The Sharpest Blade (28 page)

Oh, hell. This would be a perfect, peaceful place to lie down and die.

“Just a little farther,” I say, moving quickly to Lena’s side. No rest for us. We’re going to survive this.

I expect a protest, an order for me to sit down and rest, or at least a glare, but apparently, she doesn’t have the energy even for that. I get her into a sitting position and stand.

Or I try to stand. It feels like her weight has doubled since she lay down.

“You’re going to have to help me.”

She nods. I get my arms under her again, lift . . .

And end up sprawled on top of her.

Three more times, I try to get her on her feet. I meet with less and less success. Finally, I sit and lean my back against the boulder, breathing hard and sweating despite the chilly air. It’ll be sunrise soon. If the false-blood hasn’t already ordered his followers to search the foothills, he will soon.

“We’re outside the wall,” I say softly to Lena. “You can fissure.”

Her eyes open briefly. “You can’t.”

“I’ll find someone else to fissure me.”

She shakes her head. It’s a small movement, a barely noticeable side-to-side twitch that I would miss if I weren’t watching her closely.

“I won’t leave you behind, McKenzie.”

“Your life is more important than mine.”

She lifts one shoulder in a tiny shrug. “I’m nothing without the people who support me. You might be my last living shadow-reader, and I need my lord general. He’s obviously still alive.” She pauses to take a few breaths. “Any chance he will be here soon?”

“He’s having trouble getting out of the palace.” I think that’s what’s happening. He was close to the King’s Hall not too long ago. He’s near the western entrance, now, but his frustration is growing. His desperation. He feels how weak I’m becoming.

Lena suddenly stiffens. One finger goes to her lips. Her opposite hand goes to her hip, where her sword would be if she had one. I hear voices a second later. Slowly, silently, I peek over the boulder again.

And duck back down after the briefest glance.
Elari.
At least six of them.

“—will search every crevice. They still live. You will find them. The
Taelith
wishes it.”

The speaker’s voice is deep but monotone, and it’s coming nearer.

I get my feet under me, ready to do . . . something. I have no weapon. I can’t flee with Lena over my shoulder. I’m not even sure if I have enough strength to shove her back into the almost invisible crevice we emerged from.

“We have all the exits covered. They couldn’t have escaped—”

“They did,”
the fae in charge cuts off the other
elari
.
“And they must be recaptured
today
. They’re here. They’re nearby.”

They’re right under your goddamned feet.

I wipe a bead of sweat out of my eyes. I’m going to have to try to get Lena back into the tunnel. It’s hard to see the entrance, and I think it might even be hidden by illusion. The only hope we have is for the
elari
to overlook us.

“I’ll send more followers to help you search.”

I risk one last look over the boulder, praying the
elari
aren’t moving their search this way.

They’re facing away from me, but I can almost make out one of their profiles, the leader’s, I think.

He turns another fraction of an inch.

I duck behind the boulder. It’s Nimael, the false-blood’s second-in-command and the fae who escaped us in Tholm. He’s going to fissure out.

He’s going to fissure out, and I’m close enough to read his shadows.

I bite my lower lip, staring at Lena. She manages to raise one eyebrow.

I shake my head, putting my finger to my lips as I move toward her and take the draw-stringed pouch that’s tied to her belt. Quietly, I dump out the anchor-stones and spread open the cloth. It’ll work for paper. I just need something to write with.

The crevice we climbed out of is covered with a thick, dark layer of dirt and dried mud. I drag my fingers through it, then, just as my skin tingles to tell me a fissure has been opened, I turn back toward the
elari
.

Nimael is gone. His shadows twist in front of me. The other
elari
are turned away, moving their search westward, so I give in to the itch to draw them. They’re familiar, but they’re foreign. I drag my pointer finger across the material in front of me, leaving a dark streak behind. When I run out of dirt, I switch fingers and draw mountains to the north, to the south.

Mountains everywhere. It’s the same place, the same damn place Nimael fissured to when he was in Tholm, and once again, I can’t name the location. It’s in the Realm, though. Why the hell can’t I name it?

Then, just before the shadows vanish, they twist one last time. I stare, not trusting what I think I see.

“McKenzie?” Lena asks again.

I slide back down the boulder and place my makeshift map on the ground between us.

“I think it’s the other side of the Jythkrila Mountains.”

As soon as I say Jythkrila, Lena’s eyes widen. I was right. The magic worked. She could fissure after Nimael now, probably right on top of him. I haven’t lost my ability to read the shadows.

