Stargazers, also known as kingfishers, can be found in abundance from the Gilarian Mountains all the way down to the coastal cities of Marinth, Bodish, and Inishtar. Many individuals among the Fae, selkies, elemental sprites, and satyr populations consider the stargazer a symbol of hope.
—Excerpt from Fae Creatures of the Gilarian Mountains, a missing tome from the royal libraries of the Winter Palace
"PLEASE! PLEASE! "
The scream burned as it rose up my throat. My skin, too.
Everything hurt.
I was being jostled.
Carried.
Kingfisher was running.
"Hang on, Little Osha. Almost there," he rumbled. The sky was wrung out, streaked pink, as if someone had taken a paintbrush and slashed over a warped canvas. I craned my head back, trying to remember where the hell we were—what the hell we were doing—and the details of the last twenty-four hours suddenly came rushing back in with stunning clarity. A solemn, dark figure stood motionless, a hundred feet down the slope of the mountainside. The Hazrax watched us flee, the shape of it smudged around the edges, as if it were only half there.
My head was killing me.
I looked down at the snow as it whipped by beneath me. Fisher's boots left deep indentations in the brilliant white carpet, and . . . and there were other impressions in the snow, too. Not quite as deep. Much smaller, and certainly not Fae.
They were paw prints.
Lightning swept through me, clearing the haze in my head. "Put me down, Fisher!"
"No. You were unconscious," he snarled.
"Please! I'm fine now, I swear!"
He wasn't happy about it, but he slowed his run. He hadn't managed to set me down before I heard a chittering squeal and a small white fox was leaping into my arms.
He was alive.
Alive!
Onyx squirmed so hard I nearly dropped him. He screamed with excitement, his whole body wagging as he licked my chin and my cheeks. His tiny heart battered against his newly healed ribs, pure joy radiating from him as he turned and rained kisses down on Fisher, too.
"I know, little one. I know. We're happy to see you, too," he said, his voice rough.
I stared up at my mate in wonder. "It worked?" Could I trust this? Was it real?
Fisher nodded. "It worked. You did it." His expression was breathtaking—pride and a dash of wonder thrown in for good measure. "You accomplished something that's never been done before."
"And will never be done again," I added, glancing down at my shield. The Hazrax's rune hadn't just faded. It was gone. My other runes were raw, blood oozing from my mangled skin. Even the God Bindings spiraling around my wrist and up my arm were pulsing with pain, but the hurt could have been a thousand times worse and it would still have been worth it.
Onyx was alive. He whimpered, frantically rubbing his muzzle against my cheeks and butting my chin with the top of his head. I'd saved him. I'd done it. But the cost . . .
"You must think I'm crazy." I didn't even want to look at my mate . . . but when I did, I found no consternation or anger within the endless green of his striking eyes.
He laughed a little breathlessly. "Yes," he agreed. "You are crazy. You came looking for me. You took on Belikon by yourself and you outsmarted him. And you made a costly sacrifice to save a friend," he added. "Only a crazy person would have done all of that. But I would have made the same choices, Saeris. So I suppose we're well suited."
"Lo, visitors on the mountain!"
The cry boomed through the air. It echoed off the faces of the other mountains that crowded around the one on which we stood. Fisher and I turned as one, looking up the slope—
I hadn't noticed it before: the monstrous palace of bones protruding from the snow and ice to the right of us on the slope.
Arched ribs, soaring up to meet the brightening sky.
Notched vertebrae, the size of small houses.
It made sense that the remains of the dragon were still here. Fisher and his friends had slain it and ended its tyranny. Belikon had troubled himself to claim its head as a trophy. But the rest of it was too big to clear from the mountainside. The Ajun Fae had let the beast's bones rest where they had fallen, and now they formed a megalithic structure almost as impressive as the city of Ajun Sky itself.
People were gathering along the parapets of the city. Someone shouted down to us again, waving frantically. "Lo! Hurry! they cried. "A black tide comes!"
Fisher twisted automatically, peering down the mountain, and cursed. It took me a second to see what he was seeing. The Hazrax was gone. But farther down the hillside, the dark outline of guards with bows and swords in hand could be seen, scrambling toward us with startling speed.
"Shit," Fisher hissed. "Belikon. He shouldn't have found us. Not this quickly, anyway. Come on. We have to go."
