Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
The caves. They returned to the caves.
Of course. Ruhle knows I secreted the horn within them, and he won’t give up until he’s got his hands on it.
When we were in the training camps, we played a game. An ambush, really.
It was called Shadows and Assassins.
Soraya and I were the best at it.
But I’m alone now as I hunt my brothers. I have to draw them away from the horn. Soraya is counting on me. I don’t know how long she has left until the blight eats away at her—the healers within Castle Blackrock will be able to give me a better idea.
The main cavern is full of a lingering sense of silence.
I know that silence as I slip from shadow to shadow.
One little raven, perching on a rock…. I mark him and move on. Patience isn’t only a virtue for thieves. It’s also the best weapon in an assassin’s arsenal.
Another raven, his spine pressed against the tunnel wall as he watches the cavern.
Two of Ruhle’s seven.
Semirhyn is dead; Rhyvaen is injured, which leaves five. But where are the other three?
And most importantly, where is Ruhle?
I flit across the cavern, knife held low as I stalk the raven sitting on the rock. Nothing moves. His attention is focused purely on the cave mouth….
I step out of the Sift, grabbing a fistful of his hair and jerking his head back even as my knife finds his throat—
Light sears the cavern. A thousand bats overhead rustle and scream, their voices too high-pitched for fae ears, but perfectly attuned for mine.
I try to Sift, but the light is everywhere.
And then I’m surrounded by a cloud of bats as they flee for the opening of the cave. Tiny bodies whipping past me. Little claws catching in my hair. And through it all, the light burning, burning, burning….
And then it’s all gone.
Seven seconds of misery, all in all, but my knees hit the floor as I try to blink away the afterimage. I can barely even see the shadows…. All I can hear is the soft crunch of footsteps stalking over the gravel floor of the cave toward me.
Ruhle.
He materializes in front of me, just as my eyes finally recover.
Ruhle stares down at me, his teeth bared. “You little slut. You think we weren’t prepared for you?”
A web of finely spun spider silk from the demorari on the Gilded Isles is flung into the air above me. I recognize it from the gilded gleam of that silk; the enormous, bloated spiders weave pure light into a net so tight that nothing can break the strands or escape.
Not even a shadow.
I punch into nothing, but I’m too late.
Thin razor-fine wires of light sink over me—through me—and then I’m gasping on the ground like a beached fish, landing back in my corporeal body with a heavy thud.
It hurts. I can feel those little burning lines all over my skin, but it’s the dull ache in my bones that warns me that the jarring thud hurt me more than I immediately suspect.
A boot drives into my stomach.
The shock of such pain wrenches a gasp from me, but I barely have time to absorb it, because another one replaces it.
“I’ve spent years waiting for this moment,” Ruhle whispers, advancing on me menacingly. He grabs a fistful of my shirt and the net, his knee sinking into my stomach even as he presses the tip of his knife against my throat. “Beg me for mercy.”
Sharp iron trails down my throat, leaving behind the wet slide of blood.
I grab his wrist, but it’s like straining against steel. He’s always been stronger than me.
I can’t escape. I can’t even feel the shadows here. All I can feel is those thin strands of light seeking to sink right through my skin.
The burn of the light. And the kiss of the knife.
“Beg,” he insists, and the knife cuts a little deeper.
“No!” I slam a palm into his arm. Desperately.
Uselessly. “You think… I don’t know that nothing will come of it?
” I kick and strain, but his weight’s too heavy to move.
“You like them to beg,” I gasp. “You like to have us… on our knees before you. You want us to have a moment of hope…. Before you take it away from us!”
He laughs. “Maybe. Now where’s the fucking horn? I know you hid it here somewhere.”
“I’ll never tell you! I’ll never beg!” I scream, even as the knife drives through my chest with slow, inexorable pressure. It hurts. It hurts so much. I kick and scream, but there’s no stopping him.
Until the wraith right next to us suddenly slumps to his knees with a gasp, clasping at his throat before he slams face-first into the stone beside us.
Ruhle pauses.
“What the fuck?” he demands, pushing to his feet.
I grab the knife, gasping against the feel of it embedded just below my collarbone. Hurts…. Fuck. I don’t want to die, but even as I drag the knife out of my flesh, my vision wavers.
What happened?
I blink and find Karseem’s wide eyes staring blankly at me as Ruhle rolls his friend over.
His throat bleeds red. Someone cut it open to the spine.
I scramble upright, holding onto Ruhle’s bloody knife.
“Karseem?” This from Gwyvaen.
