Chapter 15 #2
Kallen’s expressions were usually subtle, but something had changed between us in the last few days—either I was reading him much better, or he wasn’t bothering to guard his emotions as much around me.
The relief that passed over his face was obvious.
“Good. I want to meet you for nightly sparring sessions.”
“Nightly?” My eyebrows shot up. “Don’t you have better things to do with your time?”
“No.”
I supposed preserving my life so I could choose Hector would be near the top of his priority list. I sighed, rubbing my forehead. The headache had diminished thanks to the bath and the tea, but I wasn’t eager to get knocked down again. “Fine. Where?”
“There’s a training room between our houses that will work. I’ll come get you tomorrow night.”
“You’re not going to start swinging a sword at me tonight?”
He shook his head. “You need rest. But I am going to teach you more about iron—and find out what else you need to learn about being Fae.”
He told me the dampening effect of iron required a direct touch of skin or magic, so anyone wearing it—either shackles or armor that surrounded that well of inner power—would be impacted no matter what.
In terms of casting against someone wearing iron, as I’d attempted tonight, the effectiveness varied.
If that Sun Soldier hadn’t been wearing a helmet and I’d tried to liquefy his brain without touching him, my powers likely wouldn’t have been lost. That was how Osric had been able to torture prisoners with hallucinations—Illusion magic impacted the mind, so it didn’t spill over into the rest of the body to encounter the manacles.
In terms of the other executions I’d witnessed, Roland’s ability to focus light so precisely had preserved his power, and when Oriana had torn a prisoner apart with vines, she’d kept the plants away from the iron at his wrists.
Drustan and Hector, though, would have both briefly lost their magic the night of the first state dinner.
Fire was nearly impossible to keep precisely contained, and Drustan had chosen the fastest death for the asrai he’d been tasked with executing—a mercy I now realized had come at his own expense.
Likewise, when Hector had ripped a faerie apart with the dark holes he’d carved in the air, his power would have contacted iron when the victim was sucked inside.
“Blood and Illusion faeries seem like they have an advantage, so long as no one’s wearing a helmet,” I pointed out. “Since they can target the brain.”
“They do, but only if the attacking faerie is well trained. Magic has a tendency to spill out and get messy during times of stress.”
“Why would two houses have an advantage like that?”
“Why do Void faeries feel least powerful at midday and Light faeries feel least powerful at midnight?” He raised his hand, teetering it back and forth. “Everything in Mistei is a balance.”
“Like how I can’t sense your heartbeat when you’re in shadow form.”
“Can you not?” When I made a face, he smirked. “You should be cautious about revealing weaknesses like that.”
“Except when it comes to you, I’m sure.”
There was a wicked glint in his eye. “I strive to be the exception to everything.”
The talk of battle led to an assessment of my own arsenal, and I had to admit I had no idea how to wield any of the weapons on the walls downstairs.
I explained more about my bond with Caedo, and Kallen told me there were rumored to be other artifacts like that.
When the Shards had exploded magic over the world, some of it got tangled in the trees and rocks rather than finding a home within Fae bodies, and over time those deposits gained form and sentience.
I wondered if the dagger’s consciousness had grown in a vein of ore. Caedo didn’t answer when I asked. I couldn’t tell if it even remembered where it had come from.
At least now I had an answer to the mystery of why Caedo had gone silent and still when I cast against iron. It was magic. Pure magic, fallen from the stars. The dagger was part of me now, and the iron had stolen that power away like it had the rest.
Kallen seemed to enjoy playing the tutor. He was patient, approaching each topic in detail. “Magic isn’t infinite,” he told me, hands moving gracefully as he painted a picture in the air. “It can be depleted by overuse, though it always replenishes itself.”
“I did know that one,” I told him, tucking a lock of wet hair behind my ear self-consciously. As always with my hair, it didn’t want to stay constrained, and tendrils were slipping loose. “I started to get dizzy in the throne room.”
Kallen’s gaze followed the movement of my hand. “That will get better with time. But it will always be more draining to kill with magic than to do anything else with it.”
“Why?”
“If it wasn’t difficult, what’s to stop someone like Drustan from torching an entire battlefield?
The magic keeps itself in check in ways we don’t entirely understand.