“There’s nothing beyond the mountains,” she says, but doubt fills her voice.

Folding the map up carefully, I tuck it into my back pocket, then get my feet underneath me. I’m about to reach for Lena so I can get her up to the crevice and the tunnel where she can hide, but loose pebbles skitter down the rock behind me.

I look up. An
elari
is standing on my boulder. His gaze is focused upward on the mountain, but all he has to do is look down. We’re screwed.

We’re screwed unless . . .

I look at Lena. She can’t run. I can’t carry her.

Fissure,
I mouth.

Her eyes are locked on me. She shakes her head a fraction. No.

Yes!
I order. I grab the first anchor-stone my fingers touch out of the pile at my feet then edge closer to her, holding it out in my hand, palm up.

She stares at it, then finally, she seems to understand what I’m planning. Again, she shakes her head. She doesn’t think I’ll survive fissuring without a gate. I don’t think I’ll survive remaining behind, and I’d rather die in the In-Between than die at the hands of the false-blood.

She meets my eyes and mouths,
Kyol.

That’s low, using him against me. I know the consequences of my actions. The thing is, I think I
might
survive this.

A sound of alarm behind me signals the end of our time.

“Now!” I yell, grabbing her hand.

She curses.

The
elari
leaps off the boulder as Lena opens her fissure. I charge into it, using my momentum and my last ounce of strength to pull her up and into it after me.

I’m eclipsed in white light and ice and . . . pain.

So much pain.

Oh, God. I was wrong.

T
HUMP . . . THUMP . . . TH-THUMP.

It takes a millennium to recognize the sound as my heartbeat. I’m alive, but I feel like hell. So weak, and my skin feels like it’s been frostbitten by the In-Between. I want to roll to my side and empty my stomach, but I don’t have the strength to do that. I don’t even have the strength to open my eyes.

How many times can a person almost die? If there’s a limit, I’m pretty sure I’ve hit it. The In-Between completely kicked my butt.

My heart beats a little faster. The In-Between. I freaking survived it. I can travel without using a gate.

Not that I want a repeat experience anytime soon. Every muscle in my body hurts, and my head throbs. Then, oddly, it bobs. I force my eyes open and see the sole of a shoe. Or rather, a fae boot if I’m not mistaken. The shoe nudges my forehead again.

“You’re kicking my head,” I say. My voice is so scratchy I barely recognize it.

It taps me again.

I can’t see Lena—just Lena’s boot—so I roll to my stomach. Somehow, I rise to my hands and knees. Her foot is the only thing that’s moving. It’s absently twitching from side to side. That might be all the movement she can manage. She looks exactly how I feel, like a zombie raised from a rotting grave.

My gaze moves past her, focusing on our surroundings. It’s dark, and my vision is blurry. It takes me a while to recognize where we are, and I only do so after I see my car parked on the side of the road. We’re at the Vegas gate.

It’s not the best anchor-stone I could have chosen, but there are much worse places we could have ended up, and at least we have transportation.

If I can get Lena to my car.

“Think you can walk twenty paces?” I ask. She’s still hasn’t opened her eyes.

I crawl toward her head.

“Lena.” I shake her arm. Her head rolls to the opposite side, and she mumbles something in Fae.

“Lena!” I try again. Still no response. Damn it.

I can’t carry her to the car, so after finding the key in my glove box, I bring the car to her. She’s heavy—deadweight, really—and her skin feels
tor’um
cold when I finally get her into the passenger seat.

The next twenty minutes are the longest of my life. Lena still hasn’t said a word, and the tech surrounding her is agitating her chaos lusters. I don’t know if this was the right decision, putting her in my car, but I couldn’t leave her at the gate. She needs help, and she needs it quickly.

I
need help. My vision is still blurred and I swear it goes completely dark at times. I don’t
think
that’s because I lose consciousness or close my eyes, but I shouldn’t be driving.

When I finally pull into a driveway, a bright blue bolt of lightning lights up the interior of the car. Jesus, what if I’ve damaged Lena’s magic permanently?

I shut off the engine, pocket the keys, then get her out of the car as quickly as I can. I’m not sure how I make it to Nick’s front door, but I’m standing there knocking when it finally swings open.

“Hello . . .” Kynlee stares at Lena then back to me, then at Lena again.

“Dad!” she calls out.

Nick appears in the doorway.

“I don’t know where else to take her,” I tell him.

My arms are shaking, trying to keep Lena upright. Nick’s jaw clenches. A few seconds later, he opens the door wider.

