The Sharpest Blade (27 page)

“Shane!” I yell, forgetting my fight with the false-blood to try to help him.

I don’t make it two steps before something slams into the back of my head. Then I’m being held facedown on the floor, black splotches swimming through my vision.

“You can’t help him,” Lorn says quietly. “Stay down. Stay still . . . Oh, damn.”

A shadow falls over me before Lorn’s weight suddenly vanishes. I turn my head in time to see him land hard on his back, then an
elari
fists a hand in my hair and lifts me to my feet. I try to free myself, try to elbow, kick, and head-butt the
elari
away, but he doesn’t let go.

I grab the
elari
’s wrist, struggling to get loose, when I see Lena pick up my dropped sword. She stalks toward an unworried false-blood, unworried because an
elari
raises his sword behind her.

I shout out a warning, but Trev’s thrown a fistful of fire. The
elari
’s
scream pierces the air.

The
elari
holding me slams a fist into my face. Adrenaline blocks out the pain. I ram my knee into his stomach, then aim for his groin, but the bastard won’t let go of my hair.

Another fae charges Trev. Then another. Trev’s sword meets the first one’s attack, fire meets the second’s. Even to my eye, the flames are weaker this time. Trev’s too exhausted to wield his magic anymore.

But Lena’s not. She sweeps her hand through the air, and a blast of wind hits the false-blood. He staggers backward, and Lena’s on him the next instant, her sword slashing and stabbing and nearly breaking through his defenses.

For the first time, the
elari
are alarmed. They move to aid their
Taelith
. I use the opportunity to grab the arm of the fae holding me, putting my weight behind me and pulling him around as hard as I can.

My hair rips out, but he stumbles over the leg I kick out, and I throw him to the ground. Lena has my sword, but I still have my dagger. It’s in my hand then, sinking down through the
elari
’s exposed neck, quick as any fae could do it.

The
elari
dissolves into mist, and I look up. My gaze finds Lena. She’s fighting three
elari
, her back turned to the false-blood. Trev’s by her side, Lorn’s slowly getting to his feet, and Shane . . . He’s trying to lift himself off the floor. His hand slips in his own blood, and he collapses.

I scurry to my feet, grabbing a sword on the way to help Lena. She has to survive this. I have to get her out of here. I need to—

The false-blood steps behind her and lifts not his sword, but his hand. He rests it on her exposed shoulder, and she goes limp, collapsing to the floor.

“No!”
Trev screams. He slays one of his opponents, hits the next one so hard the
elari
stumbles back under the blow, then he’s swinging at the false-blood, trying to get to Lena.

I’m yelling a warning and trying to get to him. Another
elari
steps behind him, sword raised and arcing through the air.

It keeps arcing, severing Trev’s head from his shoulders as if it’s cutting through air.

His body drops to the ground, pouring blood across the white tiles, and his head rolls until it hits the dais.

My body lurches as one painful, grief-filled sob bursts from my chest.

Lorn blocks my path with his arm. “We must buy time.”

My heart slams against my chest and my breaths come quick and shallow, but I nod, acknowledging Lorn’s words. Time. Time for Kyol to get here. Time for Lena to wake up and escape. Time for Aren to . . .

I close my eyes, draw in a slow breath so that I don’t fall apart. My mind knows that Aren’s dead, but my heart is clinging to the hope that he isn’t.

Drawing upon the strength and steadiness Kyol’s offering me through the life-bond, I open my eyes. The so-called
Taelith
stands in front of me, that cruel, Thrain-esque smile plastered on his face.

“I know who you are,”
I say in Fae. My voice doesn’t sound like my own. It doesn’t crack or shake, but it feels hollow. Foreign.

“I’m
Tar Sidhe
,”
the false-blood says.
“Everyone shall know who I am soon.”

“Oh, that’s absolutely ridiculous,”
Lorn says suddenly at my side.

The
Taelith
’s gaze shifts from me to the fae.
“Tread carefully, Lorn. You’re alive only because I may find you useful.”

