Chapter 15
H e’s the Unseelie King.
That thought drowns out everything else as I stare wide-eyed at the man whose powerful stride brings him our way.
That dark lightning streaks through the air around us again, eliciting gasps and whimpers from the Unseelie. The Unseelie King is unphased by the strange magic.
My stomach turns over as understand clicks into place. He’s the source of the strange magic.
The Unseelie King walks like Elias. That same air of quiet authority hangs over him. I tense up as he comes to kneel in front of me, and I can’t make myself move. Like a deer in headlights, I’m frozen. If I hadn’t already been sitting on my legs on the ground, I’d have definitely fallen.
He’s the Unseelie King. The man who was kind. Who has helped me. Who I’m supposed to lead to his doom. He’s the most hated man in Faery, yet I’ve spent the last few nights asleep in his arms.
Elias, no, Kallan—for the man I thought I knew is nowhere to be seen—cups my cheek with his gauntleted hand, the metal cool and stark against my skin. Finally, my body does move, flinching away and curling in on myself. It’s only then that I realize I’m shaking.
Shock. This is shock, a distant logical part of my mind, the part that studied medicine and likes to examine and understand things, reminds me. Somehow, that knowledge helps, and the buzzing in my ears dies down enough for me to hear his next words.
“Who did this to you?” The Unseelie King looks from my face down to his gauntlet, to the smear of crimson there.
I blink at it, strangely detached. I didn’t even know I was bleeding, at least not there. My legs and hands are another story.
There’s a shuffling around me. Harsh words in a language I do not speak.
The Unseelie behind me shuffles back, their words filled with desperation.
The pointed feline ears atop Kallan’s head twitch, but otherwise, he shows no sign of listening to whatever the others are saying.
Instead, his gaze trails to something a few feet away on the ground.
My notebook. He grabs it before silently holding it out to me.
Words don’t come to me. All thoughts are a panicked jumble, but I take the notebook, scraped hands and blood be damned, and cradle it to my chest.
Kallan rises smoothly to his feet, and my eyes track the movement.
“You will speak in her tongue in her presence,” he commands the others. The harshness of his tone brooks no argument. He has not used his magic again, but an electrical charge remains in the air like a vicious promise.
Finally, I turn and look at the Unseelie who’d stalked me and grabbed me when I tried to run. They’ve hunched forward, unnaturally long arms curled in front of them. Twisting gray horns slant back over their ears and behind their bald head. Bits of my hair still dangle from their clawed hands.
“The eagle,” he stammers in my language this time. “She— She ran.”
“She’s bait,” Orek snaps. “No better than the last.”
The buzz in the air—the magic?—changes, drawing everyone silent.
There’s the slide and hiss of metal, and I look up just in time to see that Kallan has drawn his sword.
The long, silver blade is darkened in the middle, almost like it was left on a fire and charred.
A discordant hum fills the air, a song slightly out of tune.
“She’s not bait. She’s mine.” Kallan moves almost faster than my eyes can track. The blade whistles as it cuts through the air.
Screams erupt from the Unseelie who grabbed me, but then are suddenly silenced. Another whistle then a deep bellowed roar.
I hardly have time to understand what’s happening before the headless body of the Unseelie topples to the side.
Blood spurts, coating the ground as I scramble backward, away from the corpse.
My palm lands on something hard and smooth that rolls, leaving me unsteady.
I glance at it, at the pale twisting stretch of horn.
I understand Orek’s pained roar then, why he’s clutching at his head and spitting fury.
Then an arm is around me, gentle but firm, pulling me back and up against the solid planes of metal armor. I gasp, sucking in a breath, a woody, leathery scent filling my nose. His long sword is angled in front of us as he takes another step back, pulling me with him.
I should run. Scream. Fight. Anything.
But despite the violent display, I know he doesn’t intend to hurt me. What he did was for me. Retribution, no matter how terrible.
“Be glad it wasn’t all of your heads,” he snaps to his people.
Several of the gathered Unseelie drop in subservience.
Orek, one hand on his ruined horn, glares at his king with a look full of fury but manages to control his pain and anger enough to drop to one knee. He opens his mouth to speak, but the words never make it to us.
