Sandy Williams - The Sharpest Blade

She shrugs like it’s a minor thing. “The bounty on my head surpassed the bounty on yours last week. Neither is a small amount.”

Great.

Kyol picks up the captive fae’s sword. Lena watches him slide it into his scabbard, then slip on the cloak a guard hands him.

“You reacted quickly to McKenzie’s warning,” she says.

He says nothing, but an emotion that feels close to uncertainty pokes a tiny hole in his wall. He did react quickly, especially considering how weak he still is.

Lena’s mouth tightens.

“Escort McKenzie to the gate, Taltrayn,” she says after a long pause. “You two need to talk.”

WE make our way through Corrist’s Outer City side by side, but we don’t say anything for most of the walk. Lena sent only Kyol with me. For privacy, I assume. It’s a cold night, so the cloaks she gave us aren’t out of place. Even so, I watch the shadowed doorways and side streets, tense. Kyol isn’t an inconspicuous man. He’s well over six feet tall and broad-shouldered. I’m not fragile or small-framed, but next to him, I feel like I am. He’s always treated me that way, like I’m something to be coddled. That’s part of the reason I ended our relationship. He protected me too much. He still does.

A gust of wind blows down the narrow street, lifting my hood. I grab it quickly and keep it pulled low, hiding my face. It’s never been safe to be a human in the Realm. We’re all worth something to the fae, and thanks to Aren, I’ve developed a reputation as the best shadow-reader ever to breathe the air in this world. That part of the rumors Aren spread might be true, but the rest of it? I’m not a witch who’s going to suck anyone’s magic dry.

I don’t realize it for several steps, but my mouth has curved into a small smile. As much as my exaggerated reputation annoys me, I can imagine the light in Aren’s eyes as he crafted it. Rumor spreading is something he enjoys and excels at. He was able to convince the entire Realm that he was the fae who intended to take the throne from King Atroth, not Sethan, Lena’s brother and Aren’s friend. That protected Sethan and his supporters until the very end, and I have to reluctantly admit that my reputation has bought me a few seconds that ended up saving my life.

“You’re doing well on your own.”

I glance at Kyol. He’s taken off his hood. We’re near the gate, and the guards Lena’s assigned to monitor it will want to see who’s approaching.

I shrug. “I have a job.”

“Do you enjoy it?” he asks. His voice is monotone, and his emotions are muted behind his mental wall.

“It’s a paycheck.” A miniscule paycheck. “I’m able to live on my own without help from the fae.”

Half a dozen steps later, he says, “That’s what you always wanted.”

I answer with another shrug as the street we’re on spits us out onto the flat, hard-packed earth that lies between the city and the gate on the river two hundred yards away. The silver wall that separates the Outer and Inner City is to our right, rising into the night sky and shining in the light of the moon. It’s an oddly comforting sight. I’ve missed the Realm. I can’t remember the last time I was away for so long, and even with the chaos lusters on my skin telling me I don’t belong in this world, I feel more at home here than I did back in Houston. It certainly feels more like home than Las Vegas.

But I’ll never be safe here. If the price on my head really is anywhere close to Lena’s, fae will go out of their way to hunt me down. They’ll risk their lives to take mine, just like the fae in the tjandel did when he attacked Lena. He was there to enjoy the humans. The elari killed the others who were there, but he happened to be an illusionist himself. They didn’t see him. He could have escaped entirely if he’d fissured out, but he watched what the elari did and, once he learned Lena was there, he was blinded by potential profit.

We’re halfway to the river. Three swordsmen stand guard on the silver plating that lines the bank. While we’re still well out of earshot, I look at Kyol.

“You saw him, didn’t you?”

He doesn’t have to ask for clarification. He knows exactly who I’m talking about.

“I saw a shadow,” he answers quietly. “An almost transparent image of the fae.”

Lena thought so. I thought so. He moved too quickly to have just been reacting to my warning.

“You’re seeing ghosts, and I’m fissuring with tor’um ,” I say. “I guess we can consider these positive benefits of the bond.”

A wince of pain leaks through his mental wall, and I realize the implication of my words: if these side effects are the positive benefits, everything else is a negative.

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know,” he says.

“And I know you didn’t have a choice,” I tell him. “I know it was the only thing you could do, and that it shouldn’t have worked, and if you were really thinking you would have—”

“It’s okay, McKenzie,” he interrupts again, more firmly this time. It’s his way of telling me I don’t have to say anything.

I feel like I have to say everything. The life-bond isn’t easy for me, but it has to be worse for him. My emotions are too open. I don’t have as much practice as he does at pretending to be hard and cold.

Because I know he’s hurting, I change the subject. “Is this false-blood really different from the others?”

I’m almost certain the answer to that question is no, but he doesn’t respond. My stomach tightens uncomfortably as we walk. I’m about to ask my question again when he draws in a breath to speak.

“Derrdyn Province has declared its support for the false-blood.”

I stop walking. “The whole province?”

He looks back, gives me a single, solemn nod.

Lena’s right. This false-blood is different. Sethan didn’t even have a whole province declare support for him, and he was a true Descendant. Of course, Aren and the rebels kept his identity secret for as long as they could. Did this false-blood do the same thing?

“Who is he?” I ask. “Three weeks ago, he didn’t exist.”

“Three weeks ago, we were focused on Caelar and the remnants,” Kyol says. He starts walking again, and I fall into step beside him. Caelar wasn’t a false-blood. He was one of the king’s swordsmen, and after Kyol killed Atroth, he organized the soldiers who opposed Lena taking the throne.

“We don’t know the false-blood’s name,” Kyol says after a moment. “His elari call him the Taelith . It’s an old word that means anointed one .”

“Haven’t they all thought they were anointed?”

“An entire province has never believed it before,” he says, his gaze focused on the river. His emotions are locked down tight, but I feel an echo of sadness in him. Kyol loves the Realm. That’s why he always put its needs before mine. It’s always been a violent world—for my whole lifetime and for his—yet that hasn’t discouraged him. He’s devoted his life to protecting it, and in his quiet, steadfast way, he’s always been optimistic about its future. He’s clung to the hope that the bloodshed could end.

That optimism seems diminished now.

The urge to wrap my arms around him, or at least to take his hand in mine, is almost overwhelming. Instead, I pull my cloak tighter around my body.

We’re almost to the river. I can make out the blur on its bank that marks the location of the gate. The guards aren’t watching our approach anymore. They’re focused to our right. I look that way and see Kynlee. She’s walking toward us with two escorts. Trev is one of them. That almost makes me laugh. If I weren’t protected by the fae he’s pledged his loyalty to, I’m certain he’d be the first in line to collect the bounty on my head. He really ought to direct his anger elsewhere, though. I’m not the one giving him shitty assignments like babysitting tor’um .