“You’ll find me quite useful,”
he says, pulling on the cuffs of his no longer white sleeves.
“But this fiction you’ve created and all the unnecessary violence”
—he waves his hand in Shane’s direction—
“is the reason why I couldn’t become one of your followers. You’re only antihuman when you have an audience.”

The
Taelith
lets out a single snort of laughter.
“Any fae can see that the Realm’s magic has weakened over the centuries. It’s due to the humans’ influence. They taint our world, and they will be eradicated.”

“Thrain,”
I say loudly.
“You’re related to Thrain.”

The false-blood’s grin falters, and I know I’m right. Making the accusation out loud, though, might have been a mistake. When he plasters his smile back on his face, it takes on a more twisted edge. If this fae is anything like Thrain, he has a fiery temper. Thrain could go from calm and reasonable to violent and irate in under a second, and his fists were like steel. I had more than one broken bone when Kyol discovered me.

“Thrain?”

In my peripheral vision, I see Lorn tilt his head to the side. Studying the false-blood, perhaps? I can’t be sure without taking my eyes off the
Taelith
, and I’m not about to do that. His eyes narrow, and he takes a step toward me.

I’ve lost my sword and my dagger, but I don’t retreat. I can’t. The
elari
are behind me.

The false-blood stops a few feet away.

“You,” he says in a whispered sneer. “You have changed.”

It feels like a fist is squeezing my heart. He knows me? I’ve never seen him before; I only recognize Thrain’s features in his face. But Thrain kept me in a windowless room. It was dark except for my chaos lusters. Fae checked on me from time to time, but Thrain was the only one who ever entered with an orb of light. Maybe the false-blood was one of those other fae. He could have been in Thrain’s camp the whole time I was there. I don’t know.

But Aren might.

I bite the inside of my cheek hard to keep my whole body from trembling.

“Where’s Aren?” I ask. I wish my voice were strong and loud, but I’m terrified of the false-blood’s answer. Just over twenty-four hours ago, Aren said it was likely the false-blood had killed anyone with knowledge of his past. That list would include Aren.

But Aren can fight,
I tell myself. Kyol’s the best swordsman in the Realm, and even he would have trouble killing Aren.

But the false-blood dropped Lena with a touch. He could have done the same to Aren.

“I do believe I see the family resemblance,” Lorn pipes up beside me.

I refocus on the
Taelith
, see his expression darken.

“Thrain was your brother,”
Lorn says, switching to Fae.
“That would make you . . . Cardak, I believe?”

“I’ve only recently returned from the ether,”
the false-blood—Cardak—lies.

“You must have been busy these last ten years,”
Lorn continues without pause.
“King Atroth conveniently slaughtered most of your brother’s followers, but you slipped through his fingers. Just like McKenzie slipped through Thrain’s.”

None of the
elari
react to our accusation. I shouldn’t be surprised. What was I expecting? They’d accept the word of a human and a fae on the false-blood’s shit list and turn on their leader?

Cardak points a single finger toward Lena. Immediately, an
elari
puts a sword to her throat.

Lorn opens his mouth to speak. I hold my breath, worried he’s going to say something to make Cardak order Lena’s throat slit, but wisdom must enter Lorn’s mind at the last second. He snaps his mouth shut.

The false-blood smiles.
“Good. Perhaps you and I can come to an arrangement where you are allowed to live.”
He turns his attention back to me.
“You, however, must be destroyed.”

Something sharp presses into my back. I can feel the
elari
breathing on my neck. I don’t have to see him to know he’s anxious to make me bleed. They all are.

My gaze goes to Shane, who’s lying on the floor. He’s alive—I can see his chest moving—but I almost wish he weren’t.

I almost wish I weren’t. No one should have to endure that kind of torture. But if I fight, if I force the
elari
to kill me, Kyol will die. If I live, he has a chance to get out of Corrist.

