Chapter 15
T he Other prowls through the Undercity—a dark, lofty excavation fixed with a web of bridges that reach across the hollow, only a scatter of torches to sketch out the shape of things.
Not that she needs light.
Her inky, glitter-kissed eyes glint in the dark as she hunts, clutching the blade used to bleed the young one until she bled no more.
Breathed no more.
Was no more.
Bringing the hilt to her nose, she sniffs—long and deep—catching another hint of this murderous male’s smoky, leathery scent.
He would beg for mercy before the end—of that, she was certain. Not that it would earn him any.
Eyes wild like her bloody thoughts, The Other creeps down an uneven path, scouring the cavern’s vast expanse while numerous stares slice across her too-fragile skin. Those of Shade-born predators who’ve snuck in through collapsed mine shafts. Who also have exceptional vision, hibernating in dark corners, eating their prey in peace and languishing in nests of bones.
The Other does not pay them heed. She holds no ill blood over those who kill to survive, to feed, or to protect their young.
But those who kill to hurt the one she loves? The one she nests within ?
They deserve to be torn apart piece by piece. Skin peeled free like strips of bark. Feasted on while their warm heart still pumps—
However.
The Other stills, gaze dropping to the scrap of material tangled around the thin, vulnerable neck of her precious, pliant host, wondering if she should use it to cover her face. Raeve is always so careful to camouflage when she’s spilling blood, strange as it is. Blood should be worn with honor. A boast of fresh meat and full bellies.
Of predators gone.
But The Other respects her host despite her small hands and tiny teeth that are near hopeless for chewing things with any true substance. She decides to adhere to the odd tradition, frowning as she gathers the material and tucks it around her mouth and nose.
There.
She charges down a jagged stairway, deeper into the dark. Pausing midway over a bridge, she peers at another stretch of stone that cuts across the eerie chasm directly beneath, head cocked to the side …
Perhaps the armored soldiers flattened against the walls of twin alcoves on either ends of the bridge below believe they are hidden.
Not from her.
She was born in the darkness. To her, their bodies are luminous —as if lit by the torches they must’ve extinguished when they laid their little trap.
The Other feeds on the squishy sounds their hearts make, digesting their near-silent whispers:
“Think I’ll get in trouble if I piss over the edge?”
“I wouldn’t do it. Not unless you wanna risk gettin’ your balls fried.”
The Other scowls at their crude language, wondering if possible mates of their own fae species find that sort of thing attractive. She most certainly does not.
“It’s been a while. I think nobody’s comin’.” A brief pause, then, “Perhaps the Ath bitch was the one he already stabbed? Was his informant certain she had black hair?”
“Long, black, and straight, skin like snow. Heard it with my own ears. She’ll come, I can feel it in my bones.”
The Other drops into a low crouch and leans forward, claiming a clearer view.
“What if she doesn’t bring reinforcements and this was all a waste of time for a single rebel? We shoulda just found a way to storm her dwelling, then I wouldn’t be standin’ here ready to piss myself.”
“Nobody in their right mind would come down here alone. But if she does, at least she’ll be easy to dispose of. I’d like to be home before the rise. I’m fuckin’ starved.”
The Other decides these fae deserve the grisly end that’s coming for them, though she regrets not having more time to draw it out.
Make them weep .
She scours every one of the soldiers while pulling deep whiffs of the hot, humid air, seeking the one who stamped his scent on the blade, frowning.
This Rekk is smarter than the ones waiting in such obvious places. No matter. He, too, will be lured out by blood.
She cracks a smile.
Lots of it.
Silently skulking farther along the bridge, The Other tucks the dagger away, pausing atop the group of heavily armored males at the northern end. She rips the iron ring off her finger, opening herself to the Creators. To songs she’s studied from below the crust of her icy lake whenever they howl, squeal, or shriek down from above.
She does not cower from the clamor against her eardrums. She wears pain like a safety net— one with the terrible tunes penetrating her small, too-delicate ears and violent mind.
She leaps.
Falls.
Lands in a crouch before a group of unassuming males—hands clawed, a savage sort of glee spread across her face.
She sings Clode’s strangling tune before the beaded soldiers get a chance to speak a single word.
It’s not a gentle song. The Other does not leave room for mercy. There are no sips of breath for gasped begging. Instead, she minces their lungs in an instant, reveling in their horrified agony.
Blood erupts from the soldiers’ mouths, their bulging eyes leaking ruddy tears as they claw at their throats, some falling where they stand. Others try to escape, staggering into walls or off the bridge, dead long before they hit the ground.
