind was haunting.

As much as he now feared the Low One’s— Yalde’s —cruel whispers, he longed for them, too.

Without that voice, Kael was alone in his head.

There was no one to look to for guidance, for blessings.

If he were to pray now, there would be no place for those prayers to go.

No one was listening.

A worn track was eroding beneath his feet, a physical manifestation of his tormented thoughts—one that the alseid would almost surely scold him for. So Kael stopped and, without glancing again at the impenetrable, tempting darkness of the forest, retreated into the golden glow of the cairn.

He might have smiled at the scene before him if the expression came more naturally.

Raif was crouched over a large brass pot that hung from a crooked root above the fire, stirring its contents.

Aisling and Sudryl knelt nearby, kneading balls of tough brown dough atop flat rocks.

Aisling’s hair was twisted back out of her face and tucked into the collar of the púca’s overlarge sweater.

Its sleeves were pushed up above her elbows and a fine dusting of flour coated her forearms. A smudge of it was streaked across her cheek, flushed from the heat of the flames that warmed the chamber.

“This hardly feels like bread dough,” she remarked under her breath.

Sudryl gave her a harsh look. “This is hardly your mother’s bread, girl. You watched me grind the flour from bark; what did you expect?”

Kael eased himself to the ground and rested his elbows on bent knees. The warmth was stifling, but he could no longer face the trees or the dark or the silence alone. Those things all seemed a little less threatening with Aisling close by, even if she was doing her best to avoid meeting his eyes.

“What is it?” Rodney emerged from a chamber at the back of the cairn and stopped to peer over Raif’s shoulder into the bubbling pot. His nose wrinkled at its contents.

“Stew. Potatoes and mushrooms,” Raif replied, lifting a spoonful to show the rough-cut vegetables.

“And that?” Rodney gestured to a fibrous strip that hung limp from the edge of the ladle.

“Cambium, the meat of a tree,” Sudryl said, still kneading vigorously. “The bit between the outer bark and the sapwood. It will fill your stomachs well and keep them that way.”

From the corner of his eye, Kael thought he saw Aisling grimace briefly.

He wished she would join in the conversation with the others.

He wanted her to speak again, to say anything at all so that he could drink in her voice and let it soothe the hurt inside him.

But he couldn’t ask for anything more from her now.

So he didn’t address her, and she remained silent.

It wasn’t until they had each taken a roughhewn bowl of the thin stew and a portion of flatbread that Aisling finally spoke. Her eyes were downcast as she balanced the bowl in her lap and the bread on top and said, “I don’t know if this is breakfast, lunch, or dinner.”

Without any celestial movement—no sun or moon, scarcely any darkening or lightening of the sky—it was impossible to tell what time it was, if time existed there at all.

Elowas seemed outside of time, at once unaffected by it and enmeshed in it.

Kael would have believed that he’d been there for a century as easily as he would have a day.

“It is a meal, and you would do well to eat it,” Sudryl admonished, not at all gently. Kael wished to say something encouraging, perhaps to lie and say the bread was light and sweet or that the stew had no bitter aftertaste at all, but Rodney cut in before he was able.

“All you’ve had since we got here is half a chocolate bar. Less—you didn’t even finish it. You’ll make yourself sick, Ash.”

She nodded and brought a spoonful of broth to her lips, then another. Kael’s eyes narrowed, catching the way she winced as she swallowed it down. The dry bread, she left untouched.

For his part, although he hadn’t felt hunger since leaving Wyldraíocht behind, the heat of the stew reached the pit of ice that had settled in his core.

It was melting, he was sure of it. Slowly, painstakingly slowly, but those frozen edges were thawing the longer he was away from Yalde and in the company of his friends.

His shadows had quieted, easing their relentless pulling and clawing.

The heavy mantle on his shoulders was lifting little by little as his urgency to return to Yalde ebbed.

He thought that it might even be possible for him to laugh again one day.

“We need a plan.” Raif put into words the thought each of them was grappling with.

Though they were safe in Antiata for the time being, they couldn’t remain in the Enclave forever.

They had to get back—Raif to Elasha, Aisling to her home and her beloved beast, and the púca to… whatever it was he did with his time.