The
elari
grabs my left arm and places his blade just under my elbow. I hold my breath, order my shaking body to stay still, but the second the dagger sinks into my flesh, I break. I twist away from the fae as I grab for the dagger.

My hand wraps over his, preventing him from slicing my arm off, but I’m not strong enough to—

Something white streaks across the floor.

Sosch!

He leaps into the air just like he usually does to perch on my shoulders, only his aim is off. His sharp teeth latch onto the
elari
’s
arm.

I wrench the dagger from the fae, then immediately plunge it into his gut. Sosch hisses, then leaps behind me.

I spin toward my new opponent the same instant Lorn decides to react. He uses the distraction to dodge around the nearest fae, disarming and slaying him. I evade an attack from the
elari
in front of me and order Sosch to get out of the way. The
kimki
doesn’t listen, not even when the
elari
grabs him by the scruff of the neck. I can’t get a clean kill.

Lorn kills a second
elari
. I have to turn my back on Sosch to defend myself against another attack. I fall back under it, barely managing to withstand the power behind the blows. I try to remember Kyol’s training, try to draw upon the instinct the life-bond has given me, but this fae is fully trained, and he’s furious.

With a viscous
chirp-hiss
Sosch finally releases the fae he latched onto. He comes to my rescue again, this time doing a double leap from the ground to the
elari
’s arm, then to his face. I ram my sword through the fae’s side. When his body disappears into the ether, Sosch hits the ground with a squeak, his long body rolling until he scurries to his feet again.

The false-blood curses. He finally looks like he’s going to join the fight.

The
kimki
readies himself to leap at another
elari
.

“Sosch! Goldfish!” I yell, faking a throw to the left. I can’t let him get hurt.

His bright blue eyes follow my fake crackers, and I charge forward, catching the
elari
’s sword before it can sever the
kimki
in two.

I try to push his sword away. He’s so much stronger than I am. My blade hits the ground, and he kicks it out of my reach. I back up, look for Lorn. He’s fighting the
Taelith
. I don’t know how he’s still on his feet. Half his face is bloodied and there’s a deep gash on his upper left shoulder. He’s killed more than a few
elari
, already. Only five are left standing. If he hurts or kills the false-blood . . .

Cardak sidesteps and extends his arm. His fingertips barely graze across Lorn’s jaw, but Lorn collapses like a corpse.

“Tchatalun,”
the fae in front of me hisses. There’s an echoing hiss at his feet. Before Sosch can leap up and attack, the
elari
launches a vicious kick at his head.

“Bastard!” I yell, as Sosch skids across the tile. He’s on his four little feet a second later, but that’s when Cardak grabs him behind the neck. He lifts the snarling and hissing
kimki
, places his other hand on his haunches, then twists.

There’s an audible crack when Sosch’s spine breaks, then the most horrific, despondent high-pitched squeak fills the air. It echoes through the chamber again and again.

I’m screaming, and Sosch is still squeaking when Cardak chucks him over his shoulder. He’s still squeaking when he hits the floor beside Lena. His body twitches once, twice, three times.

Soft
chirps
, almost like hiccups, interrupt his squeaking as he tries to make his body work, to pull himself across the tile toward me.

He lets out one last, gut-wrenching
chirp-whimper
, then goes still.

Fury blinds me. I ignore the fae closing in on me and launch myself at the false-blood.

One of his
elari
clotheslines me. I barely register my head cracking against the floor. I’m back on my feet, still screaming, still trying to get at the bastard, but someone grabs my legs, pulls them out from under me.

I slam into the floor again. The false-blood stops in front of me. I want to keep screaming, I want to claw his fucking face off, but Kyol shoves his way into my mind.

Steady,
his emotions tell me.

I don’t want to be steady. I want to kill the son of a bitch crouching in front of me.

“The Realm will love watching you suffer,”
Cardak says.

Steady,
Kyol urges again.

“I’m going to kill you,” I whisper, as the
elari
pulls my arms behind my back.

