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“Why’s Tal on fire?” “The mark on his chest. It’s borrowed magic. Dark magic. It lends power to the one who binds it. But left unchecked, steals power. Eventually, it will open a gateway that cannot be closed.” Te Léna had to shout over the roar of the fire and Iseabail’s frantic chanting.
“A gateway to where?”
“To the realm from where all dark magic hails,” Te Léna answered. “The demon realm. I will not say its name!”
But then Saeris was leaning over Tal’s flaming body, and she was pressing her hands to his chest. Her whole right arm was illuminated brilliant white-blue. In the space between heartbeats, where my seized lungs tried and failed to take a breath, the glowing filaments of Iseabail’s spell fell apart, and the fires of hell went out.
The third rune had shown up when I’d touched Tal’s chest. I hadn’t meant to walk into that burning bedroom. Hadn’t meant to touch the male’s marked chest. Something had pulled me forward, unbidden, with a sense of urgency I had been powerless to ignore. My body hadn’t been my own. That had been a terrifying experience, and I certainly didn’t want it repeated, but I had helped Tal as a result of it. More than helped him. According to the others, I’d saved him and prevented a portal to hell from consuming Cahlish. I couldn’t be mad about that, even if none of us understood how it had happened.
“This plant isn’t even supposed to flower,” he said. “It releases spores once every ten years instead. But those… those are flowers, right? And they keep blooming every time I speak, don’t they? I’m not losing my mind?” Even as he said it, another cluster of the little white flowers grew and bloomed, turning green to white. “No, Carrion. You are not losing your mind. That’s exactly what’s happening.”
It was the warriors from Irrín. They had abandoned their temporary camp and marched on Cahlish, ten thousand strong, and Lorreth of the Broken Spire rode at their head.
we lost another twenty-three warriors to the rot along the way. It’s moving fast now. Way faster than before.” “And it’ll reach Cahlish in how long?” Fisher asked. Danya shook her head. “Twelve hours? Sixteen max.”
Do not undo Zareth’s work. You are as you are for a reason. Do not drink from the vial. Do not let your new Lord drink. The time will come, but not yet.
The Hazrax made a rattling, wheezing sound. Was it laughing? “A two-part gift,” it said. “I gave you the first part last night.” “What are you talking about?” Its eyes, unnervingly black and bottomless, drifted down my body and settled on my hand. Oh, for fuck’s sake. “This?” I held up my hand, showing my runes. “This was from you?” “Indeed. You will have to work for most of your runes, but some of them may come as gifts. And this one was gifted just in the nick of time, wouldn’t you agree?” “What does it do? What does it mean? I can’t find a translation for it anywhere.” “And you won’t. It is
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“Think of it as an apology,” it said. “For what is to come. I have seen through the eyes of your oracle, and your future is not an easy one. There are those who would consider me partially to blame for that.”
The Hazrax drifted forward, extending its hand to me. Gold glinted in its waxy palm.
a ring dropped at my feet: the ring of office that marked it as a Lord of Midnight. A large polished ruby flashed at the ring’s center, winking in the fading light. “Give it to the apostate with the golden smile,” the Hazrax ordered. “He will need it.”
No matter what the circumstances were, Fisher would have answered via our bond if I’d called out to him. He hadn’t come through the gate.
“I never came across any texts that spoke of interrealm travel that didn’t rely on quicksilver. I certainly read about individuals absorbing the powers of others to bolster their own magic, but… the kind of magic it would take to open a portal between realms? Well, that would require an inordinate amount of power.”
“The kind of power that would take a thousand years to steal?” I asked. “The kind of power that would require a whole city to fuel?” Carrion stared at me, eyes widening. I saw it happen: We were piecing this whole thing together at the same time.
“You said it yourself, didn’t you?
You cannot eradicate magic from a city. Once it takes root within a community, it never leaves. It will find a way to thrive, one way or another. You just didn’t care to look for it.’” Something else had come back to me, too. My heart started to race. “And what you said about the sigils in that book! ‘The strongest magic is circular. Like a wheel. It is the symbol of forever, the beginning and the end of everything. It carries magic on a loop, amplifying it, giving it strength.’” Foley nodded, though he looked somewhat confused. “I remember.” “Zilvaren,” I said breathlessly. “The city,
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“If we wanted to create a ward against her magic, could it be done?”
Iseabail seemed startled that all eyes had turned to her. “No. That kind of magic…” She hesitated, then looked anxiously around the kitchen, as if she wasn’t sure of what to say next. “You’re talking about warding a realm. That kind of spellwork would require Fae and witch magic, working side by side. You’d need an entire coven of powerful witches and at least ten strong Fae wielders to build something that monumental. You’d also need something that belonged to Madra. And not just something she touched once. You’d need something far more personal if we were going to block her magic.”
We’d gotten lucky. Very lucky. The object we’d sprinted down here hoping to find was right there, still strapped to the guardian’s belt. The pious fucker had been stupid enough to carry around one of Madra’s ridiculous plague bags on his hip. But she was the one arrogant enough to believe herself a god. The plague bags were full of ashes from the sacrifices who were burned in Madra’s honor… but they also contained her hair.
A body lay next to him on the chalk, red dress torn and dirty, blond hair pooling around her head. Zovena looked like she was sleeping, but I had seen enough death by now to recognize its subtle hue creeping into the female’s pale cheeks. Tal sat on the very edge of the cliff with his legs dangling over the side. He wasn’t touching Zovena, though he must have carried her here and laid her down. The wind blew his silver hair about his face, the strands glowing orange and red, reflecting the bloody sunrise.
That’s a god sword now? That’s all it took?” I shrugged. “A bit of borrowed quicksilver from my blade. A little bit of magic. An abundance of good intentions.” The former vampire looked lost for words. “And it’s for me?” “Yes, it’s for you.”
