Page 62

“ T his plan is half-brained,” Sudryl warned, “and it will not succeed.”

The group stood at the edge of the Enclave, shoulder to shoulder between two of the twisted rowan trees.

With the cairn at their back and the vast, dark wood ahead, Aisling felt as though she was back on the cliffside overlooking the deep chasm Yalde created for her.

Except here, there were no bridges. There was no trick, no riddle.

There was only one path ahead—but at least this time, she wouldn’t walk it alone.

Kael took her hand and gripped it firmly in his own.

His presence beside her was fortifying. She could face anything just so long as he stayed right there.

She didn’t dare look at his face, though.

The resignation he wore there was discomforting to see.

He knew, swore he knew, what he was giving up.

Swore he was ready to do so, and swore he’d come to terms with it.

But even still, Aisling couldn’t shake the sense of dread that had settled so heavy and cold in her gut.

“We will not have much time once we’re beyond the bounds of Antiata.

You’re certain you recall the way?” Raif asked Rodney.

The soldier was tense, too. Though whatever Kael had said to him out of her earshot was enough to bring him around to the plan, he still seemed to support it only out of obligation.

He didn’t like it any more than Aisling did.

Rodney nodded, nervously fidgeting with the tufted end of his tail. “I can get us there.”

“The glamour won’t be too much?” Aisling looked up at her friend, at the dark circles that had only gotten darker beneath his eyes and the way his cheeks seemed drained of color. Using this much of that magic he’d left untouched for so long had left him drained—but not without humor.

“So little faith, Ash.” He nudged her shoulder with his. “Elowas Rodney is the new and improved version. Save for this bit, anyway.” He tossed his tail back over his shoulder and shook out his hands.

“You will not be welcomed back once you leave this place.” Sudryl watched them from beside the felled rowan tree, propped up now by a tower of stones. It was the third time she’d said as much: she wouldn’t have them bringing back the consequences of their failure to her doorstep.

“You have my word.” Raif had turned to face the faerie and lowered himself to one knee, coming closer to eye level with her.

“You are a male of many commitments, soldier. I only hope you make good on each.” Sudryl’s sternness faltered just slightly when he raised his closed fist and pressed it to his chest, over his heart.

“Orist will be healed yet, I swear to you,” he said low, dipping his head in solemn promise. “I will find her mirror, and you will know it when I have.”

Satisfied, if for once speechless, Sudryl gave one final nod to the group before retreating into the cairn. Raif rose from the ground and rejoined their line.

“Your move, Weaver,” he prompted. Rodney closed his eyes tightly and drew in deep breaths until slowly, slowly, the air around them grew heavy.

Aisling felt the glamour settle over them, this one even more suffocating than the last. It was a thick, stifling blanket, wet and weighted nearly enough to pull her down.

She struggled against it for a moment before Kael’s fingers tightened on hers.

He said nothing, and his eyes were still focused straight ahead, but the subtle squeeze was all the reassurance she needed to relieve some of that tightness building in her chest.

One step, then another. The group moved together, careful to stay close beneath the invisible mantle. The tree line drew nearer and nearer until the forest opened its gaping maw before them and, like willing prey, they let it swallow them up whole.

If she hadn’t known any better, Aisling might have thought the glamour was dampening the sounds around them.

Birds calling, wind whispering through the tall pines.

A trickling brook nearby, maybe, or a twig snapping underfoot of a passing buck.

But she did know better—there were no sounds now.

No life, no movement save for their own.

The forest of Elowas was as still and unchanging as a painted mural.

The uncanny nature of it all tugged at something in Aisling’s muscles that urged her to run, as hard and as fast as she could in any direction at all.

She couldn’t tell if that was her own overwrought psyche or the forest itself attempting to lure her away from safety and deeper into its grasp.

Either way, she had little choice but to keep in step with the others.

She cursed their slow pace, but they couldn’t risk tripping or losing their bearings as they pushed through the dense vegetation so gradually she hardly felt as though they were hardly making any progress at all.