And Kael—to Kael, only one thing mattered. He meant what he’d said to Aisling before: he would do anything, give anything, to keep her safe. There was no cost too great, in any realm, to keep him from protecting his Red Woman.

A quiet voice, his own this time, whispered too of a greater dream.

One that saw the two of them were together, finally with the kind of time he felt they’d constantly been short of.

He’d teach her the Fae language, as he’d once promised, and show her all of the most beautiful parts of Wyldraíocht.

He’d learn about her world, too. And he’d have something just for himself for once, something that had nothing to do with duty or worship or power—a different sort of magic altogether.

He wanted it; more than anything, he wanted it. Wanted her. Them.

“He won’t let you leave,” the alseid said. Her tone was sympathetic, for once, when she added, “Any of you.”

“No, he will not.” Kael set his empty bowl aside and leaned forward, expression neutral. “And he will not fall for your tricks again, púca, impressive though they may be.”

Rodney slumped back against the cairn wall, deflated. His glamour had been enough to allow the group to escape the forest unseen, but Kael had felt Yalde’s rage and bewilderment as they fled. The god had been distracted by his own fury. It wouldn’t work a second time.

Kael knew they had but two options; neither choice was a good one. Both would ruin him. But he knew as he gazed at each of his companions that had fought through untold horrors to find him there, that in their minds only one would be at all viable. They would not let him go again.

His fist clenched involuntarily where it rested against his thigh, his nails pressing half-moons into his palm and said, “We have to kill him.”

The group looked at him, shocked. Aisling, most of all. She didn’t think him capable of rational thought when it came to Yalde. He understood why—he hardly did himself—but he wanted to prove her wrong. To show her that she meant more to him than any false god.

“You cannot kill a god,” Sudryl spat. Her bitterness was justified, having seen what Yalde did to her realm and having been trapped by him in the Enclave for so long. Still, Kael shook his head.

“It can be done—it must be done. We have little choice.”

“What sort of weapon might kill a god?” Raif mused as he swirled the last dregs of stew in his bowl.

His expression was familiar: a soldier, a commander, planning.

Kael had seen it countless times during the hours they’d spent shuffling pieces around war tables and drafting company movements on faded maps.

“What have you brought?” Kael asked.

“Nothing adequate for the task.” Raif looked to his satchel beside him, jaw flexing. He’d outfitted the group for a rescue mission, not a battle with a cruel cosmic deity.

“You have all that you need,” Aisling murmured softly—so softly Kael hardly heard her. Even so, her voice made his heart leap.

“What was that?” His response was just as soft, hoping to coax her to look at him.

She turned to Rodney instead and asked, “Remember what Merak said? You have all that you need. ”

“You don’t think—” he started, bushy brows furrowed.

“They knew. They had to have known—they know Yalde. They’ve fought him. It’s all in there,” she gestured to the far side of the cairn, toward the mural.

“So they sent us to our death,” Raif interjected darkly.

“No.” Aisling looked at the soldier. Kael wished she’d look at him. “No, I don’t think so. This is the prophecy, right? To bring him back? Merak wouldn’t have sent us here, wouldn’t have told us we have what we need to do this, if they didn’t know we could. Right?”

Finally, finally, she turned to Kael. The hope that had once so steadied him had gone from her eyes.

The determination was still there, but it was marred by fear and dimmed by uncertainty.

Now, she was looking for reassurance. She was looking to him for reassurance.

Kael’s breath caught in his chest. He wanted to give it to her, but he was too focused on her words.

This is the prophecy.

A brief silence was the only sign of surprise he’d allow before he spoke again. “The prophecy was to kill me— sacrifice begets a dormant magic innate. You’ve fulfilled the prophecy. You’re free of it.”

Aisling opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked to Rodney for his help, but he just nodded to Kael and said, “Go on, Ash.”

Aisling kept her focus trained on the dusty stone floor for several long moments before responding: “It didn’t end with your death. It was Lyre that figured it out: revenant spring. I was meant to kill you, and now I’m meant to bring you back.”

The Red Woman will rise to bring revenant spring.

So this was the ‘more’ Rodney had hinted at. Kael’s stomach churned. He thought he’d saved his Red Woman, but he’d only damned her. It was his fault she was here, trapped and afraid.