I didn't need telling twice. I had enough energy to sprint toward the towering black metal gate that encompassed the city. I did not have enough energy to face Belikon a second time in one day. I sure as hell wasn't losing Onyx again, either. I ran like the wind. If the fox knew we were in danger, he didn't seem to care; he chittered and relentlessly licked my face, and he was still doing so when we pitched up in front of the ominous black gates that barred our way into Ajun.
They were closed.
"Hey!" Fisher hollered. "Let us in!" His shout rebounded around the abandoned courtyard on the other side of the high metal bars.
Belikon's guards were gaining ground, still more than two hundred feet below, but they were coming. They'd catch up to us eventually. "Hello?" Fisher bellowed.
Hello . . .
Hello?
Hello!
Suddenly, the black gate jerked. It let out an almighty, metallic groan . . . and very slowly, it began to slide. The sound of thick chain feeding through a winch system rattled my bones for a moment, and then the ancient gate began to open.
How many souls called Ajun Sky home? From the outside, with its huge recess pushing deep into the mountainside and its glittering towers of quartz and calcite, it looked like it could house thousands. Tens of thousands.
But only one person calmly descended the stairs that led down into the courtyard and crossed the cobbled stones to greet us. He wore a shit-eating grin that would have put Carrion's to shame when he came to a stop before us.
"You should have told us you were coming," he said, with that warm, lilting accent of his. "It's a point of pride for the people of Ajun that these gates should always open to you, brother."
Renfis.
By the time Belikon's soldiers reached Ajun, we were already moving.
Furious shouts boomed beyond the walls, bouncing off stone. The sound traveled strangely through the bitter air. Salvos of magic, blue and green, burst harmlessly against invisible wards that protected the city from attack. Even the arrows and hurled spears crashed into the boundary magic and were deflected, shooting off in other directions or splintering to shards upon impact.
The mountain shook as they attacked the battlements. The tall struts of iron remained unmolested, though. Belikon's guards were still Fae, after all. They wouldn't touch the gate.noveldrama
"How sure are we that they won't get through?" The wind caught my words and carried them away. I wasn't even sure my mate had heard me until he replied.
"Very sure," he answered. "This city has never been breached. And there are only a thousand or so guards out there. Far greater forces have tried and failed to bully their way into Ajun Sky. There's only one way in or out, and Belikon has no friends here. No one in their right minds will just let him in."
"Nevertheless, we should hurry," Renfis said. "Time is of the essence."
Lorreth had explained more of what had happened at Ajun, particularly with Merelle, Ren's twin sister, but there had still been more . . .
The city of Ajun was made of stone. Its foundations were robust and deep. The tall, terraced houses that lined its streets were pretty, their ice-adorned fascias glowing a soft pink in the early morning light. Ren hurried ahead of us, though still took time to tousle the hair of Faelings with rosy cheeks who ran up to him and tugged playfully at the pristine white cloak draped around his shoulders, marking him as a knight of the Orrithian.
I'd heard him referred to by that name plenty of times: Renfis of the Orrithian. Foolishly, I'd never questioned what the title meant. Now, as he guided us through the mountainous keep, he explained everything that had happened to him after he'd left Cahlish, and it all began to make sense.
"The Gilarians listened, thank the gods. They were already making preparations when I left them. I was almost at the border of the forest. I would have reached Ballard inside a day at the rate I was traveling, but the second I hit the foothills of the Shallow Mountains, I felt a searing, burning sensation in my chest. It knocked the air right out of me, and I fell from my horse. Thought I was being attacked. I figured I'd triggered some kind of ward, but . . ." He shook his head. "I ripped off my chest plate and tore my shirt open, and there it was."
Kingfisher had been making frustrated, grumbling noises ever since Ren had stopped hugging him and clapping him on the back—there had been a lot of hugging and back clapping once we were inside the walls of the city and the gate had closed behind us. Now, my mate was audibly berating himself for not solving the mystery of the general's disappearance sooner.
"Your oath mark," he sighed, shaking his head.
Renfis nodded. "My oath mark. I was being called to serve. I didn't have any choice but to go."
I followed Renfis up a narrow set of stone steps cut into the face of the mountain, doing my damnedest not to look down or slip and fall on the treacherous ice. Onyx bounded up the stairs ahead of the brown-haired general, tongue lolling out of his head and full of energy, as if he hadn't been dead less than an hour ago.
I grinned at the fox, overcome with relief . . . but I still managed to fake annoyance when I said, "Don't leave me out, you two. What oath mark? What did you swear, Ren?"
The general ducked his head, seemingly embarrassed. His cloak swirled around him as he continued on up the stone steps. "You explain, brother," he said, handing the task off to Fisher. "I've never liked telling this one."
