I DIDN'T HAVE a choice.
Edina's message had told me exactly where I could find my mate and had given me the tools to save, him, too. What it hadn't given me was the means to reach him in time. That part, she had said, was up to me. So I'd done what I'd had to. A full year with the Hazrax looking over my shoulder, in exchange for a one-way ticket to the Wicker Wood.
I'd held the page bearing Edina's instructions as tightly as I could in my hands when the Hazrax had told me to brace myself, but three seconds later, when I awoke on my back in the snow, it was no longer there. It didn't matter. The information I needed was seared into my memory now. The chances of forgetting what I'd read were absolute zero.
Fog billowed on my breath. Overhead, the bare branches of the trees scraped at the night sky like twisted fingers. The sky was clear for once, and the stars stippled the heavens in a breathtaking display. The Hazrax's robed form appeared suddenly in my field of vision, making me jump. Its eyes shone reflectively in the dark, as if they were brushed with silver.
I waited for it to make some kind of cryptic remark, or at least tell me to hurry, but it said nothing. I got to my feet. "Well, since you seem to know so much about all of this, which way do I need to go?"
The Hazrax didn't make a peep.
I shivered against the cold as I got to my feet and brushed myself off. "Seriously? Now? After all the interfering, you're going back to watching?"
The creature just looked at me. I took its silence as a very annoying yes. "All right. Fine. I don't need you anyway."
I didn't. I could feel Fisher now. In a roundabout way. What I could actually feel was the tiny thread of quicksilver that was still trapped in his eye. It was a negligible amount—barely enough to be worth mentioning. Before I'd sealed my quicksilver rune, I probably wouldn't have been able to sense it. Now, that tiny sliver of metal stood out like a flickering flame in a sea of darkness.
He was here, and I was going to find him.
The Hazrax floated an inch above the ground, gliding along behind me as I set off into the woods. It cut a ghostly figure as we hurried through the trees . . . but no more ghostly than the shades themselves. Fisher had told me about them the last time I'd found myself in this wretched wood: the souls of the damned, condemned to haunt these woods, constantly reliving their gruesome deaths as punishment for their crimes. Fisher had offered to give me the Sight, so I could see the shades for myself. I had not-so-politely declined. But I was Fae now. I had the Sight whether I wanted it or not, and the visions that stalked me as I ran through the trees were downright horrific.
A female in a tattered gown, dragging a dead infant behind her through the snow.
A mutilated male, screaming and on fire as he sprinted across the pathway up ahead.
Another male with chains wrapped around his body and attached to a large, transparent boulder, who thrashed and writhed, head tipped back as he seemingly drowned, and drowned, and drowned . . .
Everywhere I looked, the souls of the dead endured their torment on a loop. They howled and cried, the sound sending convulsions of dread up and down my spine.
Fisher was here. From his appearance back in the dreamscape of Cahlish, he was suffering along with the dead. Alive for now, at least, but why? And how?
I'd only been running through the forest for five minutes before I stumbled into a campsite. No fire. No smoke. There had been nothing to warn me of the group of warriors, lurking in the dark up ahead. I didn't see them until it was too late.
Five? Eight? I scrambled to count, but they were already moving, drawing bows and reaching for blades.
Ten warriors at least.
No words were exchanged.
The carnage commenced.
I'd had my short swords back in the camp with Danya. I hadn't had them in the dreamscape. Mercifully, they were at my hips now. I didn't know how the Hazrax had done it, but it had transported my physical body from Inishtar, weapons and all.
Thanking the gods and all four winds, I drew my weapons and prepared to fight like hell.
The first male to my left came for me. His blade cut through the air, whistling close to my ear, but didn't find its target. I ducked, shoving the metal in the blade away with my mind, and was met with immediate resistance.
Fucking null blade.
They all had them. The unnatural weapons felt like blind spots in my vision—black holes, sucking at my energy and the magic of the woods itself. I couldn't manipulate them. Couldn't shove them away like I might have been able to with a normal sword or dagger. Just as I had back in Ammontraíeth's sepulcher, I was going to have to fight these fuckers the normal way, without using my magic to disarm them . . . but I was ready for it.
These motherfuckers had taken my mate. They had him trapped here, I knew it. They had officially fucked up, and boy, were they about to pay.
