Aren reaches into the pond, opening his own gated-fissure. Before he pulls me into it, his hand tightens around mine, and he says, “I’ve missed you, McKenzie.”
Then he finishes the kiss Brenth interrupted.
THREE
I’M BREATHLESS WHEN we step out of the fissure. That’s probably the In-Between’s fault, but I’m blaming Aren. He kissed me until his chaos lusters slid into my skin, making me forget everything but him. Then, just when the lightning built to a level where I swear I was seconds away from losing control, he pulled me into the In-Between.
The icy In-Between.
Going from hot to cold like that was both divine and torturous.
As soon as I’m able to stand without swaying, I glare at him. He gives me a maddening grin in return.
My hand is still in his, the anchor-stone still pressed between our palms. The lightning darting between our clasped fingers is white in this world, not blue, and it originates from me. Even so, it’s as hot and tantalizing as his is on Earth.
I slip my hand free before the lightning builds further—it’s already difficult enough not to press my lips to his again—then scan the cobblestoned area outside Corrist’s silver wall. Brenth must have taken Shane back to Vegas because they’re not here. No one else is, either, and that makes me uneasy. Two weeks ago, this place was filled with fae haggling and making purchases in the shops to my left.
We call the thirty-foot buffer zone between those shops and the silver wall a moat even though it’s level with the rest of the city and not filled with water. Kyol and the Court fae fissured me to this area hundreds of times over the last ten years, but it’s never felt so wrong to stand here. The pale yellow stone of the shops facing the silver wall is usually tinted blue at night, but no one has lit the orbs topping the streetlights, and I’m pretty sure most of the buildings are deserted.
Deserted by the merchants, at least. Remnants have used the abandoned buildings for cover during their attacks. Some of the shops are two or three stories tall, and from down here on the ground, there’s no way of knowing if a fae is hiding on a tiled rooftop or behind closed curtains.
“Any later and you would be dead, Jorreb,” someone shouts in Fae from the silver wall, using Aren’s family name.
“Then my timing is perfect!” Aren shouts back, turning his grin on whoever’s watching us from one of the spy holes above the lowered portcullis.
I clench my teeth together. Since the remnants have been launching random attacks on the wall, Lena’s issued an order not to wait to identify the fae who step out of opening fissures; the guards on the wall are to shoot immediately except at the “safe” fissure locations. Those locations change every half hour. Lena and Kyol devised a rotating pattern, a code of sorts, that only the people they trust the most know.
“Let us in,” Aren says.
We duck under the rising portcullis. It’s made of pure silver. The metal doesn’t prevent fae from using their magic inside the wall—it only prevents them from fissuring in or out, or around inside the Inner City and the palace. Necessary of course, to keep us safe from attack, but it’s a significant handicap given that the fae are so used to being able to appear and disappear at will. Aren looks completely at ease, though, when he crosses to the other side.
Two swordsmen emerge from an opening in the wall. More are on watch inside, I presume. The wall is eight feet wide and hollow between the stone blocks that support the heavy silver plating. Wooden stairs and narrow platforms allow the fae to stand guard inside the wall. I’ve stood guard inside it recently as well, making sure no one hidden by illusion was attempting to enter the Inner City.
I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hold in what little warmth I have left, while Aren exchanges a few words with the shorter of the two fae swordsmen. The taller fae is carrying a jaedric cuirass and a cloak. He hands them both to Aren, who brings them to me. He helps me slide the cuirass on over my head, then tightens the bindings on the sides.
I’m more thankful for the cloak than the armor, and not just because I’m cold. The chaos lusters are bright on my skin. Supposedly, the fae who have remained in the Inner City support Lena or are neutral in this war, but it’s not like we’ve had time to interview every individual to see if that’s really true. Without the cloak, the lightning would draw too much attention, so I pull it on over my cuirass and adjust the hood so that my face is hidden beneath it.
“One more thing,” Aren says, holding a third item I didn’t see before. He takes the two ends of the long strap in his hands, then buckles them around my waist, under the cloak. “Think you can keep up with this one?”
I reach behind my back, feel the hard jaedric casing that, I’m assuming, holds a dagger. It’s about the length of my hand and sheathed so that the weapon is almost parallel with the ground.
I can grab the dagger’s hilt with my right hand relatively easily.
“Don’t trust me with a sword?” I tease.
“They didn’t have a spare,” he returns, a small smile playing across his lips. And that’s all it takes, that slight curve of his mouth, to make warm, tingling happiness flare through me. I’ve missed our playful disagreements.
We don’t take a direct route to the palace. Instead, one of the swordsmen leads us to a narrow passageway between the buildings to the west of the Cavith e’Sidhe, the Avenue of the Descendants. Aren stays at my side, his gait more a saunter than a walk. If his hand wasn’t casually resting on the hilt of his sword, I’d say he wasn’t worried at all about a possible attack. But the hand is there, and his head is cocked slightly to the side as if he’s listening for an extra set of footfalls or the soft scrape of a blade sliding free of a scabbard.
My stomach tightens with unease. My hearing isn’t nearly as good as a fae’s, but I’m listening and watching for an attack, too.
Moss and red-flowered plants grow out of cracks in the stone walls on both sides of us. On Earth, that would be a sign that this part of the city isn’t well taken care of, but here in the Realm, it adds a certain beauty and exoticness to the twisting passageway.
The Inner City is where the wealthiest fae live and where the high nobles have their secondary residences away from their provincial estates. We reach one of those residences soon. Kyol pointed it out to me once before, saying it belonged to Lord Kaeth, elder of Ravir and the high noble of Beshryn Province, one of the fae we have to convince to support Lena. The gardens surrounding his home are still green despite it being late fall here.
We turn right at the edge of a meticulously trimmed hedge, then left when we reach the avenue of the Descendants. Blue light from the magic-lit lampposts makes it easy to see the cobblestones beneath our feet. They’re level except for the parallel indentions where cirikith-drawn carts have weathered away the stone. None of the beasts, which look like a thin version of a stegosaurus with horselike hooves and haunches, are out now. When the sun goes down, they fall into a minihibernation. It takes a hell of a lot of effort to keep them awake through that, and even if you do, the cirikiths move so sluggishly it’s hardly worth the effort.
Despite how well this is going so far, goose bumps break out on my arms, and the nape of my neck tingles. Out here on the avenue, there are plenty of places for the remnants to hide.
“Relax,” Aren says beside me. “They’ll come after me before they do you.”
I pull my cloak more tightly around me. “That’s supposed to be comforting?”