10. Stilled
T he ritual had to be completed tonight. The pressure that Kael was under to perform only intensified the wrenching chaos of his magic. Control was well out of reach; the best he could hope for was to maintain some semblance of it while Werryn completed the truncated rites that he’d rewritten for time. They were bare-bones. No sermon, no prayer. No audience tonight, either. The nervous energy of the Lesser Prelates was distracting enough as it was.
Werryn had hardly begun speaking before the shadows tore out of Kael at full force, a caged animal finally set loose. He had felt them in his chest since his failure on Nocturne, waiting coiled, ready to spring. The pain of their leaching from his skin was almost cathartic: he was giving in, giving his magic the freedom it had been craving since he reined it in. He thought he should do so more often.
It pulled towards tonight’s tether, the traitorous human girl he’d tossed in his dungeon for just this purpose. A cruel smile tugged at his lips as he raised his head. He was eager to watch his shadows rip her apart, to feel them devour her from the inside out and drain her worthless life force until there was nothing left.
But then their eyes met. And his shadows stilled, along with something else somewhere inside of him. And for the first time in a long time—maybe in the whole of his long, long life—Kael was afraid. And he hated it.
So he dropped his head again and focused his gaze on the earth. On each tiny, individual grain of soil. The stones, the bits of decaying pine needles and the pointed corner of a rune carved there. He urged his shadows ahead to snake across The Cut and he begged silently for the Low One to strengthen them, to bless his court for the coming winter. He compelled his magic to kill that infernal girl, but it was as unwilling as ever to heed his instruction. Instead, when he glanced up again, its tendrils were exploring her. Drawing from her, still, but only very little. Not nearly enough to ground him.
“ Finish it.” Kael hardly managed to force the words through gritted teeth. Every inch of him burned, pulsing in time with the surges of black energy that shot from his body out to the very tips of the trails.
The next thing Kael saw was the satisfied look on the High Prelate’s face, and the slow ebb of his shadows as they retracted towards him. Kael extended his hands to receive them but could scarcely hold his own two arms out in front of himself. His chest heaved and he fell forward, spent .
Kael remained in The Cut long after the others had departed. The simple act of pushing himself up onto his feet had been monumental, so he stayed propped against a tree, watching each candle burn itself out one at a time. He barely had the energy to think straight, but his mind churned all the same.
The fragile balance between his morality and the raw power that coursed through him was a delicate thread to walk upon—and he did not do so well. But tonight, he thought that he felt the faintest flicker of it when he saw his shadows reflected in the girl’s wide, terror-filled eyes. Whether it was or not, though, mattered little. Morality wasn’t what had halted his magic mid-motion, nor was it what had kept those winding black threads from tearing through her soft flesh. That, Kael had no explanation for. It vexed him to no end. In that split-second, the girl seemed to have more control over his shadows than he did. But was it over his magic that she held some sort of power? Or was it over Kael himself?
When he fixed his eyes on the last flickering flame that danced in the darkness, the wide-open clearing began to close in, suffocating him. Whispers of doubt taunted him with insidious words. Anger, the constant undercurrent to his thoughts, simmered just beneath those venomous barbs. Where he had for so long placed his faith in the Low One, in the belief that he was chosen for greatness by the deity himself, Kael now felt abandoned. The shadow magic he wielded had once made him feel invincible. He had believed that with its power, he could reshape Wyldraíocht as he wished. But instead, it was taking control of him and molding him into something he didn’ t recognize.
Amidst his choking doubts, Kael questioned whether he was truly blessed by the Low One or merely a pawn in a cruel cosmic game. He dug his nails into his palms and fought back the urge to draw his sword and slash at the altar until it was nothing more than a pile of branches on the ground. His eyes played over the triangular form, its peak in line with the apex of the moon’s arc through the sky this time of year. Before he could move towards it, a breeze rustled through the trees overhead and the sound steadied him. His deity had remained there with him, had felt what Kael felt and had heard his every thought, and now those vicious whispers in Kael’s head were no longer his own, and no longer as harsh. A reason, the Low One intoned sweetly. I chose you for a reason.
The Unseelie King was unaccustomed to being enticed by others; he was usually the one who held the power in such situations. Yet, there was something in the audacious pixie who dared to challenge him that he found intriguing. Something about the way she’d navigated him, guided him, without once making him feel vulnerable. But this human girl, curled in on herself on the dirt floor of his dungeon, wasn’t her. This was an imposter, a liar. She’d used him. He’d come to expect such transgressions by now, and he was disturbed that he’d let it happen again so easily.
And yet he would have gone back for more.
The thought of taking her right there in the garden had crossed his mind unbidden when he had her squirming body pinned to that tree, a flash as brief as a strike of lightning, but the idea had repulsed him as quickly as it had come. It did even more so now as he regarded her through the iron bars. His lip curled back from his teeth when he once again felt the ghost of her fingers brushing across his skin.
Someone had left a small cup of water for her, probably all she’d been given in the days since the ritual. She was likely rationing it. Kael slid the toe of his boot between the bars and knocked it onto its side. They both watched the water trickle out, only to be sucked down into the dirt. Her face remained expressionless.
“Tell me what you are,” he commanded.
Aisling raised her head from where she’d had it cradled in one of her arms and squinted as though the low light from the lantern he held was blinding. Weak human eyes took so long to adjust. “I don’t understand.”