One of the warriors with a bow loosed an arrow. They'd learned from their mistakes back in the tomb: the tips of their arrows weren't made of iron this time. They were crafted from the same material as the null blades. The arrow maintained its course, coming straight for me . . .
I ducked, seizing the opportunity to bat aside another attacker's null blade as he came in to slash at my side. Parrying the attack, I flicked Erromar around, ripping the null blade from the guard's hand. The null blade sailed off into the dark. I flipped Erromar over in my hand and plunged the god sword in between the fucker's ribs, lighting him up from the inside.
Holy fire blazed out of the male's eyes and mouth as he died.
The arrow had thudded into a tree now on my right. I ripped it free from the trunk and ran at another guard, plunging the appropriated weapon into his neck. As I spun away, I caught another warrior across the back of her legs with Selanir, and the female went down with a blunted cry. She'd be back up on her feet in a second, but I only needed a second to step over her and inside the guard of yet another attacker. This one was huge. A mean scar twisted his skin from his temple, down his left cheek, through both lips, and down under his chin. He snarled, baring his teeth as he grabbed me by the throat and squeezed.
Fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck . . .
My vision danced.
Lorreth's voice screamed at me from the past, urging me into action. "Move, Saeris! Fucking move! Do you want to die?"
I wasn't dying here. Not tonight. No fucking way.
None of these assholes was going to stop me from finding my mate.
The male jerked, his eyes going wide. Disbelief rendered his features slack as he looked down and saw the two glowing short swords sticking out of his chest. As he dropped me, I pulled back Erromar and Selanir, then drove them into his massive torso again, again, again—
"For the love of the gods, contain her!" a rumbling bellow demanded. "She's one single female! Take her to the ground!"
That voice haunted my nightmares. In Gillethrye, the owner of that voice had mocked my mate. He had crowed with satisfaction as he'd encouraged Fisher to explain the bargain he'd used to trick him into one hundred and ten years of misery. I couldn't see him, but he was here: Belikon De Barra, king of a stolen throne, oppressor of an entire court.
A hail of arrows streamed through the air. I dropped to the ground and rolled, gritting my teeth against the pain that exploded in my mouth. I'd bitten my tongue. Fuck, that hurt. I pushed the throb of it away, freeing myself from it.
"Now! She's done the hard work for you! Pin her!" Belikon raged. One of the archers threw himself on top of me, obeying his king's command. I drove Erromar up into his armpit, and the point of the burning white god sword burst out of the side of his neck. Smoke puffed out of the guard's mouth, and then he was dead.
Another came, and then another, and another. I let them pile on top of me. A nauseating jolt of pain fired up my leg—impossible to push away this time—but I forced myself to bear it, waiting for the right moment.
A fourth set of hands tried to grab me, fingers digging into my throat again, and I let go.
My quicksilver rune wasn't just useful for manipulating metals and making relics. It was also great at expelling very large amounts of power in very short blasts.
None of the guards had noticed the rune on the back of my right hand glowing brighter and brighter, lighting up the thick, oddly shaped tree trunks that surrounded us. Belikon apparently noticed, though, but far too late to save his men. "Back! Pull back! She's going to—"
My shield blazed to life, and the interlocking Alchimeran runes projected in the air shone like a falling star. The quicksilver icon burned brightest, pulsing. When I flicked my wrist, the shield rotated, the icon growing larger . . .
Magic roared inside me, swelling, mounting, growing . . .
Belikon's mouth fell open as he watched my shield detonate, and the force of the resulting pulse of energy launched the guards into the air and obliterated them. A fine mist of blood and pulverized meat rained down, speckling the snow red.
Six of them were dead now? Seven? I'd lost count. I got up again, ready for the next attack . . . but no one came.
Belikon De Barra stared in wonder at the shield still hovering in the air in a way that made panic chase along my nerves. "Spectacular," he breathed. "Never before have I seen such layered power. It cannot be allowed to exist in this world, unless it is bound to me."
"Well, I guess you should have thought about that before you killed all of the other Alchemists then, shouldn't you?" I slammed my hands closed, and the shield snapped out of existence. I shouldn't have let him see it. The madness in his eyes declared that he'd never stop until he'd found a way to chain me to him now, and that prospect was terrifying.
"Is that what they told you? That I killed off your kind? You should do more research before—"
"I don't want to hear it. Before you start spinning lies—"
"Insolent female! You are too fond of interrupting your betters! Hold your tongue. You won't make it out this wood without my say-so," he barked.
