Authors: Sandy Williams
Tags: #Romance, #Fantasy, #Fiction, #General, #Contemporary
The Shadow Reader (44 page)
Lena doesn’t look entirely satisfied with that answer, but she nods and fissures out. When Kyol exits the back door, I return to the kitchen to grab the army green satchel with my sketchbook, pencils, and, apparently, extra magazines. I’m praying I won’t need the latter. I might not need the sketchbook either. Even if Radath shows up in Montana, odds are against me being within shadow-reading distance when he fissures out. But maybe I can sketch out the locations of one or two other officers if I’m nearby when they flee. Better to be prepared.
Aren blocks my path when I turn. He’s not smiling, but he doesn’t seem angry either. He knows I’ve been avoiding him, and I’m surprised—and maybe disappointed?—he hasn’t cornered me before now.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” he says. “I shouldn’t have provoked Taltrayn.”
He’s apologizing? He has a hard time even acknowledging Kyol’s existence. “He’s still taking me through the gate.”
Lena made that call earlier, agreeing with Kyol that we’d be more efficient together than Aren and I since we haven’t exactly cooperated on anything since we’ve met.
“I know,” Aren says. “But I wanted to apologize. I don’t want Taltrayn to convince you I’m the bad guy.”
At that, I give a short laugh. “You
are
the bad guy, Aren.”
are
the bad guy, Aren.”
He frowns, and I realize he’s taking my words the wrong way.
“What I mean is you’re the . . . well, the rebel. Kyol’s the good guy. He’s made mistakes, yes, but he loves me.”
He cocks his head to the side. His gaze makes my skin tingle. The step he takes toward me is hesitant, careful, and when his silver eyes peer down at me, I stop breathing. His lips are so close. I remember the way they felt pressed against mine. I remember his taste, the heat of his
edarratae
.
edarratae
.
The smallest distance separates us when he whispers, “You don’t think I’m in love with you?”
“I . . .”
I don’t know, and I can’t answer him anyway because he lowers his head. I raise mine. His kiss is gentle, tentative, like he’s afraid of breaking this moment and breaking me. It takes only a heartbeat before I really do break. I grab the back of his neck, pulling him hard against my mouth until he responds. Chaos lusters fire from his lips and from the hands cradling my face. The lightning sparks across my skin, buries itself low in my stomach, and I moan.
His fingers clutch at my shoulders. He gasps my name as he separates his mouth from mine. “If you keep making noises like that, we’ll never get out of here.”
I don’t want to go. I want to stay here with him. I want to see if we could work, if we could be something together.
“McKenzie,” he breathes out when I pull him back for another kiss. He presses his forehead against mine. “You’re killing me. We have to go. Or you can stay but I . . .” He swallows. “
Sidhe
, I have to go.”
Sidhe
, I have to go.”
He’s right. Damn it, he’s right. I bite my lower lip, then nod. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he says. “It’s nice, you letting yourself want me.” His fingers graze my cheek and then diamonds glitter in his silver eyes. “Ah, a rare smile. I could die happy right now.”
I laugh. “I smiled a lot before I met you.”
“I’ll make sure you smile a lot more.” I shudder when he kisses my palm. “A whole lot more. Right after we overthrow the king.”
IT’S too fucking quiet. The vigilantes and the Court fae are both supposed to be here. I should hear gunfire and the sharp
shrrip
s of fissures ripping through the air, not my thumping heart and the wet
plop
of rainwater dripping from the trees.
shrrip
s of fissures ripping through the air, not my thumping heart and the wet
plop
of rainwater dripping from the trees.
Kyol pulls me to a crouch on the soggy ground and cocks his head to listen. Thunder rumbles in the distance. It’s supposed to rain off and on all day. Aren’s counting on it, actually. If the vigilantes deploy silver dust again, a good, hard shower should take care of it. Right now, though, a sticky humidity thickens the air, making it hard to breathe. The Kevlar vest under my camo clings to my torso, and my sweat-soaked undershirt rubs against my skin. With their
jaedric
cuirasses under their fatigues, the rebels have to be sweltering just as much.
jaedric
cuirasses under their fatigues, the rebels have to be sweltering just as much.
