Beyond the Aching Door (The Fatebound Duology, #1)

by Victoria Mier

Her muscles flexed, ready to do whatever was necessary to get back to him. An alien thought rose in her mind: all she had ever done was try to get back to him.

“People are drowning in the middle of a city, Raegan. They’re drowning on the goddamn pavement. How in the hell is someone like you going to resist?”

“There was an Irish fella who used to hang around back then. I remember, he told everyone to stay away from the puddles. Called it a kelp, I think.”

“Do you . . . do you mean a kelpie?”

“Of course, I would not drown you,” the kelpie added in such a matter-of-fact tone that it startled her. “I dare say the King would not be pleased. We have a covenant, after all.

To her left, just beyond her vision, walked a companion—no, much more than a companion. She knew the person walking with her through that meadow would follow her into the depths of hell if she asked.

“Outlive me. Please outlive me. I love you too much.” She strained, trying to see the face of the person whom she knew she loved, to take it in one last time. But then her vision slipped away and there was only a curl of black smoke and the smell of things long dead.

She tried casting her net a bit wider, but all she found were spells for making a straying boyfriend come back and a large group effort to hex the government that she briefly admired.

“The key you gave me opened a box with these papers in it.” “Yes,” the kelpie replied, its tone flat. “I understand how safe deposit boxes operate.” “Sure, okay,” Raegan said, nodding, thinking it was not unreasonable to assume a mythological creature was unfamiliar with banking.

“Raegan from Over the Hill,” the kelpie said, its voice authoritative and booming, the kind of voice she could imagine commanding armies, “what you hold in your hands is an incredibly complex spell, the likes of which your kind rarely attempts.”

Both times we have met, I have heard the hum of a Fatesong and felt my Threads plucked by an invisible hand. Which can only mean that you and this spellcraft are Fate-kissed. Gods-touched.”

For some reason, something that she couldn’t place, her heart stopped and she felt sure that she knew him, that she had been looking for him for so very long.

Fury simmered in Raegan’s stomach, sending spikes of heat through the rest of her body. She clenched her jaw, extraordinarily pissed for a number of reasons: for forgetting the kelpie had not denied killing people, for taking the lead on a possible serial killer right before discovering that magic was fucking real, and lastly, for having to talk to another person before 8 AM.

“Why do I look like Cormac?” the woman asked, one sharp brow arching. “Because he was my brother. I’m your aunt. And before you say anything—I imagine your father never brought me up. He may have even said he was an only child.”

“By doing magic,” Maelona continued, searching Raegan’s face, “you’ve thrown away the protection we sacrificed everything to give you.”

“You have made yourself known,” Maelona said, her voice edged with a rough rasp. “And the Protectorate have seen something that looks like one of theirs—unoathed, untrained, and thought long-lost.”

“He’s dead, Raegan,” Maelona snapped, but there was no venom in it. She looked drained. “If you’re holding on to some idiotic hope, let it go. He risked everything to have a normal life with you and your mother, but the Gates called too sweetly in the end.”

“It’s not real magic, anyway,” she said. “It’s poison loaned to us by the Timekeeper to do his bidding in places he can’t reach.”

“Where am I supposed to go?” she asked, surprised by the sound of her own voice—thin, hoarse, utterly lost. The woman stepped closer, hollow-eyed wistfulness dancing across the ancient planes of her face. “Oh, love,” she replied. “Where else? To the King, of course.”

For a moment, Raegan thought his full lips might part and he would utter something like, “Welcome home, I have been waiting for you. I have always been waiting for you. Like the heather returns to the hills every year, so I have hoped you would return to me.” He did not.

Here in brighter light, the King’s inhuman beauty only grew more apparent. She knew it was embarrassing and she wanted to stop, but all Raegan could do was gape at him. He shouldn’t be real. He was only meant to be some attractive stranger she met on subway stations and in dreams.

It seemed too improbable: that she had always been looking for him and now, finally, here he was.

She intended the words to come out angry, demanding. Instead, that strange thing in her chest unfolded sticky, cocoon-fresh wings, and her words were half-strangled with grief, an ocean of tears breaking the levy behind her eyes. She watched as the King’s long fingers curled reflexively around hers, as if their palms were two sides of a locket.

She knew without a shred of doubt that whoever walked beside her, silent and resolute, would unwaveringly be with her until the very end.

The Timekeeper, of course, is order and law and rule, while the Fair Folk are chaos and magic and mayhem.

Let’s break the cycle together, yeah? Let’s not give the Protectorate another Overhill to devour.”

His light eyes, straight, noble nose, and heavy, mountain-like build rang a thousand bells of familiarity in Raegan’s brain, but none sang in a timbre she could comprehend.