“Up ahead,” Rodney said quietly, gesturing with his chin to a break in the trees. It was then that Aisling wished instead that they had moved even slower. She wasn’t ready for what awaited them there at the crossroads. She wasn’t ready to do what needed to be done.

Kael sensed Aisling’s hesitation and allowed her to come to a stop. When Rodney and Raif both looked back, he waved them off.

“Go; we will follow. There is little need for the glamour now.”

Rodney let the magic dissipate and Aisling drew in a lungful of damp air, heady with the scent of pine. Kael let his hands fall to her hips, steadying her as the weight of the woven magic was lifted from their shoulders.

“I won’t get used to that,” she muttered.

“Nor must you. I would hope this will not become a regular occurrence.” He released her just long enough to brush a few strands of hair from her face before once more resting his hands on her waist.

She could have stayed that way forever: his hold on her firm, his chest so close it grazed hers each time they inhaled. Both standing still, locked into each other’s gravity. There was nothing else but the two of them and the way he made her feel, safe and centered.

“How are you always so unafraid?” Aisling asked.

She felt just as she had in his chambers when he’d dressed her in too-large chainmail before she left with Lyre for The Cut.

He’d been calm then, too. He’d given her the chance to be fearful, and had promised to take a turn being brave. He always had been, though.

His lips curved into a rueful smile. “I’ve never felt afraid as often as I have with you.”

Aisling huffed out a short breath. “You say that like it’s a good thing.”

“It is—it’s a very good thing. I was afraid to love you, to let you close to me, to show you my darkness.

You quelled that fear. Now, I am afraid to lose you.

Afraid to let you go.” He tightened his grip on her as if to emphasize his point before he continued, “It is a fear I’d never like to be rid of, because it will keep you in my heart, always. It will bring me back to you, always.”

“Stop talking like you’re saying goodbye.

” Aisling’s voice was thick as her throat constricted.

She brought her hands to his chest and gripped fistfuls of his rough tunic.

If she held onto him hard enough, maybe they could truly stay that way.

Maybe she wouldn’t cry, maybe he wouldn’t sacrifice.

Maybe neither of them would have to hurt again.

“Aisling.” He said her name quietly, then waited for her to look at him. When she did, his expression was honest and unguarded. “This is not goodbye. I promise you. I promise you.”

He swore it so fiercely she nearly believed him.

Unwilling to let the waiting tears spill over, Aisling pulled him down and claimed his lips with hers with an urgency she made no attempt to conceal.

She needed this, needed him, if only for another moment.

Kael’s arms wrapped around her and pulled her closer in, and she wound her fingers into her hair to pull him nearer still.

“I love you, Kael Elethyr Ardhen,” she whispered into the kiss.

The intimacy of her admission, and the way he seemed to breathe it in, left her feeling utterly exposed and drew a blush to bloom across her cheeks.

He noticed, brushing a thumb over the warm skin as if he were painting the color on himself.

“I thought once that you seemed my mirror: reflecting me back, reflecting the things I wished I could not see in myself. Someone who was controlled. Who was told, rather than asked, what their future would look like.” He shook his head.

“But I was wrong. You are not my reflection, Aisling Morrow—you are the other half of me. The better half of me. The half that I have been missing for a very, very long time.”

Her heart swelled, every feeling filling her much too big to contain.

This was what she’d so longed for—the reunion she’d never allowed herself to dream of as she waited for Merak to open the moon gate.

It was everything she’d once thought she wouldn’t have, so convinced that she was too adrift in her own life to find the shoreline and a place to dock.

“And,” he added, “I will not be apart from you again. Where we go now, we go together.”

She let herself sink into the comfort of those words, so wrapped up in them she could only nod in response.

So fully buried beneath an avalanche of feeling that it hardly registered when Kael began to guide her towards the crossroads where Raif and Rodney waited for them.

She was at once both floating and drowning, overjoyed and heartbroken.

But, above all else, steadfast in her determination to bring an end to this and to finally, finally bring Kael home.

“Do you think he already knows we’re here?” Rodney asked, glancing over his shoulder like he expected Yalde to have appeared whilst his back was turned.

“Yes,” Kael said. “That was our aim. But we have little time left; we must do it now, and do it quickly.”