The Other rips twin daggers free of her bandolier, spinning. Flicking them through the air. The blades slice toward the far side of the bridge, into the eyes of two soldiers just beyond the reach of her strangling tune before they have a chance to wield their own words.
They crumble where they stand.
Another soldier trips on the corpses, tumbling over the edge. The sound of his body breaking against a lower bridge thumps through the chaos.
A ruthless smile spreads across The Other’s face—no longer reminiscent of her fiercely beautiful host. Now sharp and savage.
Monstrous.
More blades whizz through the air, The Other’s deadly sky-borne blows finding home in flesh and bone, slotting into the frail slits between sturdy plates of armor.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Soldiers fall in a clatter of metal and meat while The Other sings the air into nothingness, stripping the oxygen and nulling the soldiers’ ability to sing. Making the atmosphere inhospitable for the flames her opponents need to see what she’s doing. Where her blades are being aimed.
They thought the darkness was their ally, but it was their ruin. As it so often is for many who underestimate the shroud of a sunless sky.
A storm of unforeseen reserve troops spill from the southern tunnel, screaming.
Charging.
One orders the bridge to split before The Other can pulverize his lungs, and cracks weave through the stone.
The bridge jerks .
She falters, hissing through bared teeth, catching her footing with a fist firmly planted on the rock. “ Glei te ah no veirie nahh, ” she screams, whipping up her head. “ Glei te ah no veirie !”
Clode churns into a squealing dance of snipped breaths and collapsing airways, barging into soldiers’ chests in gusty shoves, tossing them off the crumbling bridge with a spray of stone.
Many try to retreat, though only a few make it back into the tunnel.
The Other laughs, pushing to a stand, hunting the clutch of deserters, her swift steps gaining ground until she’s close enough to sink iron daggers into the back of their necks with a flick of her wrist. She leaps, pouring upon another like a seething wave, ripping his head back and slashing his throat.
Blood sprays, coating her hands and face.
She charges the remaining two, salivating for the taste of their blood on her lips. She draws closer.
Closer.
The tunnel opens, and she passes into a small circular cavern lit by so many flaming sconces she’s forced to squint, her sooty eyes not attuned to the harsh glare.
The hairs on the back of her neck lift—
A loud clanking has her whipping around to see a door of metal bars now blocking the exit. Locking her in.
She hisses, spinning in a churn of black hair, blood, and spitting rage, appraising the many soldiers lining the cavern’s wall—arm to arm, red helmets hiding their faces and swords braced at their hips.
A trap.
A fight ring .
Some of them sing spitting, hissing tunes, flames whipping from elemental containment wealds and lit sconces.
Spearing straight for her.
With a lashing sneer, The Other sings Clode’s suffocating tune. “ Glei te ah no veirie . Ata nei del te nahh . Mele , Clode . Mele !”
The ribboning flames sputter into oblivion, as with most of the lit sconces dotted around the walls, filling the cavern with a blissful gloom.
Many soldiers drop to their knees, clawing at their throats.
The Other descends on one of the two who beat her here, slashing a blade through the gap in his armor. His intestines bulge from the gory hack, and she’s on the next in an instant, wrapping her limbs around his head and lashing it to the side. His neck snaps with a satisfying crack , and he falls to the ground in a floppy heap at her feet.
Surveying her remaining opponents, she releases a deep, bellowing word that gouges a path up her throat. Like she just heaved a sharp stone from the pit of her gut.
“ Vobanth !”
The cavern shakes with Bulder’s answer—a jagged cleft prying the ground apart, yawning like the crooked maw of some great beast.
Soldiers scream, hands whipping out to steady themselves against the rough-hewn wall, some falling into the grinding abyss, crushed by the shifting stone to the tune of breaking bones and popping skulls.
Blood and brain matter spray from the rumbling sever as it chews .
The soldiers stagger, looking between each other, the stench of urine wafting through the air as they appear to realize they’ve trapped themselves inside a cage with a monster. A fierce, powerful monster who should have two beads hanging from her lobe rather than the null clip in the tip of her tapered ear.
If they were aware she only knew how to correctly pronounce a few of Bulder’s words, perhaps they wouldn’t be so scared. Even so, The Other preens at the fear in their eyes, a sharp smile splitting her blood-splattered face into something charmed from the depths of a gory terror.
Such paltry opponents.