She knew this man. And she absolutely despised him. She did not think she had ever been so certain of anything in her life.

“Come,” the King commanded, turning toward what was most certainly not an exit, but for once in her life, Raegan hardly felt she was in a place to question anything. Besides, to her chagrin, she was more focused on how deep and velvet-cloaked the King’s voice became when he issued a command. Raegan began to imagine him uttering the same word under very different circumstances, but then he yanked her roughly over a pile of obliterated furniture.

Is there anything more beautiful than defiance, than survival? It is the most ancient song and perhaps the sweetest.”

And then the laughter dried up in her throat as she watched him: the petals, the arch, the black cloth, the snow, the door, the black cloak. She had seen this before, a thousand times before, endlessly rooted in this same spot, no snow or petal touching her skin, no door opening at her touch, forever abandoned in the desiccated garden like a rotted-out husk. “Oberon,” she murmured, the name tumbling out of her mouth like a stolen jewel.

“Abated your portico-related illness,” the King replied. “You are welcome.” “Why the fuck didn’t you do that the first time when I was vomiting in a random trash can?” she spat, anger bubbling over inside her. The King shrugged his broad shoulders. “I did not wish it.”

“It’s a Fatesong.” Chills cascaded across Raegan’s body.

The King, though—looking upon him nearly broke Raegan’s heart in half. Somehow, the melody made the shadows hang more heavily on him, the gloom a cloak upon his shoulders.

“No one has heard a Fatesong in nearly a millennium. We thought them extinct, or more likely, mere myth.”

“It is you,” she whispered to Raegan, her eyes flitting between amber and silver, mead and mist. “It sings for you.”

“Unrequited,” the Keeper said, his usual elegance back, his voice rising in volume as if he were performing for a crowd, “refers to a Prophecy that has not yet come to pass and has not been seen by other Oracles.

A thousand years. Someone, from all that time ago, had seen Raegan and thought that whatever she might do was worth recording, worth keeping tucked away in the Vaults for all this time. Someone had thought Raegan might brush up against Fate.

“We have done this so many times,” the King said, gaze meeting hers, long strides carrying him closer. “No more.” He spoke the words in a low, hoarse tone, intended only for her. She suddenly had the strangest feeling that her skeleton had once belonged to a thousand other people—that

“It is your choice. Know that I will follow you to the ends of the Earth,” the King murmured, head tilted as his eyes searched hers. “But we have done this a thousand times, and I never like the ending.”

“WHEN THE WORLD IS SPLIT IN TWO, THE MAEVE OF THIRTEEN FROM O’ER THE HILL—NOT FROM BENEATH—WILL MEND WHAT IS SHATTERED. SHE WILL COMPLETE THE WORK OF THE ONE WHO CAME BEFORE. SHE WILL WALK THE IN-BETWEEN BESIDE THE EXILED KING. SHE WILL TURN BACK THE TIMEKEEPER.” The Seer paused, her robes flowing around her on some invisible wind, looking not unlike a long-lost goddess only now returned to her rightful divinity. “AND SO THE GATES SHALL FALL.”

Historically, Raegan was not a fan of being perceived. But she fervently hoped to be seen.

“The Protectorate managed to capture me,” the King said, drawing out each word like an arrow from a quiver, “because of you.”

“Overhill is not a key,” the King replied, his voice a thunderstorm rolling across the horizon. “She is a person. I will not have you speak of her as if she is some tool to be tinkered with.”

Recall that I am Gwyn ap Nudd, the Render of Worlds, the King in Shadow. Do not make the mistake of threatening what is mine.”

A secret part of her yearned to see the King rip Cordelia and the Keeper limb from limb. Not for the sake of empty violence but because she was his and he was hers and any blood spilled would be in her name.

“It would be so much easier,” the King said, his head bowed like a sinner, voice low and reverent, “if that were true.”

Tentatively, filled with as much desire as terror, Raegan laid the flat of her hand against the King’s chest, right where his heart should be. He permitted it, watching her with that guarded expression again, though something like hope flickered in his gaze for a split second.

To his credit, the King hit her with the most sensual half-smile she had probably ever seen, the curve of his mouth saying more than words ever could. Open desire claimed the cavity of her chest, sending daggers of heat into her flesh. “You find my eyes pretty?” he murmured, mirroring her stance now, dropping his weight to his elbows and propping his chin up on one large hand.

“I desire,” she managed, willing herself to finish the sentence in the way she knew she must, “for you to be on my side. Through all of this. I don’t want simply your agreement to act in specific ways I must painstakingly hash out. I want you. On my side.”