Chapter 51
FIFTY-ONE
CAIRN
It’s been three days of rising with barely any pause to rest. Someone must be carrying a ward, similar to the collar I placed around her throat, because I cannot find her.
I’ve felt her through the bond at times. Fear spiking at odd hours. Sometimes I catch glimpses through her eyes. A stretch of road that could be anywhere, someone’s hands hold the reins of the horse she’s on, the back of Brennan’s head when she stares at him every time they make camp.
I know the shape of his skull now. The way his hair curls at the nape of his neck. I’ve seen it a hundred times, and I’ve imagined a hundred ways to separate it from his shoulders.
But none of that tells me where she is.
I reach for the connection again, pushing until my head throbs. It wavers, thins, then slips away.
Gone. Again.
“You’re doing it again.” Therin’s voice comes from my left. “That’s the fourth time in the last hour. You’re going to burn yourself out.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” Selveryn shifts beneath me as Therin moves closer on Kaethros. “You haven’t slept since we left. You’ve barely spoken. And every time you reach for her, you come back looking worse.”
“What would you have me do? Stop trying?”
“I’d have you trust that we’re going to reach her.”
Trust. We’ve been riding for days, and should have passed them long before now.
I reach for the bond again. And this time, I catch something. Stone walls rising against the sky. A gate. Guards in the king’s colors.
The palace.
The connection slips away before I can see more.
“They’ve arrived at the palace.”
Therin swears. “How far away?”
“Half a day. Maybe less.”
I lean forward, and Selveryn responds, surging ahead. The others follow, hooves eating the ground in great silent strides, and the capital looms larger on the horizon.
The connection flickers again, fear flowing toward me with defiance beneath it.
Then it goes quiet.
We ride hard, eating up the distance between us and the city walls, then pain slams through the bond. Selveryn winks out of existence and I hit the ground hard.
“Cairn!” Therin’s voice is a distant shout as pure terror whites out everything and drags me into her mind.
A mage. There’s a mage in her head.
“Cairn?” Someone touches my back, but I can’t answer, because the mage’s magic is tearing through her, and I can feel it as though it’s happening to me.
She’s fighting. Throwing up walls, trying to shield things that matter to her. But she doesn’t know how to do this. No one has ever taught her, and the barriers she’s building are made out of desperation and instinct. The mage shreds through them with no effort at all.
Her scream tears through me. I hear it in my head, feeling it in my chest.
He’s taking her apart piece by piece, and I can’t stop him.
Moirthalen. Can you hear me?
I try to get her attention through the pain.
Cairn.
She heard me. Through the agony and terror, she heard me.
I’m here, Moirthalen. Hold on. Don’t let him find it. You need to push him out.
How? I don’t know how.
Her voice is ragged, breaking apart. I can feel her slipping, her thoughts scattering. She’s trying so hard to hold on, and it’s not enough. The way she’s doing it is never going to be enough.
She builds another wall anyway. I feel her pour everything she has into it. Every scrap of will she has left. The barrier is rough, uneven, and riddled with cracks.
But it holds … for now.
The mage slams against it. And the impact shudders through her, through me, and through the bond that connects us. Spiderweb lines crack across the wall she’s built. He hits it again. And each impact sends pain through both of us.
She’s not going to last. She can’t. He’s too strong, too experienced, and she’s already on the brink of exhaustion.
There’s a way to stop this, but you have to trust me.
How?
The magic that’s been weaving around you. The Nightwild Guard. If you accept it, I can reach you. I can help you fight him.
What will it do to me?
She wants to know if it will change her, and the truth is I don’t know. I could lie. I could tell her it’s safe. I could promise her things I have no right to do.
I don’t know. It won’t kill you, I know that much. But if you don’t, then the mage is going to take everything you are, Moirthalen.
Another wall crumbles. The mage surges forward, reaching for memories of the village, and faces of everyone who helped us.
Alleria … Aethryn. The word slips out before I can stop it. Aethryn—my love.
Aethryn, please. Let me in.
She’s drowning, her mind fragmenting under the assault, thoughts scattering faster than she can gather them.
She can’t hold the walls and think at the same time.
She can’t fight the mage and make a decision.
She’s losing, and she knows she’s losing.
The terror of that is bleeding through the bond in waves.
So I do something I have never done before.
I reach through the bond with everything I am. Every scrap of power I have. I take hold of the connection between us and I build. Not just a wall around her mind, but a space. A pocket of stillness inside the chaos, where the mage won’t be able to follow for a little while.
It costs me. Gods, it costs me. I can feel my magic draining out of me.
My vision swims. My hands shake where they’re braced against the ground.
Somewhere far away, I can hear Therin’s voice, but I can’t answer him.
I can’t do anything except pour myself into this barrier, this moment of quiet I’m carving out for her.
The world shifts …
And then she’s in front of me. Not the real her, but an image built from her consciousness. Her body is still in the room while the mage batters against the barrier I’ve built. But the part of her that matters is here, standing in the darkness with me.
She looks exhausted. Her hair is tangled, her eyes red-rimmed. There’s blood at the corner of her mouth—an echo of what’s happening to her flesh.
“Cairn?” Her voice shakes. “What is this? Where are we?”
“Between. Between your mind and mine.” I move toward her. “He can’t reach us here. But we don’t have long.”
She looks around, but there’s nothing to see other than emptiness stretching in every direction.
“I can’t feel him.” Relief creeps into her voice. “He was tearing through everything and now—”
“He still is. I’m holding him back for now.”
She looks at me then, taking in the sweat beading on my face, the strain I’m sure that’s visible around my eyes.