Rodney positioned himself in front of Kael, the dagger gripped so tight in his hand that his knuckles had blanched white around its hilt.

Aisling took her place at his side. Her heart thudded hard against her ribs and Rodney’s heavy breathing beside her was muffled by the sound of her own blood rushing in her ears.

Never had it been more important that she remain calm, and never had that seemed so far out of reach.

“You can do this, Aisling,” Kael said low. His silver eyes burned into hers relentlessly, holding her there with him. She nodded.

“We can do this, Ash,” Rodney amended, shuffling closer so their shoulders touched. Though his words were encouraging, his expression was uncharacteristically grave. Even beneath those vulpine features, she hardly recognized him.

“I know.” She didn’t, and that was clear in her voice. But she hoped that maybe if she said it with enough conviction, she might begin to believe her own lie. So she said again, a bit louder this time: “I know.”

“What do you need from me?” Raif asked.

Kael drew himself up to his full height, squaring his shoulders and lifting his chin. “Ensure I am still standing when it’s over. I will not go to my knees before him.”

Raif bowed to his king, then moved to stand behind him.

His hands hovered at Kael’s sides, ready to catch him should he fall.

Kael widened his stance and pushed up his sleeve to expose his forearm.

There was a thin scar that ran the length of it, so faint Aisling hadn’t ever noticed it, even those nights they’d spent exploring every inch of each other.

She almost reached out to run a finger down it.

She didn’t want him to notice how hard she was trembling, though. Not when his arm was as steady as ever.

Rodney grasped Kael’s wrist in one hand and raised the blade, hesitating as its tip hung just above Kael’s skin, then glanced at Aisling. Waiting for her response.

Calm. Calm.

Aisling laid both hands on Kael’s chest, this time biting back the urge to hold onto his tunic.

She kept her palms flat, her fingers spread, and her touch featherlight.

And she could feel it there, his magic: the raw, pulsing energy beneath his skin, coiling and writhing like a living thing desperate to escape.

It was powerful, and terrible, and vicious, and yet it called sweetly to her affinity as if pleading for release.

Kael exhaled sharply, his breath ragged and uneven. His eyes were shut tight.

“Get rid of it,” he gritted out through clenched teeth.

So Rodney began to dig the tip of the dagger into Kael’s forearm, right down the line of that barely-there scar.

The moment the first tendril of shadow was coaxed free, Kael’s body seized violently.

A sharp, visceral sound erupted from his throat, half growl, half gasp, as the dark energy began to unravel from within him.

His shadows spilled forth in spiraling threads, flowing from him—bleeding from him—inky black pouring from the open wound, mixing with dripping crimson.

Hot blood welled around the shining blade. Red, staining Kael’s pale skin. The smell of copper, its biting tang on her tongue, its warmth—

“Aisling!” Rodney barked her name and it brought her back to the crossroads, back from The Cut.

Calm. Calm.

Closing her eyes, Aisling called to Kael’s shadows.

Coaxing them out, drawing them from his chest and towards the blade.

As they emerged, she poured every ounce of calm she had back into him to fill those gaps his shadows left behind.

With her eyes closed, she could feel them almost as tangible things, and she could feel the emptiness around them.

Kael screamed, and the sound of it—ragged, desperate, broken—rocked Aisling to her core.

She faltered only for a moment before regaining her focus, pressing harder against his convulsing frame.

Her fingers curled into him instinctively as the shadows responded to her.

They latched on like they recognized her, their movements erratic and wild as they threaded between her hands.

It was etched on Kael’s face: a fierce determination that burned even through the haze of his agony.

He wasn’t giving up. He wouldn’t give up.

And she wouldn’t, either. So she continued to fight with him.

For him. Pulling, calling, coaxing. Pulling, calling, coaxing.

Using her affinity to tame those savage shadows and guide them into the humming dagger buried in his arm.

But as she pulled at his shadows, she felt something else there, too. Something buried beneath all the rest. Something that felt almost as though it was helping her. As she pulled at Kael’s magic, there was something else pushing it out from deep inside of him.