Kyol lowers his mouth to my ear.
“Two Court fae. Ahead and . . .” His lips graze my ear. A chaos luster reverberates down my neck. It pools in my stomach.
“Ahead and to the right,” he finishes, his voice strained.
Ignoring the ache in my chest, I bite my lip and nod, confirming that the two fae aren’t illusions. They creep forward without moving the underbrush. We stay frozen as they silently stalk by, passing between us and Aren and Nalst, who crouch twenty feet to our right. Kelia and Naito are on the other side of them, and the rest of the rebels assigned to this
Sidhe Tol
are spread out behind us and on the opposite side of the stream, less than a quarter mile ahead.
Sidhe Tol
are spread out behind us and on the opposite side of the stream, less than a quarter mile ahead.
A sharp crack of thunder vibrates through the forest. The thick canopy protects us from the rain for a few short seconds before the downpour penetrates it. The air cools, but I’m quickly soaked through and even more miserable than before. I want this over with. If Radath hasn’t sent more than a few fae to protect this
Sidhe Tol
, it shouldn’t be difficult to get a sizable number of rebels into the Silver Palace.
Sidhe Tol
, it shouldn’t be difficult to get a sizable number of rebels into the Silver Palace.
A patch of brown and green detaches from a tree. I wait for a bolt of blue lightning to indicate the moving bush is a rebel, but something big and black and barrel-like slips out of the foliage. Not a rebel. A vigilante. He stuffs a can inside something that looks like a launcher, then aims at the two Court fae.
The canister thumps from the barrel and then explodes.
I throw myself on top of Kyol to shelter him from the fallout. The black cloud doesn’t hang in the air long; the rain washes the dust into the earth.
Kyol grips my shoulders. “McKenzie!”
“The silver.” I run my hand over his hair, sloshing off darkened rainwater. Most of it’s on me. He
should
be able to fissure.
should
be able to fissure.
“You don’t protect me,” he grates out, rolling me to my side. I cry out when something stabs into my right hip.
Kyol curses under his breath and jerks the piece of metal free. Then he fissures away, leaving me gasping for breath. Christ, it hurts. And all at once, more pain registers—from another piece of metal in the back of my left arm. It’s deep, cutting into the muscle. The vigilantes stuffed shrapnel as well as silver into the coffee cans this time.
I don’t have a chance to pull it out before Kyol reappears, blood dripping from his sword. He grabs a fistful of my shirt and drags me to a thick tree as gunfire and fissures rip through the air. Bark and splinters burst from the trunk above my head. Kyol fissures again and again at my side, keeping up an almost constant shield against the attack. He can’t maintain this pace, though. He’ll burn out.
“Jorreb!” Kyol shouts during one of the few instances he’s visible in this world. A second later, Aren takes out the vigilantes firing on us, ending the assault.
But it continues elsewhere. Everywhere. I fling rainwater out of my eyes and scan the forest. It’s almost impossible to see anyone unless they’re moving. Kyol spotted the two Court fae before I did. Maybe I’m missing others, others he can’t see because they’re hidden by illusion.
But no. All the fissures—every single one of them—are camo-clad rebels. Where the fuck are the rest of the Court fae? The plan’s gone to hell. We’re not supposed to be the ones fighting the vigilantes.
Kyol’s breathing hard at my side. I grab his wrist when he starts to rise, silently plead for him to remain. He pulls me to his chest. His arms are warm but they’re trembling. He fissured too much too quickly.
He squeezes me tight. “There’s no reason for you to be here if the Court fae aren’t.”
“How far to the
Sidhe Tol
? Maybe they’re there.”
Sidhe Tol
? Maybe they’re there.”
Bullets strafe the ground to the left, and the air erupts with earth and wet leaves.
Kyol presses me into the tree trunk. “No. They’ll stay away from the silver plating.”
“Maybe they removed—”
“They’re in the trees!”
Kyol and I aren’t the only ones who hear Naito’s bellow. The second I spot a Court fae perching on a thick limb, he’s riddled with holes. A flash of light and he disappears. Dead. His soul-shadow dissipates into the rain-drenched canopy.