“You’re hurting yourself.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Cairn—”
“It doesn’t matter.” I close the distance between us and cup her face between my palms. “The only thing that matters is keeping him out long enough for you to think.”
The barrier shudders, the mage’s magic scraping against it. I grit my teeth.
“You said you don’t know what it will do to me.”
“I don’t.”
“You said no human has ever—”
“They haven’t.”
She holds my gaze. Her eyes are tired and afraid.
The barrier cracks. We’re running out of time.
My thumb brushes over her lips.
“The magic chose you, Alleria. It’s been reaching for you since the beginning. I have to believe that means something.”
Her eyes search my face. I lean my forehead against hers.
“Aethryn, please.”
She closes her eyes. The barrier begins to fail, crumbling under the mage’s onslaught. Her fingers come up to stroke over my jaw, then her lips touch mine.
“Yes. I accept.”
The Nightwild magic doesn’t need anything more.
It surges through me with a violence that makes her gasp, weaving around her, binding her tighter, linking her to the Guard in ways they will feel.
On the periphery of my awareness, the fae surrounding me echo her gasp, and I throw out a hand, drawing on their power, even as I ready my own, and pour it into Alleria.
It wraps around her mind, forming a barrier the mage will never break through, and then I’m thrown back into my body.
“Cairn?” Therin is on his knees beside me. “What is happening?”
I shake my head. I can’t answer. I’m still reeling from the shift, adjusting to the new thread that’s been woven into my soul, in ways that the Nightwild magic has never done before.
I can feel everything about her—the exhaustion, the fear she’s desperately trying to hide.
But more than that. I can feel the mage. He’s still there, still battering at her defenses, but the Nightwild magic holds. He throws himself against it again and again, and each time he comes away with nothing.
I have you, I whisper down the thread. He can’t reach you now.
Relief floods back through the connection.
I should pull back, return to my body and let the bond settle into whatever shape it’s going to take. But I can’t. I don’t want to leave her defenseless. So I stay.
I wrap myself around her mind like armor, thorns facing outward, and I hold. My body is on the ground outside the capital, the hands of my Guard all touching me, gifting me their strength. But the part of me that matters is with her, anchored to the bond, refusing to let go.
The mage throws himself against the barrier once more, frustration bleeding through his magic. And then just as suddenly as it started … the pain stops.
I push to a seated position, wiping away the sweat dripping into my eyes with the back of my hand, and look at each of the fae kneeling around me in turn.
“Can you stand?” Therin’s voice is close to my ear.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.” Therin grips my arm and helps me to my feet.
I don’t answer him. Part of my mind is still anchored to her, holding the thorned barrier in place. I glance down, and Sylveren forms beneath me. I grip his mane, steadying myself.
“We need to move.” My voice comes out rough. “We’re going to be seen if we stay here. Mount up.”
All of them look like they want to argue with me, but their steeds materialize and they take up positions around me. We get no more than three paces before pain explodes through the bond again.
Not a magical assault this time, but physical. A fist across her face.
They’ve realized the mage can’t break her, so they’re going to break her body instead.
“Fuck.” I slide off Selveryn before I fall, as every impact ricochets through me.
They’re hurting what is mine … again.
The thought burns through me, followed by fury so hot and dark it fills every space inside me until there’s nothing else.
“Cairn?” Therin’s voice. “Talk to me.”
But I can’t. The rage is a living thing now, clawing at the inside of my chest.
Another blow connects with her face. Blood fills her mouth.
And the Nightwild magic surges in response, rising to meet my fury, swelling beyond anything I’ve felt since before the collar went around my throat—
And the demand rips out of me.
It tears through me like a beast that’s been caged too long and has finally broken free. Three hundred years of rage and grief and helpless fury, compressed into a single command that races along the threads connecting me to the Guard surrounding.
But it doesn’t stop there. It reaches further … deeper. Seeking out threads I haven’t felt in centuries …
My call hits the iron.
And the iron breaks.
The first collar shatters somewhere to the east. I feel it go—the snap of metal, and I send a rush of power flooding into a body that’s been starved for so long it has forgotten what power feels like. A scream rushes down the thread back to me. Not of pain, but of release.
Another collar breaks. South, this time. Then west. Then north.
I feel each one.
With each broken collar, a thread snaps back into place.
Therin’s blazes bright beside me. Vel’s pulses steadily.
Kaelith, Caelum, Vessara, Serath, and Sorel behind them.
Alleria’s is weak, new. And beyond hers, four more.
The last of the Nightwild Guard, collared and scattered.
The iron falls from their throats, and I send a surge of magic into each of them.
There’s no time to wait for them to heal. I need them now.
There are twelve threads burning bright through me for the first time in three hundred years.
But it doesn’t stop there.
The summons keeps racing outward, and it no longer cares that the fae it reaches don’t belong to the Nightwild Guard. All it cares about is that every collared, caged and broken creature wearing iron across this kingdom should be freed.
I feel them. Hundreds of them. Fae in preserves waiting to be hunted. Fae in private collections, kept as curiosities. Fae in noble houses, used for entertainment and sport.
The summons hits their collars, and the iron shatters.
Not all of them can answer the call. But enough do.
Enough feel the iron fall away and remember.
Enough feel the magic flood back and rise.
Enough feel the call thundering through the threads—
To me. The Nightwild Guard rides.
—and they answer.
I push myself up from the ground. Selveryn forms beneath me once more. The fae around me are staring.
“What did you just do?” Vel whispers.
I smile, and my armor flows over my body, twin blades appearing in my hands.
“I called them home.”
The Nightwild Guard is rising.
And we are coming for her.
Cairn and Alleria’s story continues in Book 2.
Coming soon.