Sandy Williams - The Shadow Reader

“McKenzie, please.” He reaches for my arm, but I jerk back. I should have turned away, though, because I see the breath whoosh out of his lungs.

“He’s turned you against me,” he says, blindly reaching behind him for the edge of his desk.

I keep my spine straight, my chin up. “He’s turned me against the Court. Yes.”

He shakes his head. “You can’t trust him, McKenzie. Please don’t trust him. He’s spoken mistruths, used your insecurities against you.”

“Insecurities?” I echo. “Insecurities! I’ve waited ten fucking years for you, Kyol! Do you know how pathetic that is? No sane woman would wait on a man for that long, but I did because I was fool enough to believe I was caught in some kind of fairy tale. My delusions let you walk all over me.”

“I’ve treated you well.”

“No, you selfish bastard, you haven’t. You’ve manipulated me. You kissed me when I was sixteen to seal my loyalty to the Court and now you say all the right things to keep me hanging on by the thinnest thread of hope. Well, screw you. You never gave a damn about me.”

“You’re wrong, McKenzie. You’re wrong. I’ve loved you from the moment I first stepped into your world.”

My heart throbs in my chest. I won’t listen to this, won’t let him manipulate me anymore. “I’ve wanted to hear those words for a decade. Convenient you say them now , when I’m threatening to stop reading the shadows for you.”

He steps toward me. “I’m not saying it to—”

I back away. “I don’t believe you anymore.”

“If you’ll just listen.” He presses closer.

My heel hits the wall. “I’ve been listening. I’ve hung on your every fucking word for far too long and I’m through with it. I’m through with y—”

His mouth covers mine, silencing me. He pins me to the wall, pressing against me so hard I couldn’t escape if I wanted to. I should want to. I shouldn’t tremble like this, shouldn’t let my knees go so weak he has to hold me up as he kisses me. The chaos lusters on my skin come alive in frenzied excitement, bolting up my neck, across my jaw, through my lips and into him. He sucks in a breath when the heat hits him.

Beat her, bed her, I don’t care what it takes.

Kyol’s lips leave mine, but he keeps my face cradled between his palms.

“Please, kaesha . You know me.”

I place both my hands on his chest and shove. “No!”

He wouldn’t have budged if he didn’t want to, but he gives me space, moving to the opposite wall. He leans against it, looking defeated and devastated, and I have to turn away. It’s difficult to fall out of love with someone. I don’t want to hurt him, but he’s not the man I thought he was. He’s not Kyol. He’s a stranger. A murderer.

I stare out the window behind his bed. The silver walls surrounding the palace rise up in the distance. Between here and the wall, Corrist’s wealthier merchants and nobles have built their homes. The nobles have residences elsewhere as well, and most of the merchants probably haven’t hand-sold a thing in years, but being permitted to step foot within the capital city means you’re somebody. Maybe I picked up on that, thought I was somebody, too. Meeting the king, knowing Kyol and other members of the Inner Court, made me think I was important. And Kyol took me to the Sidhe Cabred . Most fae aren’t naïve enough to dream of encountering so much as a leaf from the king’s private paradise. Maybe my vanity put me in this situation.

I jump when Kyol slams his fist against the door. “No!”

Before I realize he’s moving, he’s at my side.

“It’s not ending like this.”

His hand fastens around my arm and he yanks me from his room.

Panicked, I pry at his fingers. “Let go, Kyol.”

“Quiet,” he snaps, ignoring the curious looks of the fae we pass. I’m tempted to plead for help, but no one will cross Kyol, especially when he’s like this, looking like he’ll slaughter anyone who breathes too loudly. His face is rigid, all hint of pain and uncertainty gone.

I’ve screwed up, pushed him too far. I should have kept my mouth shut and disappeared without a word. Now I might not get the chance because—holy hell—I think he’s leading me to the basements. There’s nothing down there but the dungeon and storage.

“Kyol, please.”

He forces me down a staircase. A rack of unlit torches hangs on the wall. He passes his hand over one of them, sending magic into its glass orb, and takes it with us down the dark passageway.

It’s cold and I can’t see anything beyond the torch’s blue-white glow. I feel like a rat in a maze, but Kyol knows exactly where he’s going. I consider trying to buy my freedom with the anchor-stone in my pocket, but I want to give that to Kyol about as much as I wanted to give the location of the Sidhe Tol to Aren. It’s ironic how things can so quickly be flipped on their heads.

Kyol stops before a heavy wooden door, knocks twice. We wait. If I wasn’t terrified, I’d find the silence awkward. I’ve been comfortable with Kyol for the past ten years. I never thought anything could change that, but then, I thought he loved me. I thought I knew him.

“You’re hurting my arm,” I say. Immediately, his hand loosens.

The door cracks open, unmuffling the sounds of moans and murmurings beyond its threshold. A fae woman peeks out and frowns, seeing me first before opening the door wider.

“Sword-master,” she says.

“We’ll only be a minute.” He pulls me inside.

It’s too clean to be the dungeon, and while some fae are tied down to cots, most are free and sitting up. It’s a large chamber, one that reminds me of the temporary shelters the governments in my world set up after a natural disaster. About a dozen workers tend to the sick. I focus on a man moaning and rocking near me. Edarratae , out of place on a fae in the Realm, fade in and out over his skin, casting him in an unhealthy pallor. His eyes are sunken, his face gaunt. It takes me a while to recognize him. I think his name is Kwinn, one of Kyol’s lieutenants.

“This is the rebels’ work,” Kyol says. “ Jorreb’s work. When he captures Court fae who might have knowledge of our plans, he takes them to your world and locks them in a room with tech. For hours, for days, for weeks sometimes. As long as it takes to break them. When the rebels have what they need, they send them back like this.”

These fae aren’t like the tor’um in Lynn Valley. Those fae were born without the ability to fissure; they didn’t live their whole lives normally only to have their magic crushed by human technology. Kyol’s described this sickness to me before. He said the fae can’t handle the loss, the damage to something that’s so integral to their existence. Their minds break. Shut down. Close off. And they become . . . this.

Kwinn begins rocking and moaning. I close my eyes, trying to cope with the mix of emotions tangling through me. Aren’s not innocent. He did this.

Kyol’s hand slides down to grasp mine. “I’ve never wanted you to see the horrors of war. Your nightmares are bad enough without seeing fae waste away like this. I’ve kept certain things from you to keep your conscience clean and to keep you safe. Maybe that was a mistake.”

I didn’t need to be coddled. I needed to be given all the facts so I could make my decisions based on what was real, not on someone’s twisted version of the truth.

“Is this not enough?” Kyol asks.

I say nothing. This . . . this torture is one of the things Aren kept hidden from me. He knew it would bolster my resistance to him. And it does. I swear the anchor-stone pulses in my pocket, urging me to hand it over. Are there no good guys in this war?