Page 59

R aif and Rodney had settled back down in the cairn’s main chamber, seated but tense. The sound of Raif’s whetstone on the blade was more grating than lulling now, his passes more aggressive.

“Sudryl said we’ve overstayed our welcome,” he said without lifting his eyes from his work.

His tone was clipped. It surprised Aisling just how much he had come to care for the Enclave and its guardian.

That he was so protective painted a portrait of a soldier who fought not for blood or power or territory, but for what he believed in and for those he thought needed defending.

Just as she’d been wrong to blindly trust that the Seelie Court was all light and beauty, Aisling was reminded yet again of the depth veiled beneath the Unseelie Court’s shadows.

“We have been on borrowed time for too long.” Kael shed his cloak and folded it on the ground, then pulled Aisling down to sit on it. She was grateful for it; her body still ached. Then he turned to Rodney and asked, “Did you tell him?”

Rodney shook his head. “Haven’t said a word. Figured you’d prefer to do the honors, it being your idea and all.”

Kael sat forward and angled himself so he could see all of them, releasing Aisling’s hand only to rest it on her knee instead. He didn’t want to break contact with her any more than she did. That easy sort of tenderness seemed to come so naturally to him. It felt good. It felt safe.

Though now, she was afraid that whatever he was about to say would shatter that illusion and send her once more spiraling into the dark place where he’d left her the last time he had a plan.

She braced herself for that inevitability, the fight-or-flight mentality kicking in and making her heart race and her mouth dry.

Even with his confession and despite how hard she’d argued to get her point across, she knew he’d do it again: sacrifice himself for her.

But if that were the case, if that’s what this all would come down to, she’d just have to do so herself before he could get the chance.

He’d had his turn. This was her rescue mission.

“You’ve each given up something personal and powerful for Rodney to work with.

The weapon is strong, but not yet strong enough.

Yalde is an ancient force far fiercer than anything we’ve known, anything we’ve ever faced.

And even the best Weaver can only Create something as strong as the threads he has to draw on. ”

Aisling braced for a smartass retort, but Rodney just nodded in acknowledgment. His earlier humor had fallen from his face to leave him solemn as he listened to Kael speak.

“We need to give more,” Raif suggested. He set aside the blade he’d been working on and reached for another automatically, finding its edge with the whetstone without even a glance down. The sound of it scraping against the metal was a rhythmic soundtrack beneath their conversation.

“You could each give that weapon everything you have, everything you are. It would never be enough. To wound, perhaps, but certainly not to kill. And we will not leave this place unless Yalde falls.” Kael spoke candidly, confidently.

Where just moments before he had been tender and passionate, now he slipped seamlessly back into his role as king, a battle-tested strategist. A dichotomy, as always.

His dual nature had captivated Aisling since the first time he allowed her to see his softer side—and she couldn’t deny the effect it had on her to watch him shift so easily from that tenderness to commanding, unyielding control.

“It isn’t so hopeless as he’s making it sound,” Rodney chimed in. He gestured to Kael with a look that seemed to implore him to give his monologue a more positive spin or, at the very least, to get to the part of the plan that actually resembled a plan at all.

“I believe we can kill him—and we can still use the blade to do so. It is not far off from where it needs to be.” It was as close to a compliment as Kael would likely ever give to Rodney, and Aisling thought she saw her friend’s chest swell with pride just briefly before Kael finished: “If I give it my magic.”

The repetitive stone-on-metal grinding sound halted instantly. Raif dropped his tools and shifted his weight, a coiled snake poised to strike. His eyes widened, then narrowed. “Kael—”

Kael cut him off, having already turned his attention to Aisling. “This is where I must ask for your help.”

“No.” Her mouth was so dry the word barely came out. She cursed herself for it. She’d have liked to have sounded more resolute.

“You have not heard what I intend to do.” He was baiting her. She wouldn’t bite. His calm tone and the soothing weight of his hand on her leg only frustrated her further.

Aisling swallowed hard, past the persistent stinging pain, and said more forcefully this time, “I don’t have to; I can tell it’s too much. You’ve already given your life once, Kael. I’m not doing this again—you’re not, we’re not.”

“Aisling is right,” Raif growled.

A spark of anger flashed across Kael’s face, there and gone in an instant. She could still feel it, though, simmering just beneath the surface, tightly restrained.

“Let’s hear him out before we dismiss the idea,” Rodney urged the group. To anyone else, his expression might have been unreadable. But even in this form, Aisling knew him too well to miss the flicker of understanding in his eyes. The pair had already discussed Kael’s intentions.

“We cannot kill Yalde with brute strength or clever traps,” Kael assessed. “He’d tear straight through us before we got close enough. But with my shadows…they come from Yalde, they were given to me by Yalde, and that means they are just as powerful as he is.”

“So use your magic, Kael. Kill the bastard. Strangle him, rip him apart, just as I’ve seen you do a hundred thousand times against a hundred thousand enemies before.

Why are you so quick to give it up?” Raif was so tense he was nearly vibrating and his raised voice was amplified as it echoed off the chamber’s stone walls.