Chest heaving, I lowered Erromar and Selanir to my sides and spat on the ground, running him through with the most contemptuous look I could muster. "Won't I?"
"No. You won't. And you know why you won't, too. You will stand right there, and you will behave yourself, because you want your mate to live. Orious, why don't you show the little Alchemist where her precious dog has been spending his time the past few days?"
Orious.
That sniveling, greasy piece of shit.
He was here, too?
Yes. The rail-thin male stepped out from behind a tree, chin held high as he met my gaze. "I warned you, girl. You had your chance. This could have all been much easier. Much less . . . painful for you."
"Fuck you, Orious. Tell me where Fisher is."
Off to Orious's left, the Hazrax hovered in the dark, eerily luminescent in the moonlight, watching . . .
"Oh, but he's right in front of you, girl," Orious purred. "Don't you see?"
Belikon's seneschal casually stepped to one side, moving out of the way, and suddenly I did see. The woods pitched, the trees seesawing, and a brutal cry cut through the night air. At first, I thought the bloodcurdling scream had come from one of the Wicker Wood's tortured shades, but then I tasted blood, and I realized it had come from me. I'd screamed so loud that I'd torn my fucking throat open.
A monstrous tree stood before me, fifty feet tall, its bark black as sin. A huge rent ran down the center of its trunk—a split in its wood so rotten and foul that it actually looked like a wound. That's where Fisher was, at the center of that wound. The lower part of the tree looked like it had healed around his body. All the way up to his shoulders, in fact, the wood had grown around my mate, caging his body inside it. It had almost swallowed him whole.
Fisher's eyes were closed, his eyelashes a stark black ink against his cheeks. His hair was plastered to his head. He looked far worse than back in the dream—seconds away from death. At the base of the tree, Nimerelle rested on top of a flat piece of stone, spewing clouds of thick shadow from her blade. Fisher's god sword was not happy in the slightest. "What are you doing to him?" I whispered.
Belikon grinned a wolfish grin then turned his back on me, confident now that he had my attention. "You may recall, when we met first, Saeris, that I said this male, this . . . dog, was to face trial for his part in the death and destruction that took place in my beloved city of Gillethrye. He fled my palace without my knowledge and then sought harbor in an illegally warded refuge. Since he refused to stand before the court that he serves and give his account of what happened at Gillethrye—"
"You fucking monster. He didn't have anything to do with those people's deaths," I spat.
"—the trial was conducted without him and judgment rendered in his absence." Belikon's grin widened to terrifying, unnatural degrees. "As you might have guessed, he was found guilty of mass genocide. Why he would have killed so many of his own people remains a mystery," he said, a false airiness in his voice. "But as a just and fair king who cares about the welfare of his subjects, there was only one thing for me to do." He fixed me in his gaze then, his expression going blank, and I saw the cold, evil thing inside him, peering out from behind his rheumy eyes. "I sentenced him to life imprisonment, of course. Here, in an oubliette."
"What is it doing to him? Why is it trapping him like that?" I hated the panic in my voice. I hated the way it shook.
"Tell her, Orious," Belikon said in a bored voice. "The Alchemist will learn eventually. And it's better for us if she understands her predicament sooner rather than later."
Orious, bootlicker that he was, bowed until he was bent double at the waist. "Certainly, Your Majesty." He rose and set about explaining. "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 suffering and misery of others. The witches transformed the dryads into everything they abhorred . . . and here they still stand today, fueled by the fear and the never-ending pain of those they house inside of them. They keep their prisoners alive, you know. Their relationship becomes symbiotic. It's fascinating really. I have—"
"Enough, Orious. I think she understands now," Belikon intoned.
His seneschal stopped speaking, falling into an even deeper bow than the first.
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. They've turned into spiteful things over the years." He laughed. "I have to admit, I admire their ability to inspire such fear into their captives. Sometimes, if you place your hand against their trunks, they'll show the symphony of terror they are conducting inside the minds of those they harbor within."
"Let him go," I seethed. "You know Malcolm's horde killed the people of Gillethrye. Fisher had nothing to do with it!"
"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 lives, girl," Belikon sneered. "Make your peace with it."