Cardak smiles.
“Sure you will.”

He lifts his index finger, and with a wicked twist to his lip, he touches my forehead. A wave of dizziness passes over me, then . . . nothing.

L
ITERALLY NOTHING. IT
takes a whole half a second for me to realize Cardak’s magic isn’t working, then, after the briefest
oh hell
moment, I collapse to the floor, doing my best to fake unconsciousness.

It’s one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life. Sosch is dead, but I can still hear his squeals in my mind. I can still see his body twitching, see it go still. I want to fight and scream and kill the bastard who broke his back, but I can’t give up this one advantage. I’ll lose my chance at revenge if I do.

So I lie still, ignoring every protest of my heart.

“Lock them in the back chamber,”
the false-blood says.

Someone grabs my right ankle. I’m facedown on the tile, and it takes everything in me to stay limp as I’m dragged across it. I screw up a few times, tensing when my face slides through something wet and again when my shoulder hits what I assume is the edge of the dais. If the fae paid close attention to me, if they had any idea there might be a chance that Cardak’s magic hadn’t worked on me, then they would have noticed.

My head bangs down the chamber’s first step.

Stay limp!
I silently scream.

Another step. My cheekbone cracks.

Stay limp! Stay limp! Stay limp!

The fae sits me up just enough to plant a foot on my chest and shove. I tumble backward, land hard on my spine, and slide the rest of the way down the stairs.

The chamber door slams shut, and I have to fight the instinct to curl into a ball. I’m alive. I’m awake. How is that possible? Surely, the false-blood tested his magic on other humans. On Shane even.

God, Shane. I left him behind in London. He’s upstairs, cut up and half-dead.

I’m shaking with sadness and fury and . . . adrenaline. Kyol’s fighting now. He’s trying to get to the King’s Hall. He’ll never make it. He . . .

He has to be the reason I’m awake. This adrenaline I’m feeling—it’s making my heart pump so much faster than it should be. It’s keeping me conscious, just like my adrenaline helped Kyol regain consciousness.

I push up to all fours and lean my back against the wall, waiting for the dark room to stop spinning. Only a single orb lights the table, the chairs, Lena . . . and
Aren
.

He’s on his back, unconscious and with blood pooling beneath him, but I can see his chest rise and fall. I crawl to him, gasping when a sharp lance of pain strikes down my back. I ignore it and only stop when I collapse between the two unconscious healers.

That’s when I laugh. It’s the laugh of someone who’s lost it, someone who’s seen too much and can’t take anything more. Despite closing my eyes, tears leak out. I don’t have time to cry. I have to pull myself together. I have to find a way to survive so that Kyol will survive, and I have to get us out of here.

I build a wall as thick and solid as Kyol’s has ever been, and I make myself feel nothing. It’s the only way I can function. I have to stay numb. I can’t think about Sosch. I can’t think about Kyol or Trev or Lorn or Naito and Lee, who are somewhere in the palace. I can’t think about anything but getting out of here.

I open my eyes. My gaze goes to the back wall, the one covered with sketches of the high nobles. The exit tunnel is behind it. It would be convenient if the life-bond gave me at least a tiny amount of magic so that I could touch the trigger that slides open the wall, but no such luck. I need a fae to open it. I need Aren or Lena conscious.

My hand goes to my pocket and wraps around the syringe I have there. It’s filled with the tranq-dart antidote. Lee said it was a mixture of adrenaline and some other medications. Will it wake up the fae? They’ve been put to sleep by magic, not by drugs. What if the antidote does more harm than good?

The false-blood or his men could come back any second. I have no choice except to find out.

My gaze shifts between Aren and Lena. They’re both hurt. Aren’s bleeding from a deep gash in his left leg, and Lena isn’t much better off. my heart drops when I realize I can’t save both of them. I only have one syringe. I have to choose.