Kingfisher had insisted on coming up the steps behind me. He'd whispered something obscene into my head—something about staring at my ass and planning all the scandalous things he was going to do to it—but I knew he was only bringing up the rear so he could make sure I didn't topple from the narrow steps and fall to my death. I was exhausted and genuinely worried I actually might do that, and so I hadn't put up a fight.
He grunted under his breath. The wind whistled past my ears, but he didn't raise his voice above its normal level; my hearing was just as sharp as his these days. "After we killed Old 'Shacry, the horde left Ajun, descending back down the mountain, and the people inside the city came out to bury their dead. Renfis's sister was among their number. Merelle had always loved Ajun, so Ren asked the city elders if she could be buried here. They gave her a burial site at the very top of the mountain—a high honor, in thanks for the sacrifice she made to protect the Ajun Fae.
"As soon as we were done laying Merelle to rest, Renfis felt a burning pain in his chest, much like the one he described just now. We were on our way back down into the city when he dropped down to his knees and let out a terrible roar."
"It wasn't that bad," Renfis cut in.
"So loud it caused an avalanche," Fisher said, attitude coloring his voice. "The other mourners who'd been burying their loved ones at the top of the mountain knelt with Ren and began to pray. None of us had any clue what was happening. But the Ajun Fae told us that, as soon as your blood was one with the mountain, you belonged to it in a way. That, because Ren had buried his blood relative here, and she was his twin, no less, he was now a member of the Ajun Fae."
"And only the Ajun can be called to join the knighthood who guard its gate," Ren said quietly.
"So . . . you were called back here to watch the gate?"
"Not the gate that protects the city, Osha. The other gate."
A thrill of panic and adrenaline chased up my spine at that. Lorreth had told me of the other gate in the square at Inishtar. I'd promised that I wouldn't go off on some harebrained mission to secure the brimstone we needed to stop the rot without Fisher, and in return Lorreth had told me where brimstone came from.
"There's always been a city here," Fisher said. "Because there's always been a gate. A portal between this world and another."
"Like quicksilver but not," I breathed. I could sense Fisher's annoyance at that, that Lorreth had obviously told me what he had, but he refrained from voicing those feelings out loud.
"Yes. In many ways, the same. But in others not. The original Alchemists could never control it. Not even the strongest of them. It sent most of them mad. The gate would open by itself, and it wouldn't close. Foul creatures used it as a doorway into this realm. They caused chaos and terror throughout Yvelia. Since no one could close the portal, the Knights of Orrithian were created. They were imbued with an old line of magic. Powerful. Six of them stand watch over the gate at all times, channeling their magic into wards that prevent all manner of evil from spilling into this world. They take it in shifts to protect not just Ajun but all of Yvelia."
"When the quicksilver was stilled here, cutting us off from the other realms," Renfis said, joining in the explanation despite himself, "the gate at Ajun remained open. Belikon declared it was a sign. He said that because it was the only gate left open, it would lead us to riches and glory. He brought a Faeling here to Ajun, to visit the gate. He was barely more than a boy. Belikon put a sword in his hand and declared that he should be the first to go through the gate and behold the paradise that waited for us on the other side."
"Since this pool was different from all the other pools, he said I wouldn't need the relic my mother gave me," Fisher whispered.
Wait.
Lorreth hadn't said anything about this.
The stairs were steep, and the air was cold as ice, but those things had nothing to do with my sudden shortness of breath. "What are you talking about, Fisher?"
He carried on, speaking slowly, carefully, stripping all emotion from his words. "I was Oath Bound to him. Eleven years old. He said that I was already a fully grown male in his eyes, that I was ready to become a vaunted warrior of Yvelia, held in high esteem in his court. My mother had been dead a week, and he planted me on my knees in front of that stone and made me promise. It was easy for him after that. He ordered me to give him the relic, and then he ordered me into the pool."
The wind howled as we climbed higher. It grew colder, too, sinking vicious teeth into the sensitive tips of my ears. I was trying to keep up, to understand what I was being told, but the cruelty of it all made it almost impossible. This was where Kingfisher had entered the quicksilver. This was where it had infected him from the inside out and almost driven him mad.
"I did as my king commanded. I stepped into the pool. As soon as my bare feet touched the tainted ore, I knew I was going to die. I was transported to another realm. A place . . ." Fisher trailed off, as if he'd reached the midpoint of his sentence and found the rest of the words suddenly missing.
