“We need a healer,” she says in Fae. Her voice is monotone, but not tight, which is a surprise since she’s left a trail of blood behind her. The jaedric armor protecting her left thigh hangs on by just one lace.
“There’s still fighting at the veligh?” Lena demands. She rises from her seat on the dais’s top step to glare at Kyol. “Why are you here?”
“I needed to…” He stops, glances my way before clearing his throat. “I needed to know what was happening here.”
Translation: he needed to know I was safe.
Almost as an afterthought, he adds, “You sent your guards to the veligh. I’m here because you cannot be left unprotected.”
“One thing we can agree on,” Aren mutters as he walks to Jacia and peers down at her injury. He pulls off the jaedric leg shield, then slips his hand through the rip in her blood-soaked pants so he can heal the gash in her leg.
Only Aren, Lena, and a handful of other fae have the ability to heal. It’s one of the only endangered magics that I wish was more common. Some of the others, like the ability to read minds or to cast darkness, are less beneficial, more terrifying. The king and the majority of the Realm think humans and our culture and artifacts have been weakening the fae’s magic over the generations. They blame my people for making gate-building and a few other magics—magics that I’m not certain ever existed in the first place—extinct.
Jacia’s gaze moves from Aren to me. I have no idea if she knows why Kyol rejected a life-bond with her. We tried to hide our feelings for each other, but I’m sure some people were suspicious. But then, maybe life-bonds are rejected often? Fae are able to sense each other through the magical bindings, and if it’s a good pairing, they’re able to use more magic without becoming exhausted. The biggest drawback is that life-bonds are permanent; even if the couple splits up, the magical bond remains. I’m pretty sure the only way to end one is for one of the fae involved to die. That would definitely discourage me from agreeing to one.
“Jacia,” Lena says. “What’s happening at the veligh?”
Jacia says the situation is under control, but if I’m translating her words correctly, the remnants were close to breaking through our defenses. A portion of the silver wall was damaged from flames thrown by a fae.
That fae had to be powerful to be able to manipulate fire like that. Trev is a fire-wielder, one powerful enough to throw flames, and Lena can do something similar with air, but most fae who are able to manipulate the elements can only create small, temporary flames or a soft puff of wind. I hate knowing that the remnants have such powerful people supporting them.
When Aren finishes healing Jacia, Lena questions her further. They’ll need to erect a scaffold to support the wall until a more permanent fix can be made. Aren and Lena discuss who will be in charge of that project, then they switch to another subject, then another. When they start talking about the books that contain a registry of fae names and magical abilities, I glance at Kyol, but he seems very determined not to look my direction.
A resigned sigh escapes from me. It’s a familiar feeling, being pushed to the side like this.
Without a word, I leave the king’s hall.
FOUR
FOR TEN YEARS, I kept my human life separate from my life as a shadow-reader. I let my parents believe I was crazy because it was forbidden to tell them about the fae, and I was on academic probation almost my entire time in college because I couldn’t keep my grades up. Except for Paige, I’ve been friendless this entire time. But I accepted all of that. I accepted everything because it was best that humans not know anything about the fae. It would endanger the Realm, and I didn’t want to drag anyone else into its wars.
My precautions and sacrifices did a hell of a lot of good. They didn’t protect Paige.
“McKenzie.”
I’m surprised to hear Aren’s voice behind me, but I don’t slow down. I pull at the bindings of my cuirass as I stride through a corridor that follows the palace’s exterior wall.
“Hey,” he says, forcing me to stop when he cuts off my path. “Hey. Lena will help you.”
I sidestep around him, pulling at the bindings again. The damn knot tightens.
“I’ll talk to her,” he says, falling into step beside me.
“Don’t bother.”
Aren grabs my arm, turns me toward him. “She’s exhausted. She misses Sethan, and the nobles aren’t cooperating with her on anything, but she will help, McKenzie. I’ll help.”
“Lena won’t help because she shouldn’t.” I pull my arm free but don’t try to move past him again.
Aren tilts his head to the side. “She shouldn’t?”
“No.” The air whooshes out of my lungs. Sometimes, I really hate being reasonable. “She has to think about what’s best for the rebels—for the entire Realm, really. Paige is only one person, and she’s human. She’s not Lena’s responsibility. She’s mine.”
“McKenzie.” Aren’s voice is laced with a warning.
“What?”
“Don’t try to get her back on your own,” he says. He reaches out to help me untie my cuirass’s bindings.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
His silver eyes meet mine. “I know that expression, nalkin-shom. You have a plan.”
Nalkin-shom. Shadow-witch. The title should irritate me. Instead, it makes my stomach flip. The fae have called me nalkin-shom behind my back for years. I didn’t know that until Aren told me fae children have nightmares about me. Their parents tell them no one can escape the nalkin-shom, that if they misbehave, I’ll read their shadows, I’ll suck their magic dry. I still think he’s exaggerating. I might be the best at what I do—when I read a fae’s shadows, they almost never escape—but I’m not a monster.
Aren’s not looking at me like I’m a monster. Somehow, he makes shadow-witch sound like a term of endearment.
“I don’t have a plan,” I tell him. Not yet, at least.
He raises an eyebrow.
“I don’t,” I say, maybe a little defensively. Aren just shakes his head with that little half smirk I used to find infuriating. It’s not infuriating anymore. It’s alluring.
The bindings of my armor finally loosen, and Aren helps me lift it over my head. My hair gets caught on something. Aren gently pulls it free before setting the cuirass aside, then he lets my loose ponytail slide from his hand. When he does, his fingertips graze my neck. It’s a brief, accidental contact, but my edarratae react instantly. By the way Aren’s gazing down at me, it’s obvious he felt the lightning’s heat, too.
“Jorreb,” someone says, surprisingly close to us. Fae have better hearing than humans, but Aren stiffens just enough to indicate that the nearness of the fae startles him, too. He takes a step away from me as he turns toward Jacia.
Her silver eyes move briefly to me before settling back on Aren. “Lena wishes for the shadow-reader to speak to Naito.”
A muscle in Aren’s cheek twitches. “It’s only been two weeks.”
Two weeks since Naito’s lover, Kelia, died. My throat tightens. Kelia was the rebel fae who taught me to speak their language. She was almost a friend, and I envied her relationship with Naito, a human shadow-reader. Despite some bumpy times, they were happy together—they were good together—but Naito’s father, a hateful man determined to eradicate the fae, killed Kelia the day we took the palace. Naito hasn’t been the same since.