“Kill the breakers,” he says to Kynlee, then he scoops Lena into his arms. When he turns and takes her inside, I stumble over the threshold. I only make it two more steps before my body decides it’s had enough. Nick has Lena. I’ve done all I can.

My knees buckle. I collapse on the tiled-entryway floor and don’t make any effort to pick myself back up.

 • • • 

I
awake ages later on the couch in the media room. I don’t move, I don’t think, I don’t feel. I just lie there, staring at nothing and knowing that if I attempt to do anything at all, I’ll be filled with pain. Physical pain, yes, because I pushed my body far past its limit, but that’s not what I fear the most. The emotional pain, the pain of loss . . . that’s what will destroy me.

Don’t think, McKenzie. Just sleep.

 • • • 

ANOTHER
millennium passes. This time when I wake, I do feel something. I feel
someone
. Kyol’s nearby. He made it out of the palace. He survived, which means I’ll survive. I can’t find the energy to feel relieved.

My back is to the door when it opens. I don’t turn. I don’t move at all.

“Kaesha,”
he says. He places a hand on my arm. The bond opens fully, pouring his fear and his worry, his strength and his love into me. I close my eyes tighter, wanting to feel none of it.

Normally, he would go away, leaving me alone and allowing me space to heal. But this time, my heartbreak is too much. He gently pulls me off the couch and into his arms. My muscles scream in protest, but I say nothing. I just sit there stiffly, refusing to be comforted.

“Please,” is all Kyol says, tightening his embrace. My back is against his chest. He presses his cheek against mine, then whispers again, “Please.”

My resistance shatters. He needs this as much as I do.

The emotions rush through me. The devastation and the loss. Aren. Trev. Sosch—

Remembering the snap of the
kimki
’s spine and his terrible, dying
chirp-whimper
does me in. It’s all too much. The tears come, and I can do nothing to stop them.

 • • • 

I
cry myself to sleep. When I wake up, Kyol’s still here, a strong, comforting presence at my back. His arms are still around me, but he’s pulled the blanket off the couch, draping it over me and thus, shielding me from the touch of his
edarratae
.

He senses that I’m awake.

“I can’t make this better,” he says softly, and a soul-crushing sense of failure moves through him.

I shake my head, turn slightly in his arms. I hate how he carries the world on his shoulders. He shouldn’t feel this way. He should be angry at the false-blood and at me for nearly getting him—us—killed. If he hadn’t recovered so quickly from the drugs we gave him . . .

“I understand why you did what you did,” he says. “I don’t agree with the decision, but I understand it.”

“Stop reading my mind,” I tell him, attempting to make my tone light.

I feel him smile. “I can’t do that,
kaesha
.”

No, he can only read my emotions and draw upon our ten-year history together. It would be so easy to fall into that past. He wants it. I want it.

But everything has changed, and I want Aren back more.

“I couldn’t save him,” I choke out.

“Hison had half a dozen swordsmen guarding him. It was impossible—”

“No.” I shake my head. “I made it to him. We got out of Hison’s office, but the false-blood . . .” I swallow. “I left Aren behind.” My chin quivers. “I couldn’t carry him and Lena, and I knew . . . I knew what I had to do, what you would do and . . . I left him.”

I fight back tears again because my anguish is killing Kyol. He takes my face between his palms, holds firmly, and looks me in the eyes. “Never second-guess what you’ve done, McKenzie. Never.”

His
edarratae
heat dual paths down my neck.

“I’m sorry,” I say, closing my eyes briefly, trying to focus. “I’m sorry I was so angry before. I know you didn’t want him to die, but I was just . . .” I draw in a breath. “I shouldn’t have attacked you like I did. I shouldn’t have drugged you. I respect you too much for that.”

Those words hurt him more than they help. He wants more than my respect. He wants me.

“Kyol, I can’t—”

“I understand, McKenzie,” he says quickly, using his words as a shield. “You don’t have to say anything. I understand. I lost any chance I might have had with you when I forced you into the life-bond.”

No, he lost his chance with me when I fell in love with Aren. I don’t correct him, though, because on some level, he’s right. Even with Aren out of the picture, I can’t be with Kyol. The life-bond changes everything. I don’t know how much of what I feel for him is real and how much is based on magic.

“You didn’t force me, Kyol. You saved my life, and”—I meet his eyes, don’t attempt to hide my emotions—“and I never thanked you for it. God, I’m so selfish. Kyol—”

“Shh.” He pulls me into his arms again, silencing me. I rest my head on his shoulder. I keep my eyes open because I’m afraid of what I’ll see if I close them. So I stare at the wall. Then at what’s resting at its base.