The vigilantes bombard the treetops, and the foliage erupts with fissures. Fissures and shadows. Only a few of the latter are white. The rest are all black.
“What do you see?” Kyol asks.
“They’re out of the trees,” I report, scanning the scene around us. The Court fae are everywhere now, fissuring in and out to dodge the vigilantes’ attacks. Kyol will see the fissures, so I search for fae who aren’t disappearing. They’re the ones most likely to be hidden by illusion.
“Female archer by the moss-covered tree.”
He follows my gaze. “Visible.”
Another rebel will take her out.
“Straight ahead. A swordsman coming up the hill.”
“Visible.”
“Two swordsmen walking past the exploded coffee can.”
“I see three. Describe them.”
“The one on the left is male, crouching down now. The one on the right—”
“Is his sword bloody?”
“Yes.”
Kyol vanishes in a flash of light. He reappears behind the two fae, dispatches the first before they know he’s there, meets the spinning attack of the second and counters. Three swings later, that one enters the ether, leaving behind nothing but his fading soul-shadow.
Kyol fissures back to my side. I describe the scene again. Then again and again, sprinting from one tree to the next at Kyol’s command. There’s something synchronous about the way we work together. He knows where I’m looking, understands the details that capture my attention like that rotting limb a fae not visible to Kyol steps over, or the area of ground I describe as a giant’s footprint. He stays close when I whisper locations to him, touching my shoulder, my arm, placing an encouraging hand on the small of my back. To show he’s there for me. He’ll take care of me, keep me safe.
His warmth is comforting and the horror of what’s going on around us isn’t as sharp as it will be later in my nightmares. It’s as if I’m watching it from a distance. This is a scene from a movie, nothing more.
Nothing more until something hits me. I’m slammed to the ground a second after Kyol fissures away again. Pain explodes through my left shoulder blade and radiates across my back.
I gasp as I roll to my right side.
Something moves in front of me. A man. A vigilante. Vaguely familiar eyes widen in surprise. Not Naito’s eyes. His father’s eyes. They narrow, undoubtedly realizing I’m not one of his people, then his mouth thins into a resolute line. A pistol rises out of his camouflaged netting. It aims at my chest.
“Dad!”
The vigilante whips his head toward Naito’s voice.
I roll away as Kyol fissures between us, swinging his blade at Nakano.
The gun goes off. Something wet splashes across my face.
“Kyol!” I cry out, terrified he’s been shot. A second later, I see a severed arm clutching a pistol and hear Nakano’s scream.
“Dad!” Naito skids to his knees beside his father.
“McKenzie!” Kyol’s hands are on me.
Before I can say anything, Aren fissures to my other side. “Are you hurt?”
I shake my head. There’s too much going on. Too many gunshots and fissuring fae. And there’s an arm on the ground in front of me and a man bleeding and cursing and trying to push away his son, his son, who—even though he hates him—is trying to save his father’s life.
Naito cinches his belt around the stump of Nakano’s arm.
“Help him.” I push Aren toward the humans.
“You’re not hurt?”
“No.” A bullet in the back is what knocked me to the ground, but I don’t think it penetrated my vest. Adrenaline’s numbing the pain now.
“Get her out of here,” Aren orders. He scrambles across the forest floor to Nakano.
As Kyol’s pulling me to my feet, a shadow captures my attention. I would just let it go, but it nags at me like an itch that needs to be scratched. It’s a Court fae. I can’t see his face, but I’m certain I know him. He’s . . . Holy shit, it’s Radath.
I yank my sketchbook out of my satchel as he fissures away. “He’s running.”
“Not now, McKenzie.”
I push Kyol’s hands away and take the pen out of the spiral. “It’s Radath.”
Kyol freezes. I take advantage of his indecision and scratch the first twist of shadows across a blank page. The trail’s fresh enough. I think I can map his location to within a couple hundred feet.
“He’s gone to the Realm.” He’ll double fissure so I
have
to be accurate. A deeper shade of black narrows into a curving line. The river leaks out into the Jythia Ocean.
have
to be accurate. A deeper shade of black narrows into a curving line. The river leaks out into the Jythia Ocean.
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