“Because Yalde controls them,” Aisling whispered quietly.

She’d seen it firsthand: the way Kael’s shadows responded to the deity’s direction.

They danced for him, reached willingly for his loving touch.

Kael was merely a vessel—that, they had known.

But even the times when those obsidian tendrils appeared to act at Kael’s behest, their obeisances were to Yalde alone.

“When he cannot control his magic, it is far easier for me to hold it under my command,” the dark god had taunted her. Kael would never win in a battle for dominance over his shadows.

Kael nodded, giving her knee a subtle squeeze.

His gaze was steady, yet there was something in it that made her stomach twist: resignation.

“The shadows were never truly mine to wield. They will be back under his control the moment I stand before him. If instead they are bound within the blade, fortifying it, he should be unable to call to them.”

“ Should? ” Raif challenged.

Kael raised one eyebrow, almost entertained by Raif’s attempt to dissuade him with the plan’s ambiguity. “None of this is a certainty. How many battles have we fought together that were?”

“This isn’t a skirmish over barren territories with half-trained, under-prepared Seelie warriors, Kael,” Raif snapped. “You’d be giving up everything— everything .”

Kael didn’t flinch at Raif’s harsh barb, but cast a fleeting glance back at Aisling and his mask dropped, just a fraction, so she could see all of him.

Not a king, not a warrior. Just the barest hint of the male who loved her, the male who cared little for titles when the two of them were alone together.

“Not everything.” He said the words so quietly she was sure they were meant for only her.

Aisling forced down the urge to reach out to Kael, to pull him close and shake some sense into him.

The insistent feeling made her palms itch, so she dug her nails into them to keep her hands still in her lap.

It was difficult to imagine him without his magic—those dark, shifting shadows that were as much a part of him as his blood and the beating of his heart.

They had shaped him in so many ways: sharpening his edges, hardening his resolve, chiseling and molding him into the male who sat now beside her.

For all their blessings and their burdens, Kael’s shadows were an undeniable part of him.

Aisling had seen firsthand the toll they had taken on him, how the scars they’d left carved so deep into his skin tormented him in his darkest hours.

His magic—Yalde’s magic—had systematically stripped away pieces of him, one by one, until at times he seemed more shadow than flesh.

And for all he’d given, they’d been so easily wielded against him.

Those same shadows he’d revered had possessed him entirely and turned him into Yalde’s monstrous puppet.

Yet, even as she hated his magic for all it had cost him, she couldn't ignore the other side of it. Kael’s magic had made him a force to be reckoned with: a king who protected his people with unmatched ferocity.

To his court, the shadows weren’t just a weapon.

They were his strength, his shield, and his crown.

And although those shadows had once seemed an unstoppable tempest, she’d seen too the moments when they quieted under her touch, revealing something gentler buried beneath the chaos.

Those same shadows that had once twisted and burned themselves into her skin had at times caressed her as affectionately as Kael’s own hands.

After everything, despite everything, he was willing now to let them go.

She should have been relieved—this should have felt like freedom.

But it didn’t. All she could think about was what it might do to Kael.

The thought of how it might leave him untethered, to be stripped of a part of himself so intrinsic she wasn’t always sure where the shadows ended and he began, left her aching.

And though she couldn’t say it out loud—not now, not in front of the others—she was afraid.

Afraid of what losing his magic would take from him. Afraid of what might be left behind.

Afraid that she might not be enough to help him mend the pieces that would break in the process.

But then the moment was gone and Kael turned away, his attention already shifting back to the task at hand. Aisling could only watch, her mind reeling with the realization of what he was willing to lose—and the crushing certainty that she couldn’t stop him if she tried.

Raif wouldn’t give up so easily, though.

He’d risen to his feet, entire body rigid with barely contained fury.

Aisling had seen him this way only once before, when she’d first broached the idea of laying Kael’s body on the pyre.

He’d worn the same expression then, too.

She wasn’t the only one there who loved Kael.

This was Raif’s king, his commander, his closest friend.

How many times had the soldier talked Kael out of making foolish, rash decisions in the past?

How many times had he put his own life on the line to protect Kael from himself?

“There is never only one option, Kael,” the soldier insisted angrily. “This does not have to be it.”

“If we want to leave this place together, all of us, this is our only option. Otherwise, the three of you can return to Wyldraíocht while I remain.”

They all stiffened at that; it was a painful truth to hear, but the truth nonetheless.

Kael was just the only one of them brave enough to acknowledge it out loud.

He slid his hand further to the inside of Aisling’s leg to drum his fingers against her calf.

His touch wasn’t enough to ease her anxiety this time.

“I am at peace with this,” he said finally. “I would not ask you to feel the same, but I would ask that you at the very least recognize that this is my decision. My magic is mine to give up, just as each of you decided what of yours was important enough to give for this same cause.”

Kael’s tone was calm, but there was a warning edge to it. He was through entertaining arguments to the contrary; he’d made up his mind.

Rodney cleared his throat then. “Whether or not we want to admit it, we all know this is the best shot we have. We can argue about it, or we can get to work.”