“If you truly are a human, then tell me where you came by the magic you used in The Cut.” An amulet, perhaps, or some sort of sigil she carried hidden away. She would have bargained for it, and magic that strong would have cost her dearly.
She pushed herself up to sit. “I have no magic.”
“You lie,” Kael bit back.
“I’m telling you the truth. I didn’t do anything.” She remained stoic despite his pressing, which only served to heat his blood further.
“You repelled my shadows.”
She held out one of her arms to show the abrasions that encircled it, still crusted with dried blood. “Hardly. ”
“Your fear smells, Highness.” A teasing voice curled out of a cell deeper in the cavern and the prisoner there took an exaggerated breath in through their nose. “Like burning leaves.”
“Quiet, sylph,” Kael growled. He’d forgotten they weren’t alone. His fingers twitched where they rested on the hilt of the dagger strapped to his thigh.
“I quite like the idea of the Unseelie King being afraid of a human girl.” They were baiting him. It was working. Kael turned on his heel and stalked toward the source of the voice, feeling his shadows tighten in him like a second skin stretched taut beneath his own. The sylph’s melodic laughter echoed off the stone walls.
“You dare to mock me, creature?” Kael hissed. He caught a glimpse of the sylph’s ethereal form through the darkness, the pointed features and shimmering wings that marked their kind.
The sylph fluttered closer, their mischievous expression undeterred by Kael’s hostility. “Why not?” They paused, letting the words sink in before continuing. “Tell me, King of Shadows, do you truly believe you are in control, or are you just the puppet of your beloved god?”
Kael’s grip on the dagger tightened until his knuckles turned white. The creature was in his head. The sylph’s taunts struck a nerve, stirring the doubts that he had worked hard to suppress since the ritual.
“Quiet!” Kael roared, and his shadows surged into the cell, snatching the sylph out of the air in a fury of inky filaments. The prisoner laughed, teasing Kael even as the shadows pulled them closer. Ignoring the way the iron bars burned his skin through his sleeve, Kael lunged forward and slashed the faerie’s throat open with the tip of his dagger. Honey-colored blood leaked out of the gaping wound, but for a brief moment, the sylph’s lips twisted into a self-satisfied smirk. They’d goaded him into this—into giving them a quick death. It was clever, really. Kael withdrew his shadows to let the sylph’s lifeless body drop to the ground.
In her own cell, Aisling sucked in a ragged gasp. She scrambled back to press herself against the wall when Kael returned to stand before her. “Why did you come here?” he demanded.
“I told you, I’ve heard stories.” Her voice trembled now and her eyes were locked on the dripping dagger still clutched in Kael’s hand. “My mother told me stories of your kind since I was young. I wanted to see for myself.”
“The púca glamoured you.” A statement, not a question. Aisling winced. “His home reeked of quicken tea.” Kael left out what he hadn’t realized when the girl, as a pixie, had been pressed against his body: that the faint fragrance of rain-soaked earth beneath her lingering pine scent had been that of magic.
“It was my idea, not his.” This human was an anomaly—not only knowledgeable to a degree about the Fae, but friendly enough with one to attempt to protect him now.
He hummed, scrutinizing every movement of her hands. The heaving of her chest as she struggled to breathe through her fear. The tone of her voice. He thought she may finally be telling the truth—if not in its entirety, at least the better part of it. But even if she was only a foolish little girl, not a spy or an assassin or a threat to his court, she still held more power than she realized. And that in and of itself was reason enough to keep her locked away.
If Werryn had noticed what had passed between the two in The Cut, he hadn’t yet let on. Kael thought that he’d reacted quickly enough to mask the exchange, but surely the High Prelate would have questioned how the tether had survived. They rarely did, if ever. Kael had stayed clear of the dungeon for several days following the ritual to ensure his visit wouldn’t raise suspicion, and even then he’d been careful to avoid the eyes of the Prelates when he made his way down. As he exited now, he confirmed with the redcap sentinels that no one had followed. His secret was safe for the time being.
But, as though drawn by Kael’s unease, Werryn found him later on in the throne room cleaning splatters of dried sylph blood off of his boot.
“You’re troubled,” he observed. “Why? We completed the ritual. Can you not feel His blessings?”
Kael gave a curt nod. “I feel them. It will not take two tries next time.”
“The human girl played a pivotal role in our success, did she not?” Werryn watched him closely.
Kael’s jaw clenched. For a second, his movements with the leather brush became a bit rougher than they should have before he managed to mask his agitation. “A mere tether, Werryn. Nothing more.”
The High Prelate raised an inquisitive brow, not entirely convinced by Kael’s clipped answer. “Are you telling me she had no effect on the outcome? That her presence was inconsequential? ”
“I assure you, her involvement was limited to anchoring the magic,” Kael replied firmly, keeping his emotions under strict control. “The same as all the others.”
“And yet she lived, unlike all the others.”
“Perhaps I needed less grounding to maintain control this time.” Having scrubbed his boot mostly clean, Kael uncrossed his legs and lowered his foot to the ground. He sat back in the throne and rested his chin on steepled fingers.
Werryn observed Kael’s relaxed pose, at odds with the impatience that flickered across his face. “A good sign, then. You’re making progress.”
“Thanks almost certainly to your persistent needling,” Kael retorted in a tone that bordered on acerbic.
Werryn ignored his sarcasm and repeated, “Almost certainly.”
Kael would try again to use the girl—he might have done so tonight in the dungeon had he not been distracted by the impudent sylph. He would try again and this time, he’d make sure she didn’t survive.