The wall I created thins. I drag in a ragged breath then I press my lips against Aren’s, praying that he’ll wake up. One of my chaos lusters strikes across his face, but this isn’t how the fairy tale goes. The prince kisses his princess, not the other way around. Aren doesn’t move.

We have a chance,
he told me. If we both survived, we would be together. I’m still pissed at him for choosing to die, to stay behind when I had a plan to get him out of the palace, and I’m pissed that I’m in this situation, that once again, my choices have been taken away.

Slowly, the reality of my situation sinks in. There isn’t a choice here. I know what I have to do. Aren’s pale from blood loss. His leg might not support him.

Another strangled, almost maniacal laugh escapes me. I’m not much different from Aren or from Kyol. I’m making the only choice I can.

I take the protective plastic off the syringe, turn my back on the fae I love, then jab the needle into Lena’s arm.

I pull it out and wait, but she doesn’t move.

Shit.

I place two fingers on the side of her throat, hoping I haven’t killed her. I feel a faint but even heartbeat.

Okay. She’s still alive—that’s a plus—but what do I do now? Slap her?

Before I take my hand away to do that, a chaos luster skips to her cheek. It shatters into five thinner bolts of lightning, and her body jerks.

“Lena?” My voice is hoarse, scratchy from screaming and crying, and she doesn’t open her eyes.

I grab her chin and shake it. “Lena.”

Silver peeks between her dark lashes. Her pupils get slightly bigger, then smaller, then bigger again as she tries to focus.

“We don’t have much time,” I tell her. “I need you to open the tunnel. Do you understand?”

Her body jerks again. Her eyes widen, and she flails as if reaching for a weapon.

“Hey, shh.” I grab her arms. “It’s me. It’s McKenzie. I gave you medicine to wake you up. We have to get out of here
right now
.”

She still looks startled. She attempts to roll away from me, but I hold her down. The fact that I’m able to do that isn’t a good sign. She should be able to fling me away with ease.

Our prolonged contact agitates my chaos lusters more. They strike down both my arms, and a hot, tingling sensation swirls in my palms before ricocheting into my chest. She feels it, too, and finally, recognition shines in her eyes.

“Let go of me,” she orders.

Letting out a sigh of relief, I comply. “Can you open the tunnel?”

She nods as she slowly pushes herself into a sitting position. She sways. Her eyes close, and I grab her arm again to steady her. Damn it, we don’t have time for her to be light-headed.

I draw in a breath, then, in one move, place her arm over my shoulder and surge to my feet. My back protests the movement, and the muscles in my legs just barely comply. Lena’s too hurt and too off-balance to be much more than deadweight.

We don’t exactly walk to the wall—it’s more of a badly controlled stumble—so when we actually reach it, I don’t have the strength or the balance to stop us. Lena’s face smacks into the stone.

She grunts.

“Sorry,” I say, when she glares at me. “Consider it payback for breaking my arm in Germany.”

A smile bends her busted lower lip. Good. I need her energized, her spirits high, and for her to have hope that we’ll get out of this.

“Open the tunnel,” I order.

She braces a hand against the wall, moves a half pace to the left, then reaches up to a stone set high above her head. When she flattens her palm against it, a blue glow flares out from her hand. Then, with what seems like a deafening rumble, the wall slides open.

The tunnel is pitch-black and narrow, barely wide enough for Lena and me to stand side by side in it.

“How long until he wakes up?” she asks. She’s looking at Aren.

“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I injected you with something to wake you up.”

The eyebrow she lifts is caked with dried blood. “With something?”

“Ask me about it later,” I say. “We need to get out of here.”

“We can’t leave him.” Her voice is weak, and the only reason she’s still standing is because she’s leaning against the wall. In her eyes, I see how much she wants to move away from it, how much she wants to go to him and drag him out of here.

I want so much to do the same.

“I can’t carry both of you,” I say. My voice doesn’t tremble, but I feel my throat tightening. I feel my eyes burning and brimming with tears.

“You can’t wake him up, too?”

