He swings it as Lena backpedals, as Aren leaps over the table, and as I grab the unopened bottle sitting on the silver platter.
But I don’t have to use my makeshift weapon. Aren knows where the remnant is the second Naito swings the chair into him. Aren slides off the table, his sword stabbing forward.
The remnant’s jaedric cuirass stops the attack. He faces Aren, but Lena steps left, then plunges her blade into his side. He cries out, falls to his knees, but he’s still alive. Still breathing.
“How did you get in here?” Lena demands, withdrawing her sword. The remnant’s hand goes to his side, but he can’t stop the river of blood from flowing between his fingers. He shakes his head as he gasps for air.
Lena’s sword point reenters the fae’s wound, and he screams.
The room tilts, and I’m suddenly nauseous. Lena asks him again how he got in here and what the remnants’ plan is, then there’s a shout from just outside the Mirrored Hall. Something breaks.
I sprint to the hall’s open doors, step out onto the balcony that overlooks the huge antechamber below.
My breath catches in my throat. Blood spills over the smooth, polished marble floor. The remnants are everywhere. I don’t know how. We’re inside the Silver Palace, which is inside Corrist’s silver walls. The only way for fae to fissure here is via a Sidhe Tol, but Lena has guards on all of them. It should be impossible for this many remnants to make it here at once.
Unless, of course, the remnants have retaken one of the Sidhe Tol.
As I back away from the railing, my gaze sweeps past the open doors to the king’s hall on the floor below. Kyol’s there. Remnants see him, too. They attack…
And he kills them as if they’re afterthoughts. He’s preoccupied, searching for…
He’s searching for Lena, I realize.
“Kyol!”
I don’t know how he hears me over the sounds of the battle, but he looks up. His eyes lock on me for two, maybe three seconds, then he’s running, sprinting for the stairs that will bring him to me.
“Lena’s in here,” I say, when he reaches me. I expect him to immediately enter the Mirrored Hall. Instead, he cups the back of my head and pulls me against his chest.
His embrace is tight, and I swear I feel a shudder go through his body when he lays his head against mine. God, the news of my supposed death must have rattled him. He shouldn’t be holding me like this—he should be rushing to protect Lena—but I lean into him, giving him a few seconds before I move back so that I can peer up into his face.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, though I’m not sure why. It’s not like I wanted to be captured by the remnants. But I definitely didn’t want to hurt him either.
I feel his chest rise as he draws in a breath, then he lets me go. Whatever he thought or felt when he pulled me into his arms doesn’t show on his face. His expression is as hard and unreadable as a stone’s.
After one quick glance at the fight below, he motions me inside the Mirrored Hall.
“Why are you here?” Kyol’s voice rings out as we stride toward Lena. The remnant she was interrogating is gone. Into the ether, I presume.
“Privacy,” she bites back.
He takes her arm when he reaches her side, starts pulling her toward the gap in the wall the servant entered and exited through earlier. “If you’d been in the king’s hall or your quarters, you could have escaped by now.”
“Escape?” She jerks free. “I’m not leaving the palace.”
“You are.”
“If I leave, I lose everything,” she says, her tone scathing. Then, when Kyol reaches for her again, she adds, “Touch me again, and I’ll kill you.”
I think she might mean that.
“If you die,” he counters, “the rebellion loses everything.”
Her nostrils flare. She tightens her right hand around the hilt of her sword, then, her gaze steely, she lifts her left. In it, she’s holding an anchor-stone. It’s jagged and an opalescent smoky gray.
“A remnant had this,” she says. “It will lead to a Sidhe Tol. A new Sidhe Tol.”
“They found another?” I ask, alarmed. King Atroth knew the locations of only three of the Ancestors’ Gates. Those gates allow fae to fissure into areas protected by silver. They’re located in my world, and I know Atroth had fae constantly searching for others, but what are the chances that they found one now?
“We need to secure the Sidhe Tol,” she says. The words are an order, and her rigid tone and regal posture say she expects it to be carried out, and quickly. She sounds very much like the daughter of a high noble, and it’s apparently a queenly enough tone that Kyol doesn’t argue.
His gaze remains on Lena. “Naito will go to the Sidhe Tol with Jorreb.” His jaw clenches. “You’ll stay with Lena, McKenzie. Make sure an illusionist doesn’t assassinate her.”
With that, Kyol turns and exits the hall.
“Looks like we have our orders,” Aren mutters. He doesn’t leave immediately, though. He turns me toward him, pulls me into his arms, and kisses me before I’m able to focus on his face. I feel more in his kiss than I’d ever see in his expression: affection, desire, and respect. Fear.
“Remember,” he whispers, pulling back slightly. “Be careful. Please. I can’t lose you again.”
Naito goes with him, leaving me alone with Lena. She waits all of five seconds before she uses her foot to scoop up the dead remnant’s sword. She catches its hilt in the air, then hands it to me with a terse, “Follow me.”
I stare down at the sword. It’s a long, slender weapon that looks elegant and light but is lethal and heavy. The blade is slightly longer than my arm, and the jaedric-wrapped hilt is grooved from the remnant’s fingers. My hand is smaller than his, so the grip is awkward.
“Lena, we shouldn’t—”
She’s almost to the doors of the Mirrored Hall.
“Lena, wait!”
I manage to catch her arm before she steps onto the balcony. “You can’t leave this room.”
Cold silver eyes rise to meet mine. “You would rather me let people die than go out there and heal them?”
“They’re fighting for you. I’d rather you stay alive, so it’s not in vain.”
“I’m not staying here, McKenzie.” She shakes loose.
I blow out a breath and follow her.
She must have forgotten I’m human because I can’t catch up, not until she stops at the top of the staircase, looking down at the battle below. Her face hardens. I think I know why: she’s not used to seeing so many fae injured in the middle of a fight. They usually fissure out if they’re hurt badly enough. They can’t do that here. Her people are hurt. Without her help, they’re going to lie there and die.
“Lena,” Trev says, climbing the steps.
Lena descends the stairs, passing Trev without a word. His gaze locks onto my sword, and I swear to God I see his eyes widen.
Great, I look as ridiculous as I feel carrying this thing.
“Stay with us,” I order as I go down the stairs two at a time, trying to catch up with Lena.
She kills a remnant before the fae is able to slam his sword into the rebel lying injured on the floor. His soul-shadow replaces his body. Lena passes through it, kneels by the rebel’s side, and places her hands on his mangled leg.
Another fae approaches. Before I have to make a decision on whether I’m actually going to have to try to fight him, Trev engages him.
Thank God.
I turn back to Lena, but she’s already moved on. Damn it. Kyol should have ordered her to stay with me. I can’t keep up, and I really, really don’t want to move farther into the fight.