Chapter 12
TWELVE
ALLERIA
The Seal is breaking, and I am going back there to finish it.
His words have been a constant loop in my head. They won’t leave me alone, no matter what I do.
I count my breaths until I lose track. I count the things I can see in fives.
Five trees.
Five colors.
Five sounds.
I see a hawk riding an updraft high above the road and follow it until it drops out of sight.
None of it works.
Finish it.
Finish what? Does he mean he’s going to try and break the Seal completely, so he can return to Underhill? Or was he talking about the war? Is he going to finish what his people couldn’t last time? Tear the Seal apart, open Underhill, and let every fae spill back into the mortal world?
I don’t know, and after everything he’s just said, I’m afraid to ask.
So I focus on the road ahead instead. It’s been narrowing steadily for the past couple of miles, getting tighter and tighter, until it’s only wide enough for one rider.
The rest of the Guard fall behind Cairn, following in single-file.
A mortal horse would have shattered its legs a dozen times over.
But Selveryn and the rest of the steeds are not mortal.
They keep their footing without a sound.
On either side, the grass grows waist-high, yellow-tipped and dry, with brambles snarled beneath it, making it impossible to leave the path. I’m sure it’s been done that way on purpose.
Cairn’s arm is around my waist, holding me in place as Selveryn picks his way over uneven ground.
His armor still covers him, and it’s cold against my back.
I’m not sure if I’m imagining it or not, but it feels like the metal hums where it touches me.
The silver thorns at the edges of his vambraces catch the light whenever his hand shifts on the reins.
Every time I try to put some distance between us, his arm tightens, pulling me back.
His focus is entirely on the road ahead. It shows in the way he’s holding himself, the rigid line of his body and the way his arm keeps me in place without shifting.
This isn’t the male I’ve begun to trust. This is the predator I faced in the forest. Whatever softness he’s shown me has vanished.
This is the Eldráfn of the Nightwild Guard.
He’s cold, unpredictable, and deadly.
I want the other version back.
My throat tightens, heart slamming against my ribs.
Breathe.
I jump at the sound of his voice in my mind.
Selveryn’s ear flicks, and Cairn tenses at my back. The road widens slightly, then bends around a shoulder of stone, and past the curve, the garrison post comes into view.
It isn’t much. Across the road, there are two posts driven into the ground, with a chain strung between them.
A small iron bell hangs from one of the posts.
Beyond it, there is a low stone building with a thatched roof, and smoke rising from a chimney.
A paddock is beside it, horses standing at the fence watching us.
Two soldiers in the king's green stand at the chain. A third is crouched at the brazier, warming his hands with his back to us. The two facing us blink, mouths dropping open. One of them steps forward.
“Halt! Halt there!” His hand goes to the sword at his hip, fumbles, then finds the hilt. “State your business. You should not be here. Halt!”
Selveryn doesn’t halt.
One second we’re walking, the next, wind tears at my hair. Cairn’s arm leaves my waist. His blades form on either side of me—black and silver—flashing past my shoulders faster than my eyes can track.
The first soldier’s mouth is still open on the word halt when the blade on my right takes him under the chin. His head tips back at the wrong angle. On my left, the second soldier reaches for his sword as Cairn’s other blade crosses in front of me, opening his throat from ear to ear.
A hot spray hits my face, coating my cheek and lips, warm and thick.
I taste it, and my head jerks back, eyes locking on the second soldier.
He’s on his knees by the barrier, one hand at his throat as blood runs between his fingers.
His eyes are open, staring straight at me.
I can’t look away, watching as the light in them fades.
The first one has already fallen, one arm flung out, sword still in its scabbard.
Cairn’s hand flattens between my shoulder blades, shoving me down against Selveryn’s neck.
“Down. Stay there.” Then he’s moving again.
The barrier is still across the road. It doesn’t stop him. Selveryn sails over it. The Nightwild Guard fans out around us. Men come out of the building at a run, blades already drawn.
Six. No—eight. Ten.
Someone inside is shouting. It’s too late. Cairn rides through them.
I don’t know how he fights around me, but he does.
