29. ENEMY AT THE GATE
The ground was no longer rumbling as we approached the northern gate to the Mountain Court.
The passage resembled the eastern entry point, where Niall had first brought me into his territory. The mountain walls rose up a hundred feet on either side of us as we walked down the corridor toward the territory beyond. Toward Salterra. The Wastelands.
We stepped out beyond the stone walls, and were flanked on both sides by the colossal statues of the ancient brothers who had fortified Calledan.
They towered above us, ever the watchful guardians at our backs.
But the stance of these statues was different from those at the eastern gate.
In the east, the brothers stood as warnings for trespassers or evildoers.
Here, they stood ready for war.
The brother wearing the helm appeared as if he would walk right out of the mountains, sword stretched out before him in a challenge.
The other brother held a shield and spear in front of him, poised to launch into a sprint.
I could almost feel their energy radiating off the stones, a silent warning for enemies to go no further.
The notion steeled my spine and rallied the power in my veins as I narrowed my eyes on what stood before us.
The Veil was a clear boundary, rising from the foot of the giant slab of stepping stones that gave way into our territory.
Its translucent shimmer radiated under the midday sun.
But on the other side of it, standing against the backdrop of The Wastelands, was a single being, staring up at the statues.
Her long, black hair was freely blowing in the wind, and she was dressed in sleek, black leathers with an impressive array of curved daggers strapped to her belt.
Black leather vambraces wrapped around her pale forearms, flexing as she flicked two of her long black nails together, as if in boredom.
When she finally lowered her gaze to us, chills skittered down my spine.
Her pale face was striking—in a dark, sinister way—with high cheekbones, a sharp jawline, and a pronounced scar that stretched down the left side from her temple to her jaw.
Her shadowed, gray eyes were churning, like melted metal, rimmed with thick kohl, contrasting her red lips.
The strangest of her features were her ears. They were rounded. No sign of any fae lineage. But she felt all wrong. There was a wickedness to her that reached across the gap between us.
She had power; I could feel it.
Niall approached her with his hands in his pockets, like this was another casual meeting on the friendly streets of Calledan, yet his expression was as hard as the stone at our backs. “You sure do like to cause a scene.”
The stranger gave him a predatory smile. “And you like to take your time answering the door to visitors.” She clicked her nails together again. “You should be grateful I deigned to announce myself in the first place.”
Niall’s shield pulsed around us, consuming mine.
She tsked. “Oh, none of that. It’s not like it would be helpful anyway.”
Niall narrowed his eyes at the woman. “Where are your little friends?”
He had claimed there were a handful of beings here, but the woman stood alone.
She cocked her head, more animal-like than human—or whatever she was. “They were getting impatient, so I sent them away. Besides, I only want to talk.”
“There are ways to request an audience that don’t involve you trying to bring down my wards.”
She scoffed, bringing up a hand and examining her manicure. “Bring them down? I have no need to bring them down when I can just bypass them entirely.”
Niall raised a sarcastic brow. “Yet you still remain on the other side of them.”
She let out a gravelly cackle—her only response.
“If you came here to merely be a nuisance who wants to play at breaking down my—”
“The creatures were playing. I am not,” she cut him off.
A ripple of Niall’s power shot past the wards and The Veil and crashed into the stranger, sending her stumbling a few steps back. His voice deepened to a threat that echoed off the mountains behind us. “You will not interrupt me when I’m speaking.”
The woman had the nerve to smile again, and the defiance lit a match deep within me. I willed my power to calm beneath my skin.
“I’ll ask only once,” Niall warned. “Who are you?”
As if weighing her words carefully, she answered slowly, that smirk remaining on her face. “I’m a huntress of sorts. Seeking something of mine that was taken.”
“And what might that be?”
“Don’t play dumb,” she challenged. “I picked up on its scent the closer I came to these mountains, and I can sense it now.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you speak of.”
She chuckled. “You’d rather keep it locked away and out of reach. I respect that. But are you willing to fight for it?” She gazed up at the brothers bracketing the mountain gate behind us. “They look like they’d be worth fighting.”
Niall’s voice deepened. “I’m not exactly sure what you’re after, but if a fight is what you’re looking for, I must warn you, you will lose.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” She brought her gaze back to him. “You don’t know me.”
“You’re coming from enemy territory.” He nodded toward The Wastelands. “That makes you my enemy. And right now, that’s all I need to know.” Shadowfire seeped out from behind his shoulders, spreading into the air around us like a dozen whips poised to strike.