I would not make my peace with it. Never in a million years. But Belikon didn't know that. He thought he had me cornered with nowhere to go. I nodded to the god sword still churning out black smoke on the stone at the foot of Fisher's prison. "And Nimerelle?" I asked. "What happens to Fisher's god sword while he's trapped inside this prison for thousands of years?"
Belikon's gaze was feverish as it fell upon the sword in question. "Since Kingfisher stole what was rightfully mine and took Solace when he fled the palace, it's only right that I take his god sword from him. 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. For the good of Yvelia—" His words died on his lips. "Wait. What are you doing?"
I had used the time while he was speaking to press Erromar and Selanir together. The short swords had become one again, reforming Solace. The singular sword was far bigger than was comfortable for me, but I could wield it just fine. And I was going to need two hands for what was coming next.
"He isn't staying in that thing." It was a statement. A simple fact.noveldrama
Orious barked out harsh laughter, though he shuffled his feet. "Stubborn until the end, Your Majesty. What did I tell you? She can't be reasoned with."
But Belikon wasn't listening to his seneschal. He was staring, eyes narrowed into slits, at me. "What are you hiding, girl? What do you know?"
I took a step forward. "I know the history of that god sword over there. Do you?"
The bastard's frown deepened. He drew his cloak about him, arranging the fabric so that it hung correctly at his feet. "It is a sword, half-breed. Swing and it cuts. What else do I need to know?"
"It was given to Fisher by the gods themselves. Did you know that it's made of iron?"
The king laughed dismissively. "Don't be stupid. No member of the Fae can wield iron. One second holding that in his bare hands, and the dog would have been dead. He's carried it since Ajun—"
"Since Ajun. Yes. 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.
"You chastise me for claiming what's rightfully mine? The spoils of war always belong to the crown, you fool."
Another step. I was nearly close enough. Almost, now . . .
"Her name was Merelle, twin sister to Renfis, the male who later became general of your army."
Wrinkling his nose, Belikon shook his head. "Am I supposed to feel something? How am I supposed to remember everyone who falls in service of their king? I didn't even know the male had a sister."
I swallowed down the bile that rose up the back of my throat. "She died screaming. Fisher and the other members of the Lupo Proelia brought down that hateful beast, and Fisher found himself trapped inside its jaws. Merelle came to him there. Her spirit, that is. She bound her soul to that blade, so she would always be with her friends. That's why he named the sword that. Ni' Merelle. For Merelle, in Old Fae."
Orious sneered, his top lip curling in disdain. "Do not lecture us on the etymology of words formed in a language you do not speak."
Another step closer. Only one more, and I'd be close enough.
I made a point of ignoring Orious's jab. "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."
He clearly hadn't known about the iron. God swords always made the people they weren't bonded to uncomfortable. That was just the way of them. He'd put his unease around the sword down to that. He hadn't touched the sword without gloves yet. That would have been a death sentence, given who he was and the fact that the blade was still bonded to Fisher. The realization came crashing down on the king now—a hole in his plan. A disruption, souring the taste of victory in his mouth.
He tried to wave the matter off. "So be it. Fine. If no other member of the Fae can touch the damned iron, then it'll be disposed of. Buried in an unmarked site. Thrown into a chasm. It will be forgotten, and you will make me a new god sword—"
There is one," I interrupted.
Orious's mouth flapped, his anger over the fact that I'd spoken over his precious king evident. Belikon just sighed. "One what?"
"One other who isn't affected by iron."
"Pray enlighten me. Who—"
"Me."
I called the sword, and the sword came.
I sent up a fervent prayer as Nimerelle shot up from the stone at the foot of the tree and flew through the air . . .
Please don't kill me. Please don't kill me. Please don't fucking kill—
The sword slammed into my bare palm, and the Wicker Wood stood still as I closed my hand around the hilt of the mighty Nimerelle. A brief, unpleasant shock wave traveled up my arm, but then it was . . . gone.
There was no voice in my head. No chiding from the small thread of quicksilver it contained, nor from the gods who had made it, nor the warrior who possessed it. The faintest smell of juniper tickled the back of my nose. I heard distant, playful laughter on a breeze that wasn't there. And then, simultaneously, the god sword in my left hand formed a pillar of blazing white . . . and the god sword in my right erupted with a wall of shadow and smoke.
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.
"Impossible," Belikon whispered. But of course it would seem impossible to him. A heart ruled by hatred and fear could not experience miracles. You had to know love, joy, and trust for that, and those concepts were as foreign to him as the idea of Yvelia had been to me not too long ago.