My bloodstained cargo pants and shirt are lying there. It seems like it was ages ago when I last slept here. I expected Nick to throw away or burn those clothes, but I’m glad he didn’t. Pushing away from Kyol, I stretch out and grab the pants. Curiosity moves through him as I reach into the pocket.

And pull out his name-cord.

His lips part, releasing a stunned breath. “You still have it.”

I nod, running my thumb across the smooth onyx stone and the rougher
audrin
. “It’s been through a lot these past few months.” Just like we have.

He meets my eyes. The silver storms in his calm, and he nods as he reaches out to take it.

The string of stones slides from my hand.

“Thank you,” he says softly, leaning back against the couch.

I fold my legs against my chest, rest my chin on my knee. I’ve described Kyol as feeling soul-weary before. That’s how I feel now. Soul-weary and hopeless. Kyol isn’t lending me strength anymore. The Realm—the world that he loves so much—is in the hands of a false-blood. He’s fought for the Realm his whole life, given up everything for it, but the hope he has for its future is gone. He feels as defeated as I do right now.

I close my eyes as I draw in a breath, open them when I slowly let it out. We’re still alive—so is Lena—and I’m not yet ready to give up this fight.

“The false-blood is Cardak,” I say.

Kyol must be lost in his own thoughts. He blinks a few times before he focuses on me.

“He’s Thrain’s brother,” I add.

His expression remains neutral, but a spike of surprise leaks through our life-bond.

“I recognized Thrain in him,” I say, and I tell Kyol everything that happened. I manage to talk about Shane and Trev, about Sosch, Lorn, and Aren, all without crying. And I tell him how I overcame the false-blood’s magic, thanks to our life-bond, and how Lena and I escaped through the tunnel. I’m finishing up my story, handing him the draw-stringed pouch that I drew Nimael’s shadows on, when there’s a light knock on the media room’s door.

Kynlee peeks her head in. “My dad wanted you to know that Lena’s waking up.”

 • • • 

“WE
lost the palace?” Lena asks a few minutes later. Her voice is weak and raspy, but I’m glad to hear her say something. She’s pale, her face is still bruised and swollen, her lip still busted. The rest of her injuries are covered by a heavy blanket, but I doubt she’s able to rise yet. It still looks like her hold on life is tenuous.

Kyol’s silver gaze doesn’t waver. “Yes.”

“But you made it out.”

“Yes,” he answers again. When he sits in a chair beside her bed, I lean against the guest room’s dresser.

“Did others make it out?”

“Some did,” he says in his deep monotone. “Most did not.”

She stares up at the ceiling. A chaos luster creeps across her face. Nick’s power is turned off, but she’s so weak, the dead tech still affects her.

“My allies among the high nobles.” She pauses, closing her eyes. “Did they survive?”

“I didn’t see every death,” Kyol says. “I heard rumors and the speculation of the
elari
.”

She opens her eyes. “Did Lord Raen survive?”

“No,” Kyol answers quietly.

Her lips thin. “Lord Brigo?”

“No.”

She names two of her other strongest allies. Both, according to rumor, are dead.

“Nalst?” she asks.

“Most of your swordsmen were executed, Lena. Dishonorably executed.”

Her face hardens. “Taber?”

Taber was Kyol’s right-hand man, his friend, and one of his most trusted soldiers. He answers, “Dead,” with the same emotionless monotone as he does the others.

“Brayan?” Lena asks.

“Dead,” Kyol says.

“Andur,” she names her advisor.

“Lena.” Kyol’s voice softens a fraction, and I feel his emotions gentling. This isn’t achieving anything; it’s only hurting her.

“Andur!” she demands.

Kyol lets out a sigh. “Dead as well.”

She goes on, naming fae after fae. Some names, I recognize. Most of them, I don’t. And most of them, I never will.

After a few minutes, a familiar sense of failure moves through Kyol. The deaths don’t just weigh heavily on Lena; they weigh heavily on him as well, and I feel his guilt, his remorse keenly. He couldn’t save the palace for Lena. He couldn’t save the lives of her most loyal swordsmen.

“Trev?” Lena asks. For the first time, her gaze goes to me.

I swallow down the lump in my throat, whisper, “Dead.”

She gives no reaction to my proclamation. I doubt she knew the way he felt about her, why he did whatever she said without protest or complaint.