“I only had one dose.” And I
had
to use it on her, I tell myself. Aren’s hurt. He couldn’t carry Lena out of here any more than she could carry him.

Lena’s eyes widen slightly when she realizes I chose her over Aren.

“We can’t leave him,” she says again.

“We have to,” I whisper. “But we don’t have to leave him here.”

After I make sure she’s steady, I walk to him and crouch behind his head. On the outside, I’m in control. I’ve accepted my decision. I’m doing the right thing. On the inside, though, I’m dying. I want to scream,
Move, damn you!
But I just hook my arms under his, then, with a grunt, I drag him into the tunnel.

Lena attempts to heal the gash on his leg. I stop her before she finishes. She looks like she’s about to pass out. She protests but finally gives in. She closes the wall, then we begin our stumbling journey through the black tunnel.

Sometime later, I collapse. My lungs ache. My back and shoulders hurt from being knocked around and thrown down the stairs, and carrying Lena hasn’t helped. She’s barely able to support any of her weight. I didn’t realize how badly she was injured until I put her arm over my shoulder. Her side pressed into my side, and my shirt is now wet with her blood.

I’m not a healer, and she can’t heal herself. We have to find help quickly.

I put her arm over my shoulder again.

“McKenzie,” she says.

“It can’t be much farther.” I just have to get her outside the silver wall.

She slides away from me. “You can’t continue to carry me.”

“Feel free to help me out,” I say. Then I glance behind us again.

Maybe this is why my neck hurts. I’ve looked over my shoulder more than a dozen times since we started our escape. Lena’s looked back more than a few times as well. It’s not just because we’re worried about the false-blood pursuing us. Every step I take away from Aren leaves a piece of my shattered heart behind. We’re both hoping he’ll catch up with us. We’re both hoping he’ll live.

Lena starts to push herself to her feet. She almost makes it, but she suddenly grabs her stomach. Her shoulders hunch, and I know what’s going to happen next.

I pull her hair out of the way as she dry heaves. This is the fourth time she’s done this—there’s nothing left in her stomach anymore. The medicine I injected her with is wreaking havoc on her system.

“Better?” I ask when a handful of seconds passes without her heaving again. Weakly, she nods. I put her arm over my shoulder, and we continue stumbling down the tunnel.

I keep my sleeves pushed up. My contact with Lena is making my chaos lusters go crazy. I don’t want to touch her, but I don’t have a choice. The white bolts of lightning provide the only light in the tunnel. It’s not much—just enough to prevent me from cracking my head on low-hanging sections of rock.

More minutes pass. I don’t know how many. We’re both weak and covered in sweat, but the faint glow ahead makes me press on. It’s a narrow exit. We have to squeeze through it one at a time. As soon as Lena’s feet are clear, I crawl through the gap, my fingers finding tiny cracks in the rock to hold on to so I can pull myself across the hard surface.

Moonlight touches my face. Another pull, and I slide off a ledge, landing on my hip beside Lena. She’s on her back, looking up at the stars. They’re bright, even with the moon lighting the sky, and they’re completely foreign to me. The constellations of another world.

I make myself sit up when all I want to do is lie down. After using a craggy boulder as a crutch, I peek over it at the Realm’s capital city, which is below us now.

We’re at the base of the Corrist Mountains. Not too far from the gate, thank God. This is where I planned to escape with Aren. This is where Hison should be, and for once, I want to see the high noble. We need help. I don’t know how we’ll get to the gate on our own. It looks like the
elari
are guarding it. Cardak most likely knows we’re missing by now.

I scan once again for the high noble and his fae, but they’re nowhere in sight. They might have been captured already. Hison might have been killed.

I look up into the mountains. Or, he might have escaped. It’s possible.

It’s possible for him. Not for us. I can’t carry Lena any farther.

Exhausted, I turn my back to the boulder, then slide down until I’m sitting. Lena’s still lying on her back. Her eyes are closed, and she seems . . . serene. Like lying beneath the stars in the open mountain air calms her.