"He's dead. The second you touch the dryad with either of those swords, he's dead!" Belikon shouted.
"The swords aren't for the dryad, Belikon." I spun them end over end, trailing light and shadow. "They're for you."
I'd experienced the male's power back in the throne room of the Winter Palace. I'd felt like crawling out of my own skin. Again, I'd witnessed it in Gillethrye, when Fisher had run him through with Nimerelle and the male had not died. His power snapped against my skin again now, as I prowled toward him. It tried to stop me in my tracks, but I wasn't the same girl who'd stood there and watched him torment her mate. I had power of my own now, and it was just as formidable as this pretender king's.
With every step I took toward him, overcoming the shield he'd thrown up around himself, Belikon's eyes widened. "What do you hope to accomplish? You cannot kill me, girl."
Killing him would be a win for Yvelia, but I did know that I wouldn't accomplish that goal tonight. That was for another day, another time, and another hand to plunge the knife. All I had to do was keep him busy long enough to say the words . . .
"Orious, I'm done with this nonsense," Belikon spat. "Tell the dryad to take him."
Shit. Once that tree closed around Fisher, this was over. I had to act. Now.
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.
Belikon was in front of me.
He'd moved so fast. Too fast. I'd let my focus drift for a split second, and now I was going to pay.
The air rushed out of me as he punched me in the solar plexus. I should have flown back and slammed into the tree—the dryad—behind me, but I didn't. 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. "This seems to be the source of our issues here. Such a problematic piece of meat. Could you survive without it, I wonder? Half-ling that you are, I still think you need your heart, Saeris. Are you going to make me rip it out? Or will you start behaving so that I'll let you keep it?"
I couldn't answer. I could stop my heart from beating, but I definitely still needed it to stay inside my chest. Panic cinched tight around my chest, taking hold . . .
"Bend the knee, Saeris," Belikon rumbled. His breath fanned over my face, foul and reeking of death.
Monster.
Murderer.
Villain.
I would rather die than chain myself to a demon like him. Blood spewed up and out of my mouth. It ran down my chin in a river and coated my tongue in metal. "I have . . . a message . . . for you," I wheezed. "From . . . your dead . . . wife."
It happened so quickly that anyone could have missed it, but not me. I saw the bastard flinch. I choked on another mouthful of blood. "She told me . . . to tell you . . . never." Quick as lightning, I called Solace back. At the same time, I drove Nimerelle into Belikon's stomach and up, out of his back, mirroring the blow Fisher had dealt him back in Gillethrye.
The king dropped me, tottering back, eyes locked on the sword buried in his stomach and the glowing point of the other protruding from his chest. Funnels of shadow whipped around the male, spinning faster and faster, cocooning him in a lethal shroud. Cuts began to form all over his skin, crosshatched and bleeding, but they healed before they could fully form. Impaled upon the huge god swords and wreathed in smoke, he fell to his knees, but still he threw back his head and laughed. "Not enough," he bellowed. "It'll never be enough!"
There was a fucking hole in my chest—a big one—but even as I took a staggering step toward the dryad, the wound was knitting closed. It should probably have killed me. If I had been only Fae, or only vampire, that might have been the case, but it seemed my Fae powers coupled with high blood powers had increased my healing capabilities exponentially. I didn't understand it, but I'd take it. I would live long enough to finish what I'd started here, at least, and for now, that was all that mattered.
"An Oath Bound Fae male cannot walk away from the promises he makes," I said. "On pain of death, they must obey."
"Have you just learned this lesson, half-breed? Kingfisher is already mine to command. You may as well join him." The king moved to pull Nimerelle from his stomach, but he had nothing to hold her hilt with.
I left him where he knelt and made for the dryad. Only Fisher's face was visible now. Soon, it would be gone. "Unless . . ." I said under my breath. The wording was important. I had to get it right.
"What do you mean, unless?"
"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." I pressed my hand against the dryad's trunk, and I felt him for the first time. Fisher was in there. And he could hear me.
Saeris . . .
The sound of his voice inside my head, weak though it was, filled me with courage. I steeled myself and spoke in a loud, steady voice, for all the realm to hear. This was a tricky maneuver. One that had to pay off. I crossed my fingers and prayed. "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!"