She will crush them all, then bathe in their blood before she ruptures free of this cage and hunts this Rekk , smothered in the grume of his fallen brethren.
There’s a sharp pinch in her right shoulder, and the clamorous tunes penetrating her small, fragile eardrums hush.
Gone.
The Other frowns.
The wet groans of dying fae would be music to her ears if she weren’t familiar with this particular form of silence.
She slaps her hand on the back of her shoulder, fingering the stinging puncture, frowning when the tips come away with the smell of her precious host’s blood—eyes widening as she realizes she’s been shot.
With iron .
She spins toward the barred entryway, gaze narrowing on the fae behind it armed with a slingshot that rests against the bars.
Pointed at her.
Tossing a black hood off his head, the male shucks his cloak to reveal black leather pants and a loose white shirt that’s partially undone at the neck.
The Other takes in his long pale hair and cerulean eyes. The stick of rolled parchment pinched between his lips leaking smoke that wafts around his face.
The red and brown beads hanging from his lobe.
Most of all, she notes the lax confidence in the way he holds himself—hip resting against the edge of the tunnel like he’s enjoying the scenery.
Nostrils flared, The Other tips her head and draws deep, catching a hint of his leathery, smoke-ridden scent. The same dense smell on the dagger still tucked in her sheath.
The veins in her temple and throat bulge, jaw trembling with her welling rage.
Rekk Zharos.
“You’re the one who killed our Essi,” she growls, her voice a graveled discord of strained vocals and feral disposition.
“The little redhead?” Rekk drawls, pulling the weapon from the bars and dumping it on the ground. Snagging the smoking stick between his lips, he draws a deep breath, his next words a thick pour of white. “She screeched like a strangled bird when I slid that blade into her gut.”
The Other sneers, charging toward the bars.
“ Stisssteni tec aagh vaghth—fiyah ,” Rekk spits past curled lips, as if the words burned a trail up his throat before they singed free.
Flames stream from the remaining torches, ribbons of it now churning around The Other in billowing swirls that nip too close to her vulnerable skin, capturing her in a fist of fire impossible to escape. Not without a Fleshthread nearby to mend the burns she would endure.
Hands crunching into fists, she studies Rekk’s every move: the fluttered pulse in his neck; the way his lean body shifts as he unlocks the bars and swaggers into the cavern, sharp features lit by the churning flames; the bloody spurs on the backs of his boots rattling every time he steps.
His eyes glint with sadistic satisfaction while he takes The Other in, then the bloody mess she made of his comrades.
He clicks his tongue, pale brows inching up his forehead. “Impressive.”
The Other snarls, leaning dangerously close to the roaring inferno while sweat gathers on her brow and down the line of her spine. Teeth bared, she froths for his blood. For the feel of his flesh shredding between her teeth, dismal as they are.
Rekk presses the smoke stick between his lips, draws a languid puff, then flicks the butt away and pulls a coiled whip from where it’s tethered to a hook at his hip. With a twitch of his wrist, the black tendril snaps through the blaze, binding The Other in a rigid embrace that secures her arms to her sides, legs clamped together. As if cocooned by some silk-threading creature preparing her for feasting.
She falls to her knees, hissing sharp breaths while Rekk charms his flames toward the torches lining the walls. Releasing her from the fiery swirl, though bringing her no closer to the freedom she lost.
She lost.
Rekk snatches the bloody veil, exposing her. His eyes widen as she snarls through clenched teeth, jerking against her binds.
She.
Lost.
“Not at all what I was expecting,” Rekk murmurs, frowning. His hand comes forward, knuckles grazing her cheek. “Seems a shame to feed such a pretty, powerful thing to the dragons …”
With a snap of her teeth, she snags his finger and bites .
Hard.
Rekk roars, trying to yank his hand free. The remaining soldiers bellow, charging toward their growling prisoner while she gnaws through the knobbly knuckle with the fervor of a famished beast.
It pops free, the severed tip dropping into her mouth.
Rekk stumbles back and lifts his trembling hand to his face, blood streaking down his arm. Onto the ground.
Drip.
Drip.
She spits the tip, boasting a smile that’s all teeth and blood.
Rekk blinks, stark eyes focusing on the gory stub before he tips his head and roars with laughter, abusing the sound until it’s bruised and weary.
The Other’s smile falls.
Rekk locks eyes with her again, crunches his bloody, disfigured hand into a ball, pulls his arm back, and swings his fist at her face.
A blinding explosion of pain before darkness consumes her.