The woman’s swirling gray eyes widened with shock at the sight of his shadowfire. It was as if she had seen a ghost.
“You?” Her eyes darted to every corner of his body as if she was searching for something physical that he carried. When she didn’t seem to glean what she was looking for, she narrowed her sights on his actual physique, noting the pointed tips of his ears. “Who are you?” she hissed.
The shadows settled around Niall like a second skin, wrapping him in a menacing darkness as he said, with unwavering authority, “I’m the High Lord of Calledan.”
The woman’s face paled and she shook her head. “A fae?”
“Why does that seem to surprise everyone?” he said—more to himself than to the stranger.
She ignored his remark, her attention ensnared with his physical presence.
“That power . . . that strength . . .” Her voice dripped with what sounded like a mixture of disbelief and disdain, but she seemed to arrive at some sort of realization as her visual assessment of him slowly became a perusal of greed.
Like he was some long-lost treasure she’d been hunting.
“Tell me, High Lord, how exactly did that shadowfire come to be in you?”
When Niall didn’t reply, she continued. “I’d wager the fae don’t take well to a power that is so foreign to them.” Her perfectly-arched brow hitched higher, as if to say, Am I right?
Niall’s unease flickered down the bond just before he entered my mind.
She’s not from here, he spoke into my head.
I had caught the referral as well—how she spoke of the fae as if they were a species far removed from her own.
Then where? I asked.
I don’t know.
If she’s not fae, and she’s not human, then what is she?
Nothing of this world, he said, and my stomach gave an anxious drop.
Her head shifted in my direction, her eyes taking a moment to follow.
“And this one . . .” She continued to speak to Niall while looking me up and down, pausing on my rounded ears.
“Not fae. But the power in her veins is overwhelming.” She sniffed the air deeply and exhaled out of her mouth.
Her eyes flared again. “I know of someone who would give me anything I asked in exchange for you.”
I stiffened, but willed my face to betray nothing.
She had to be speaking of Lyceius.
Niall’s shadows reached out, twining around me protectively, and the woman watched, noting the claim he was asserting.
The silence that followed seemed to tell the woman everything she wanted, or needed, to know.
Another sinister smile spread across her lips, and she held both of her hands out before her, mockingly, as a mother would hold her hands out for her children to take.
“If you both come with me, freely, I’ll make sure the pain is kept to a minimum. ”
Neither of us moved, but Niall’s shadows pulsed in reaction to her words, coiling tighter around me. “You touch her, and I’ll send you back to wherever you came from in a pile of ash. She is going nowhere with you.”
The woman made a show of rolling her eyes. “Don’t make me do this the hard way.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Take it how you will.”
She took a casual step forward, her pointed black boots crunching on the dusty ground, but Niall’s shadows spilled forward, gathering like black smoke at our feet, halting her approach.
“There is nothing of yours here,” he warned. “And you won’t like what happens next if you so much as move another inch.”
The woman smirked. “Fine. I won’t move an inch.”
Quicker than I could anticipate, she extended her arm out like she was grasping for something across the distance between us, and a shadow pushed through the wards and The Veil like they didn’t even exist. Shadowed fingers closed around my neck, and I choked for breath as they clamped down on my windpipe and began dragging me forward.
Shock, panic, and pure rage rippled down the bond from Niall as he grabbed onto me.
His shadowfire latched onto the stranger’s grip like it was a tangible object, igniting the shadowy tether with a fury of black flame.
It scorched the length back to the woman, searing her fingers.
She shrieked, yanking her hand back and releasing the grip on my neck.
I stumbled into Niall’s arms, gasping for air, while the woman examined her injured hand.
“You wield that power like it belongs to you,” she spat at my mate. “But it doesn’t. And I’ll make sure this one”—she jerked her chin at me—“watches you writhe in agony when I take it from you.”
Something in me snapped at the threat she’d aimed at my mate, and without a thought, my power rose to the surface, and ignited into a pulsing glow around me.
I stepped forward, half a thought away from sending a spear of light toward her, when Niall wrapped me in his shadows and tugged me back to him.
The woman’s laugh skittered on the breeze as she stared the two of us down.
“My name is Skadi,” she finally said. “And I’ll be back to collect what is mine soon enough.” She smiled wickedly before stepping backward and vanishing into nothing.