” His gaze grew shadowed. “Some faeries have greater endurance when it comes to killing. Roland was notorious for his ability to execute prisoners without needing to rest. And Osric…”
I’d seen what Osric was capable of. That was what happened when limitless cruelty met raw power.
Kallen’s eyes were distant, like he was looking at something beyond the room.
“Osric cast more illusions during the first civil war than anyone realized was possible. He forced his enemies to run into swords or maddened them until they killed themselves. And he did it again and again in the years after. Centuries of executions, wherever and whenever he wanted to.”
“His power was never depleted?”
“I’m sure it was, but no one would have been able to tell when, because he liked to force others to kill for him, too. It never ended.”
Kallen’s face had become blank. It was like watching a lake ice over, like watching something rare die.
I only knew the smallest portion of what he’d experienced, yet I couldn’t imagine surviving centuries with Osric. “Kallen,” I whispered, brushing my fingers over his hand.
He blinked slowly, dark lashes veiling exhaustion-shadowed eyes. I wondered when he’d last felt content or well rested.
Never, maybe.
“I would kill Osric again if I could,” I said. “I’d kill him worse.”
The words seemed to shake Kallen out of the trance he’d fallen into. He looked sideways at me, lips quirking the slightest amount. “You did plenty. It was a good death.”
Was it? I thought of Osric’s throat splitting under my dagger. His ragged screams, the lake of blood spreading beneath him, the fear in those purple eyes as I’d listed who I was taking vengeance for: Anya, Mistei…and me. “I don’t know. It could have been more painful.”
Kallen let out a soft sound, half laugh and half sigh. “I don’t think anything would have been painful enough.”
A lock of dark hair clung to his neck, still damp from the wet towel. He wore his hair shorter than many of the Fae, the ends brushing his collarbones. I wondered how often he’d had to wash blood out of the strands.
Maybe that was why he wore it short.
Silence lingered between us. It felt sad but not uncomfortable. The ghost of the past was in the room with us, and we were listening to its whispers.
“Will Light House know it was us today?” I asked quietly. “Will they seek vengeance?”
“My soldiers searched the area. No one was nearby, and the bodies are being disposed of, but depending on who else knew the soldiers’ route, it may become obvious where they went missing.”
I shivered. “The one who stabbed me…He said they would want me to suffer. He didn’t say who they were, but it had to be Torin and Rowena, right?”
A muscle in Kallen’s jaw flexed. “Yes. The bonebreaker salamander would have needed to be imported from Lindwic, and I’m sure it was expensive. But Rowena is a poison collector, and she can afford it.”
Strange things can happen in the dark. “I suppose they’ll keep trying to kill me.”
“I’ll kill them first,” Kallen said darkly. He turned his hand over, lacing his fingers through mine.
I looked down at where we touched, my breath coming faster. It was an odd moment of intimacy, framed in the threat of violence. There were calluses on his palm and fingers that could only be explained by a lifetime of warfare.
He’d ripped out someone’s throat with that hand.
My pulse was tapping too quickly. I felt the urge to squirm on the seat—away from him, towards him, some combination of the two. Gentle touches weren’t something I was particularly used to. And gentle touches from him…I didn’t know what to think of them.
“Do you think the council will be angry?” I asked, trying to act as if holding hands was a perfectly ordinary thing for us to do. “Drustan will probably say it was reckless to murder Light faeries in the public hallways. Bad politics.”
Kallen’s fingers tightened on mine. “Fuck Drustan,” he said with sudden vehemence, eyes flooding black with Void power. The air chilled, and goose bumps rose on my skin. “They deserved worse than they got.”
I felt a flush of heat despite the cold emanating from him. Part embarrassment, but also part…something else. Something strange and violent and complicated. “I’m sorry you had to do that for me.”
“I’m not.”
“Don’t those deaths weigh on you?”
“Do they weigh on you?”
I hesitated, then gave him the truth. “I wish I felt worse about them.”
The black leached from his eyes, leaving only midnight blue. “Would you take them back if you could?”
I shook my head.
“Even if killing the Sun Soldiers was bad politics?” he pressed. “Even if Torin and Rowena find out what happened tonight? You could tell them it was entirely my doing, try to preserve an advantage for later—”
“No.” That much I knew. “You were trying to save me. You were in danger—”
“I wasn’t really—”