“What’s its name?”
Tal let out a long, shaky breath, considering the sword. “Tarsarinn,” he said. “It means… redemption.”
But when the satyrs present lowered their heads, they didn’t charge Carrion. They dropped to their knees at the same time and laid their weapons down in offering, bowing to the Daianthus heir.
This wasn’t the huntsman’s cottage. I’d focused very hard, right before Danya’s fist had found my jaw, to make sure I wouldn’t wake up there. I was right where I needed to be—in Cahlish.
Even here, in my dream, Cahlish had been claimed. It was a hollow shell of what it had been just yesterday, and seeing it like this, so faded and dead, tore something at the root of my soul. The faces of the males and females in the paintings on the walls, Fisher’s ancestors all, looked down on me with consternation, as if they blamed me for the state of their home and hoped that I would do something about it. But there was nothing to be done. Cahlish was gone.
The Hazrax’s rune tingled briefly, and the rot that encased the door crumbled. It had been thrumming with power a second ago—admittedly, an awful lot of that power mine—and now its vines were desiccated husks. They withered and broke apart as the door opened at last… and revealed Kingfisher sitting in the high-backed chair in front of the fire.
“Fisher?” He didn’t answer. Worse, he showed no sign of having heard me at all. Whatever his eyes were seeing, it wasn’t the fireplace or his room at Cahlish. Or me. Wherever he had gone, it was somewhere I could not follow.
“Save your breath, King Killer.” The voice took me by surprise. I’d been so fixated on Fisher that I hadn’t heard it enter the room. The Hazrax hovered by the bed,
“That means that when you asked me in the forge if I wanted to strike the same bargain with you that I struck with Malcolm and I said yes, the details of my deal with the old vampire king became the details of our arrangement, too. The fine print of the deal I made with Malcolm stated that I could observe him, not his court. Him. It is irrelevant whether the Blood Court exists, Saeris. It is you who I observe. Wherever you go, whatever you do, you have given me permission to follow and witness alongside you.”
I ran across the room and picked up the tiny ceramic figurine of the kingfisher bird.
I saw what had been placed underneath the figurine immediately: a small, crumpled piece of paper.
It was the first little bird. The one that had lost its magic and fallen to the ground when it had left the library. The missing page from Edina’s journal, not torn out, because it had never been bound in. I’d had it here all along!
I beg you for my favor. I need you to transport me to the Wicker Wood!”
“What is it doing to him? Why is it trapping him like that?”
“You might assume that you are surrounded by trees right now, but you would be wrong. These are no ordinary trees. They were once a clan of dryads. Self-righteous and arrogant as they were, they took it upon themselves to stand up to one of the northern witch clans. No one really remembers why. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that they lost their feud and suffered the consequences forthwith. The witches cursed the dryads and turned them into these prisons. They were damned to find no solace or comfort in the daylight that they worshipped and instead were doomed to feed only on the
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To me, the king said, “These dryads are on my land. They exist at my discretion. They obey me in everything, and in return I keep them fed. Try to cut this one down or hack your mate free, and it will kill him in an instant.
“Fisher has been nothing but trouble since the moment he was born, and the only way I will suffer him to live is like this, where he can’t stir up my people and cause any more trouble. He will remain here until I am satisfied he no longer poses a threat to my crown. He will stay here,” he repeated, “until I have seen you bow before the Firinn Stone and you have rendered yourself Oath Bound into my service. You will accept this without complaint, and after you have proven yourself to me… become my tool to wield, eventually, in a couple thousand years, I may set him free. This is the only way he
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Soon, the oubliette will consume your mate. When the dryad encapsulates him fully, it will not kill him, but he will enter a state very much like death. The bond between god sword and male will be broken, and Nimerelle will be mine. A gratifying justice, I think. With such a legendary god sword in my hand, I will bring those who refuse to bow before me to their knees by force.
“It was given to Fisher by the gods themselves. Did you know that it’s made of iron?”
Ajun, where he closed the iron gate that protects the city, again with his bare hands. He knew that would kill him. And it should have. But Bal and Mithin chose to take pity on their favorite, didn’t they? They saved him. They gave him a sword of iron, because he had shown strength enough to wield it. And there on the killing fields, his friend was slain by the dragon they fought. The very same whose skull you display behind your throne as if it were you who slayed him.
“The blade, then, as you can discern from the tale, is no simple god sword. It’s made of iron. It houses the echo of a soul that died because of you. It doesn’t matter if Kingfisher lives or dies. You’ll never be able to wield Nimerelle. If the metal doesn’t kill you, then the warrior who lives inside it will.”
“One other who isn’t affected by iron.” “Pray enlighten me. Who—” “Me.” I called the sword, and the sword came.
For the first time in Yvelian history, a god sword had entrusted itself into the hands of someone it wasn’t bonded to. Because Kingfisher loved me. I had come here to save him… and that was good enough for his sword.
Belikon’s seneschal darted toward the tree. He placed a hand on its trunk, and the whole thing shook at the contact. I hurled Solace, throwing the sword like a spear. It struck Orious clean through the side, cleaving him straight through the chest. But the damage was already done. A groaning, cracking, creaking sound filled the air, and the open, festering trunk around Fisher’s shoulders and head began to close.
I was anchored in place. Belikon had hold of me from the inside. He hadn’t just punched me. He’d punched through my breastbone, into my chest cavity… and now he had me by the heart.
“Names hold meaning in this place. There is no power in this realm or any other that can supersede an order given using someone’s true name. A true name can undo oaths. It can open doors.”
“Kingfisher of the Ajun Gate, I hereby call you by your true name. I declare all oaths you have sworn null and void. Rise, Khydan Graystar Finvarra, in honor of the name you were given at birth! Rise up and fight!”