His left blade flashes past my shoulder and takes a man in the eye.
His right blade sweeps under my arm to cut a spear in half, then the man holding it.
Selveryn wheels beneath me so smoothly I don’t even feel the shift of weight, only the world turning, another man dying …
and another. The air is thick with the smell of copper and the sound of steel on bone.
Someone swings at Cairn’s leg. Selveryn twists, evading the sword. Someone grabs my boot. Before I can react, Cairn’s blade is already there. My hand in Selveryn’s mane is shaking. I think I’m going to be sick. I swallow it down.
The curved edge on my right flashes past my shoulder close enough that the air it disrupts as it passes stirs my hair, and a soldier on that side falls with his chest open.
The blade on my left comes down in an arc that shouldn’t be possible.
Cairn’s wrist rolls and the tip slips between a man’s ribs and out again.
Something slams down the bond connecting us, and knocks the breath out of me. It isn’t fury. Fury has heat in it. This is colder. Older.
My fingers curl tighter in Selveryn’s mane.
A gap opens in the press of bodies, and Selveryn breaks sideways out of the knot of fighting. For one strange moment, we’re standing alone, ignored by everyone. Cairn’s arm wraps around me and lifts.
“Down.”
He lowers me in one smooth motion, his hand flat against my stomach. My boots hit the grass and my knees almost buckle, before I lock them.
“Duck down behind that wall. Stay there. Do not come out until I come for you. Do you understand me?”
I blink at him, my mind spinning.
“Alleria!” His gaze meets mine. The pupils of his eyes have narrowed to vertical slits, and they’re empty of everything except a lethal, ancient fury.
The words I was going to say die in my throat, and I nod. He stays where he is for a moment longer, then turns away.
The wall runs around the edge of the paddock, waist-high and half-collapsed at one end. I drop down behind it, my back to the stone, knees to my chest. The only thing I can hear is my own breathing coming too fast, and the inside of my skull screaming that there was blood in my mouth.
Every time I swallow, the taste of it comes back up my throat again. I press both hands to my stomach and rest my forehead on my knees, trying to stop myself from vomiting.
But I have to look. I need to know what is happening. I make myself rise, easing up until my eyes clear the top of the wall.
I’ve seen Cairn kill before. I’ve seen Therin and Vel fight at his side. I have never seen all of them together. I thought I understood what they were.
I was wrong.
Some of them are slower than they should be. The abuse they’ve suffered has done that. But it doesn’t seem to matter. These aren’t the fae I was raised to believe were mindless animals. These are the warriors from my nursemaid’s tales.
Therin is at his left and Vel is at his right.
The others spread behind them in a half-moon that snaps shut on the soldiers like a jaw.
Nobody says a word. Nobody calls out. When Therin shifts his weight, Vel is there before he finishes the move.
When Kaelith falls back half a step to cover Vessara, Sorel flows forward to fill the void.
When Cairn moves, all of them move with him.
It’s the most frightening thing I have ever seen in my life. It’s also the most beautiful.
Three hundred years. Three hundred years of iron and cages and silence, and it hasn't left them. The collars are off and they are here and together.
The soldiers guarding the Vale don't know what they’re facing.
A soldier breaks off and runs for the trees, shouting over his shoulder.
Vel’s steed appears out of the air behind him in a flare of red light, and somehow she’s on its back.
The soldier is down in the grass before he’s made twenty strides.
Between one blink and the next, her steed is gone and Vel is back at Cairn’s shoulder.
Then the bond linking me to Cairn pulls tight. His head snaps up. I follow the direction of his gaze in time to see a man in gray robes step out of the building, a staff in one hand.
My blood turns to ice.
Mage.
He raises his free hand, his mouth moving. The air at his palms shimmers, and the grass at his feet tilts as though bent by an invisible wind.
Cairn turns toward him. So does one of the Guard that arrived this morning. For half a heartbeat I think he’s going to reach the mage before Cairn. I hold my breath.
The shimmer above the mage’s palms sharpens into a jagged line of red light.
It lances straight through the Guard’s side, punching under his ribs.
He grunts, red spreading through his leather.