Ruhle draws another knife, his gaze cutting around the cavern. “Who did this? Show yourself.”
“A pity I don’t obey the whims of wraith born bastards,” a voice mocks.
Ruhle freezes, his knife hovering in his hand.
The breath I inhaled leaves me in a rush as I slowly lower my hands. My heart pounds fit to tear through my ribs. I recognize that mocking drawl. And while I don’t dare call the emotion I feel hope, I can’t help feeling as though… there may be a way out of this.
“Serruen?” Ruhle hisses. “I thought these caverns were secured?”
Serruen straightens, drawing the vicious scimitar he prefers. “They were.”
He takes one step toward where the voice came from and then he jerks back, as if something grabs him by the hair. A hiss of movement glints, and then blood spatters through the air as his throat is cut.
Serruen goes down like a bag of wheat. He slams to the floor, grabbing at his throat and choking. Blood wells and spurts through his fingers. His heels kick the floor. A death rattle echoes in his throat.
Cauldron’s piss. I kick my way free of the net of demorari silk, still bleeding like a stuck pig. A shadow grabbed him. A fucking shadow.
Falion.
I try to shove to my feet, but the world sways around me. Curse it. I have to get out of here. Ruhle wants my head. And who knows what Falion wants of me.
He surely didn’t just save my life because he likes me.
It happens so slowly, I almost think my eyes are playing tricks. A shadow forms, one tapping a knife against the stone wall.
“Blast it,” Ruhle snaps to the side, toward Rhyvaen.
“I can’t,” the light bringer returns. “I need time to recover.”
Grabbing a torch from the wall, Ruhle shoves it toward Rhyvaen. “Then fucking light this. Lights! Everyone get a torch!”
“All the better to see you with,” says the shadow, as three torches flare into flame. The light only paints it larger across the walls.
“Who are you?” Ruhle demands.
“I’m your nightmare, little wraith princeling,” Falion mocks. Suddenly there are a dozen shadows circling us. One of them actually holds a knife, which I thought was impossible.
Is he half-Sifting?
How is he holding that knife?
“Two down,” says the disembodied voice, as the knife draws sparks as it trails down the granite. “Four to go. Interesting to find a horde of wraiths daring to walk among the fae lands…. I wonder what brought them here?”
“Kill it,” Ruhle says.
One of his wraiths lunges forward, driving for the floating knife.
The shadow simply vanishes, and then the wraith is screaming—a brutal, tortured sound as if something drove a hand through his chest and grabbed his windpipe.
He dies with a gurgle, blood spilling from his lips as he falls but no other apparent injury.
The glimpse I catch of Ruhle’s face will warm my heart for centuries. He is actually shitting himself right now.
Falion steps out of the shadows, wiping at his hand with a linen handkerchief. His shock of silvery blond hair gleams in the light, and he’s still wearing the elegant silvery-blue doublet he wore for the wedding ceremony.
“No matter,” says Ruhle, cutting me a sharp look I have no trouble interpreting, considering it lingers on my face and hair. Clearly, he sees the resemblance as he steps back toward the mouth of the cavern. “We’ll deal with this development later. Retreat.”
“But we were just getting acquainted,” Falion mocks, spreading his hands.
Ruhle and his remaining companions flee, and while I’ve always thought I’d enjoy the sight, I can’t turn my back on the real monster in the room.
The smile falls off Falion’s face. “Get up.”
“What do you want with me?” I demand, shoving to my feet.
His eyebrow quirks and then he rakes me over with a disdainful look. “Where’s the horn?”
“Somewhere you’ll never find it. Stay back,” I warn, waving my knife at him.
He stills, but there’s a dangerous look in his merciless blue eyes. “I’m not here to kill you.”
“No?”
“If I wanted you dead, all I had to do was wait. You were about to have your throat slit by that two-bit wraith,” he sneers.
I stare at him, but there’s no hint he’s lying. He wants something from me. It’s not the horn, or he wouldn’t be here. It’s not to see me dead, or he could have merely waited.
“Fine,” I say, flipping the knife and sheathing it at my hip. “I’ll play. Why did you save my life? What do you want?”
“Want?” His gaze hardens. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? I want answers. I want to know who you are and where you came from. And I want to know how you can walk in my shadows….”
* * *
KEIR
“Zemira!” I snatch for her wrist, but she’s gone, evaporating into black smoke. My fingers plunge through it, and then even that is gone.
Damn it. Damn it.
She’s out there.
All alone.
“She can do this,” Soraya rasps as she sinks to her knees in the heather at my feet.