Sandy Williams - The Shadow Reader

“I can’t, kaesh —”

“Why!”

“Because I couldn’t live with myself!” he roars.

I flinch back and a sharp, almost debilitating pain lances through my chest. Is he so ashamed of his feelings? All these years, I thought only the king’s decree kept us apart. I didn’t think he despised himself for loving me.

Aren unsheathes his sword and mutters something about us drawing all the guards.

“McKenzie,” he says, his voice low, controlled again. “Radath has been whispering in the king’s ear for years, telling him how to fight this war. Atroth listens because the methods work. I’ve convinced him to forbid some of the lord general’s more deplorable plans, but if I leave . . . I must stay, kaesha . I cannot allow Radath to control the king.”

“That’s why you want to stay?” I ask. Lies and truths have been tangled up for so long, I’m not confident I can tell them apart anymore.

His jaw clenches. He nods. “If I leave Atroth to Radath’s counsel, the war will end, but thousands of innocent fae will be killed in the process.”

His words make me feel only marginally better. Kyol’s putting the Realm before me again. I understand why he wants to stay behind—I respect it even—but I can’t keep doing this. I accept who he is, what he stands for, but I’m no longer able to be the girl in love with the honorable hero; I need someone who’s capable of forgetting his responsibilities for me. At least some of the time.

“I can reason with Atroth, McKenzie,” he continues. “I will reason with him. I’ll convince him to speak to the false—” He stops, draws in a breath. “To the son of Zarrak. We can negotiate peace.”

Aren’s caustic laugh cuts through the air. “We tried that once, remember? Your king won’t loosen his control of the gates. He needs the tinril to pay off nobles and bribe his Inner Court.”

“He needs the tinril to protect the Realm from you.” Kyol’s eyes flash. “He needs it to prevent another Brykeld.”

Aren doesn’t flinch, but I do. I know now he’s not responsible for what happened. He regrets the massacre. He even set up the fae who led it so I could track him down, so the Court could capture him. I believe all that, but he’s responsible for other crimes, crimes like turning Kyol’s swordsmen into tor’um .

Damn it, why does this have to be complicated?

“McKenzie,” Kyol says softly. “I’ll end this war as quickly as I can.”

“You could do more good with the rebellion.” My words are barely a suggestion. I know what his response will be. He’s too honorable a man to turn his back on his king, too honorable to abandon the Realm to Radath’s brutality. It’s selfish to ask it of him.

TABER’S guarding my cell. I stop short when I recognize him, worried he’ll be pissed I allowed Naito and Evan to knock him out cold. When he does nothing except hand me a hooded cloak, I whisper an apology and a thank-you—it’s the least I can do—then follow Aren down the corridor.

He knows the way out. We creep down the shadowed hall, hugging close to a rough stone wall covered in a fuzzy moss. I’m fairly certain we’re not beneath the Silver Palace. This place is too big; there are too many other prisoners here. We pass more than a dozen thick wooden doors, some holding back the moans and cries of their cell’s occupants and others holding back only silence. Most likely, Radath had me fissured to Chaer, a prison at the inside edge of the Barren. Fae can’t fissure out of that stretch of land, not anymore. Not since the false-blood Thrain destroyed a gate in the Barren’s core. No one knows how he did it, but when the gate collapsed, it created a void in the Realm. It’s not the same as being handicapped by silver. It’s still possible to open fissures in the atmosphere, but they’re too hot to approach. It’s like the loss of the gate damaged the In-Between.

Aren holds up his hand at an intersection, signaling for me to wait. When he disappears around the corner, I edge forward.

I peek around the bend in time to witness one of two fae collapsing in a heap. Aren deflects the other’s attack, counters with swings of his own. The guard staggers under the brutal blows, almost slips. Before he regains his balance, Aren kicks his feet out from under him, then slams the hilt of his sword into the fae’s temple.

The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. I scan up and down the corridor, looking and listening for running footsteps. The fight was brief—less than a minute—but the clash of steel on steel sounded loud as gunfire.

Aren glances over his shoulder, sees me standing here. “Clear?”

I listen for a few seconds more, then nod. If anyone heard anything, they’d be raising the alarm by now.

Aren holds out his hand.

“Taltrayn’s kept his word so far,” he says, intertwining his fingers with mine. “If he holds true, he’ll make sure the guards on the roof are distracted, but we’ll need to move quickly. Can you run?”

I nod. I don’t have much of a choice.

He opens the door. The long shadow of the prison stretches across the dirt at our feet. The sun is setting somewhere behind us. If we could wait twenty minutes, we’d have the cover of darkness, but we can’t just stand around here. Aren squeezes my hand and then we take off.

Cold air burns my lungs and a stitch in my side makes me want to double over, but I don’t stop, not until Aren finally slows when we reach the first sprinkling of trees. He puts a hand under my elbow, keeping me upright. We’re still in sight of the prison, though, so I force my legs to keep moving. I stumble once, regain my balance, then stumble again. If fae not loyal to Kyol look this way, they could see us. An archer could still hit us. I have to keep going.

I make it ten, maybe fifteen minutes before I take Aren’s hand and make him stop. Not because I think we’re safe, but because we’re heading west, deeper into the Barren. The jolt of adrenaline that brought me this far has worn off and my mind has cleared. At least, it’s cleared enough to know this isn’t the way we should be going.

“We need to get to the gate in Belecha,” Aren says. “Rokan is closer, but the Court will expect us to go there.”

Belecha is across the Barren. Even if I could walk the entire way without resting, it would take me at least a day to get there. We don’t have that much time.

“Radath’s sending troops to Lynn Valley,” I say.

A flicker of surprise. “What? When?”

“They may already be there. Lord Raen said something about ‘tomorrow’s dusk,’ which is today.” I glance back at the setting sun even though it’s no indication of the time in Vancouver. “Maybe now.”

“Lord Raen?” He frowns. “Kelia’s father?”

“He helped me free Naito and Evan.”

“Naito and . . . They’re both alive?”

“Yes. I think so.” I run a hand over my tangled hair. “Radath ordered Kyol to execute them. He didn’t—I told you he wouldn’t—but he refused to let them go. I was caught breaking them out.”

He stares for a long moment, then, “Lynn Valley. You’re sure about that?”

I wish I wasn’t. “Yes.”

“Okay.” He turns his head left, then right, scanning the thin forest as if he might find a solution to the problem hanging from a tree branch.

“Okay,” he says again. He takes my hand. We walk no more than a dozen steps when his fingers tighten and he increases our pace. Another half dozen steps and he curses.

He pulls me into a run, but we’re still heading west. It’s the wrong way. He needs to go east or he won’t make it to the edge of the Barren in time to fissure out and warn the rebels. It might already be too late.