His left hand comes up to press against the wound, and he staggers sideways two steps, then drops. Kaelith catches him under the arm.
The mage lifts his hands again.
Cairn doesn’t move. A pike comes at his face. He knocks it aside with one blade and puts the other through the man holding it without even looking. His attention is fixed solely on the mage. And the look in his eyes makes my stomach churn, because I know what it means.
The mage is dead. He doesn’t know it yet. But Cairn has decided, and he’s only choosing how it’s going to happen.
The mage’s hands come up, light gathering at his palms. The same line forms and the mage throws it toward Cairn. The second it hits his arms, the magic shatters, spreading across his bracers before it sloughs off like water.
And Cairn …
Cairn’s head tilts to one side and he smiles.
The mage’s eyes widen and Cairn keeps moving. He’s closing the distance so fast I can barely track him.
The mage sees him coming. His hand jerks back up, but Cairn doesn’t stop. Before the mage can summon more magic, Cairn has him by the front of his robes. He lifts him off his feet with one hand, and drives his blade up under the mage’s ribs with the other.
The mage’s mouth opens, hands scrabbling weakly at Cairn’s wrist. Cairn leans in, his lips moving, saying something I can’t hear. Then he releases his grip on the mage’s robes and the body slides off his sword to the ground.
I whirl away, vomiting into the grass.
“Alleria?” Vessara’s voice comes from behind me. I look up and find her standing no more than a foot away. “It’s finished.” She walks off, and I push myself to my feet and follow her.
Bodies lie everywhere. Some of them aren’t in one piece. The ground is dark and wet in wide patches. One man is pinned against one of the poles, speared with his own sword. I don’t know why, but I’m sure it’s Therin’s work.
I have to step around a hand. Just a hand, palm up. I don’t look for the arm it should be attached to.
My legs are shaking by the time I reach the middle of the road, and I have to clench my jaw to stop my teeth from chattering.
Cairn stands in the middle of the massacre. His armor is wet to the elbows. There’s a spray of blood across his left cheekbone. Both of his blades are still gripped in bloodied, gauntleted hands.
His head turns as I approach, and I don’t recognize him at all. For one long, awful breath, he looks at me the way he looked at me at the Dell that first day. The one who meant to kill me. The one I was going to put an arrow through.
I make myself hold his gaze. I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do. What if holding an angry fae’s gaze results in the same thing as making eye contact with a vicious dog?
“Cairn. Brael is hurt,” Serath calls, and his head turns away, letting me breathe again.
The warrior the mage attacked first is on one knee. Serath kneels beside him, her palms pressed to his ribs. Cairn crosses over to them.
“Caelum, can you and Serath heal him enough to ride? We don’t have much farther to go.”
Brael’s head lifts at Cairn’s words, and his mouth curves up on one side. “I’ve had much worse than this, brother. I can ride.”
“I know.” Cairn’s voice softens slightly. “But I’d prefer you not to die on me when you’ve only just returned.”
Brael huffs something that might be a laugh and drops his head against Caelum’s shoulder.
The rest of the Guard move to surround him.
Therin’s hand closes over the back of his neck.
Kaelith crouches at Brael’s other side and takes his weight off Caelum.
None of them look like they’re going to move until Brael can stand on his own.
Serath’s hands move across the wound, and whatever she’s doing slows the bleeding.
Cairn walks back to me. I force myself to stand still and not back away. Up close, the coldness in his face hasn’t gone. But his blades have disappeared, at least. I didn’t see them go.
He lifts a gauntleted hand toward my cheek, stops, and sighs. His armor flows back, uncovering his hand to his wrist. His thumb brushes my cheekbone and comes away red.
“Is any of this yours?”
I shake my head.
He nods, eyes moving over me, checking the truth of my words. Then his hand falls.
Selveryn reforms behind him, and Cairn lifts me into the saddle, then swings up behind me. His arm comes around my waist, and draws me back against his chest. Then his chin drops to rest against the top of my head.
“I really need to teach you how to summon your own steed.”
I twist in the saddle, and his arm tightens around me.
“What?”