"The king and his men waited for two hours for the Faeling to return," Ren said. "And when he didn't come back, the king feigned the loss of his stepson, the only remaining link to his precious Edina. He'd already bequeathed Cahlish along with the title that accompanied the land to his seneschal when the pool erupted and spat the Faeling out. His eyes were rimmed silver like the stars."
"I didn't know myself," Fisher whispered. "It took me a long time to come back . . . mentally. Belikon was disappointed. He'd thought it a good way to dispose of me. One of the Orrithian Knights returned my relic to me, and Belikon sent me off to learn the trade of killing in his war camps."
Ren had reached the top of the stairs and was waiting for us, grim-faced. "Inexplicably, the Ajun pool closed that day," he said. "It's opened and closed three times since, without warning. The knights always remained to guard it, just in case. No one's been called to replace any of them in centuries. Until now."
Those words. Where had I heard them before? It came back to me quickly. Back in Cahlish, in Everlayne's room. Fisher's sister had thrashed and shook on the bed, and that awful, dead voice had risen and come forth from her mouth. The gate is open. It cannot be closed. The gate is open. The gate is open . . .
"It opened again, didn't it?" I whispered.
Ren nodded, resting a hand on the hilt of the sword that hung at his hip. "It did. And the beast that crawled through it killed all six knights on watch and dragged their bodies back through with it when it left. I was summoned as a result. Since then, it's opened every day, for a period of three hours each time. We've been recording the timings. We've been waiting."
"Waiting?" I already wished I hadn't asked.
"For the wards to break once and for all," Ren said, looking down at his boots. "For the monsters of old to return and wreak havoc anew on Yvelia. It's only a matter of time."
I hadn't asked where Ren was taking us as he led us through Ajun and up the steps into the clouds. But I knew now. I could feel it, seething, close by. Too close. It was behind the ornate carved wooden door Renfis stood before.
It was a cold thing—bitter and detached.
A black gate.
It had been corrupted a long, long time ago. It wanted Yvelia to burn, and that was precisely what would happen if the malevolent forces that gathered on the other side of that gate got their way.
Onyx whined, jumping up at me, begging to be picked up. I held him tight, shivering when Ren put his palm on the door handle and slowly began to turn it.
"Wait. We're going now? Fisher, what are we doing?"
"The gate will close soon," Ren explained. "You could wait until it opens tomorrow. But . . ." He grimaced awkwardly.
"Waiting a day might be catastrophic," Fisher said. "We're losing ground to the rot too quickly. People are dying, and the gods only know when more infected feeders might show up. We need you to seal that brimstone rune. And brimstone only has one source."
I'd known it. Even when Lorreth had told me in the square what we'd have to do if we wanted to secure any amount of brimstone that wouldn't kill our sprite friends, I'd known we'd wind up here eventually. The fates were at play yet. Renfis had been drawn to Ajun for a reason, and so had we.
Fear lashed tight around my chest and squeezed. Fisher's eyes softened a little, as if he could feel it crystallizing like ice in my veins. He placed a reassuring hand in the small of my back. "But if you're not ready—"
"I have to be." I didn't say any more. Didn't need to. Ren hadn't had a choice. Neither had Fisher. They had duty. They had honor. They did what they needed to, because it was the right thing to do. I would do the same.
"And you?" Ren asked, turning to his friend. "Are you sure about this? There'll be consequences. More sacrifices to be made."
Solemnly, Kingfisher bowed his head. But . . . no. Even as I watched him, something shifted in my mind. He wasn't Kingfisher anymore. He was Khydan. Undeniably, the name fit him. It was like discovering the long-lost, missing piece of a puzzle. Like snapping it into place to complete an image, and finally seeing and understanding it in its entirety.
He could only ever be Khydan to me now. And he was ready to face whatever awaited us on the other side of this door.
"All right, then. Hold your breath." Ren turned the handle and opened the door. "The smell can be a little overpowering."
Inside, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark. Another moment for me to comprehend what I was seeing and wish I could turn back around. Onyx let out a panicked yip and hid his face in my armpit. The pool wasn't like any of the others. There was no stone lintel surrounding it. No stone basin to contain it, either. It was organic, like . . . some sort of festering sore. And the roiling liquid inside it was black.
"Where does it go?" I asked. "What's the realm called?"
Only Fisher knew the answer to that question. He had gone there as a boy. The troubled look on my mate's face didn't inspire confidence as he admitted, "It's never been given an official name here. The pantheon of undergods and the dragons they breed there call it Diaxis. But personally . . . I've always called it hell."