Suddenly, the world around me blurs. The air tightens. All at once, we’re in a different spot, and I’m seeing the Unseelie from outside their circle several feet away. Kallan’s arm flexes around me, the only thing keeping me upright.
“The rest of your things are in here?” he asks, his tone so much softer than a moment ago.
Blinking, I look over to see him holding my backpack by the strap as if it weighs nothing.
I nod, words still impossible.
It’s enough. Another heartbeat and the air constricts again, tight enough that I squirm in Kallan’s grip, especially as the grays and browns of the landscape around us seem to melt away. Color swirls. I can hardly tell which way is up and feel like I might faint.
Then, as quickly as it began, the movement stops.
Color and shape return, but the space that forms around us is entirely different than the one we left.
No longer are we out in the wilds of the Unseelie territory.
This is a room hewn of stone, a great gray dome above us and multiple curved archways leading off in various directions around us.
Each one I can see is decorated with shapes and symbols in a different single color, varying from arch to arch.
Torches flicker in sconces on the walls.
I’m still wobbly and trying to gain my bearings when Kallan scoops me up into his arms. A squeak escapes me, half shock, half pain as his arms and my clothing pull and press against my wounds.
“You will be okay,” he says softly. “You are safe now.”
Hallways pass in a blur of gray stone and colorful paint.
We pass several open windows that let in muted light and a cacophony of sound that reminds me of city streets if there were no cars.
But all I can see out of them is a continuous, painted stone facade, almost like a long building that runs parallel to the one we’re in.
This is a city of some sort. One full of life and people.
A far cry from the wilderness we hiked through.
The Unseelie we come across are sent hurrying off with commands from Kallan: find the healer, bring water, has Katiya returned?
That name I know. His sister. The Unseelie King’s sister.
When Elias had spoken her praise, I had no idea he was talking about the woman who captured the King of Air’s consort, Wren.
Or who nearly killed the King of the Court of the Forest with a poisoned arrow.
She was injured in the attack on the Court of Fire and has not been seen since, according to Madeline.
Was she alive? The powerful Unseelie woman whose magic earned her the title of null for her ability to pass through wards without detection and invalidate the strongest of tracking spells and bond marks simply by touching a person?
Apparently, she was.
What the coven would give for that information. But the thought sours, and I curl in on myself, burrowing against Kallan’s chest as he continues to navigate with ease through this maze of corridors.
Bait. My brain sticks on the word. Were others sent before me? Why wouldn’t they have told me that?
It’s a pretty huge detail to omit.
Kallan all but kicks open a wooden door and strides into a dark room.
With a quick word in his fae language—or at least, I assume that’s it since it sounds similar to the tone of what the Unseelie were speaking earlier—a ball of light flares to life before us, bathing the room in soft, buttery light.
The walls here are stark, undecorated stone.
No windows. No sound but the distant hum of conversation back down the hallway we left.
Little furniture decorates the space save for a bed with rumpled cream-colored coverings and a trunk at the end, a small table and two chairs, and a long desk stacked with books, papers, and various objects.
A moment later, Kallan has crossed the room and is laying me on top of the bed. The soft coverings cradle me in their embrace, but it’s firm enough that I don’t sink in.
Yet one thing bothers me. “The blood.” I stare pointedly at my knee, where my pants have ripped, revealing my badly scraped skin. Blood soaks the fringes of the fabric, and I have no doubt it’ll stain this bed. To say nothing of the dirt that must be all over me.
Kallan’s lips thin in a grimace. “I know. The healer should be here soon. You’re safe here.”
“No,” I say, voice weak. I start to shake my head. “That’s not what I meant.” I try to sit up, but he pushes gently back on my shoulder. The contrast between his fearsome black, metal armor and gentle touch is stark. “I’ll ruin the sheets.”
“The sheets?” he asks in disbelief, raking a hand through his long hair. “I do not care about bloody sheets. What are they compared to your well-being?”
I pull my bottom lip between my teeth. It sounds like something I would say to Matt.
Yet those are never words I would have expected from the Unseelie King.
It’s still hard to wrap my mind around what I’ve heard about him versus the man who carried me in here like a precious treasure.
It’s just one of the many quandaries chasing each other through my mind.