Sandy Williams: The Shattered Dark

“Maybe one of them really likes fish?” I say, even though he has a point. It doesn’t make sense at all.

I scan the living room and kitchen. Looking for what, I don’t know—evidence, I guess—but there’s nothing here except the overturned furniture and shattered fishbowl. Maybe I should have searched Paige’s purse before dropping it on the floor of my apartment. The remnants could have left a ransom note in it.

“We should go,” Shane says. He’s found a little container of fish food and taps some into the mixing bowl. “Aren’s waiting.”

I don’t say anything; I just keep staring at Paige’s apartment.

He sets the container down and looks at me.

“The rebels will help you find her,” he says gently, as if he’s trying to reassure me.

They might help me find her. The last two weeks have been rough, though. We won control of the palace, and Lena has claimed the throne, but convincing the high nobles—the fae who run the Realm’s thirteen provinces—that her bloodline is pure enough to become their queen isn’t going so well. Not only that, but the high nobles are hesitant to break tradition and allow a woman to sit on the silver throne. They’re postponing a vote on the matter, probably hoping a better option will step forward.

The headache I had on the way here doubles in strength as I head for the door. The delay on the vote wouldn’t be such a big deal if the remnants weren’t taking advantage of the uncertainty. They’re launching attacks on the silver walls surrounding the palace almost daily, and we’re fairly certain they’re encouraging the protests and near riots that are occurring throughout the Realm. If we could just figure out who’s organizing them, arrest or kill or make a deal with him or her, then maybe Lena and the rebels could have a break. They need a break. We all do.

FOR a people who tend to live a century and a half, the fae are incredibly impatient. It’s one of the side effects of being able to fissure from city to city or even world to world in a few seconds’ time. The drive from my apartment to the outskirts of the city would have taken about twenty minutes without our detour. With the detour, it’s been close to an hour.

Aren whips open my door before the car completely stops. He isn’t as afraid of human tech as most of the fae are, but I’m still surprised he didn’t wait the few seconds it would have taken for me to open it myself. Edarratae protest the contact by flashing up his forearm. They keep flashing when he takes hold of my elbow. His eyes scan me head to toe, looking for injuries, I’m sure, and when he doesn’t see any—at least, he doesn’t see any that are serious—he visibly relaxes.

“Did my directions send you in circles?” he asks, looking past me to Shane, who’s turning off the engine.

“No, they were surprisingly good for a fae.” He opens his door and gets out.

I swivel in the seat to face Aren. “The remnants have Paige.”

He’s down on one knee, so his silver eyes are level with mine. “Who?”

“Paige,” I say. “My friend. You met her at the wedding.”

“The wedding?” His gaze dips to my mouth, and I can almost taste him. That was the first time we kissed. I was still in love with Kyol, but my emotions were a chaotic mess. Aren was making me doubt everything—even how much I hated him—and before he turned me over to Kyol, he left me with a diamond necklace imprinted with a location. I could have betrayed him with that necklace. I didn’t. I didn’t because I was beginning to fall in love with him.

And I’m still falling.

I clear my throat. “I have to find her, Aren. She doesn’t belong in this war.”

“You’re sure they have her?” he asks, refocusing on my eyes.

“The ward was on her purse.”

His jaw clenches, and I almost wish I hadn’t said anything. His role in this war is changing. Before the rebels took the palace, he was always on the offensive. He’s used to launching brief surprise attacks on the king’s fae, on supply depots, and on the gates that are required to fissure anything more than what a fae can carry. Now, Aren’s trying to keep the remnants from doing the exact same things he did. With as few swordsmen as he has at his disposal, he’s doing a good job, but I don’t want to add to his responsibilities.

“She doesn’t know anything about us?” he asks.

“No,” I say. Few humans do unless they have the Sight. Keeping their existence secret has been a law in the Realm for centuries. If humans ever learn about the fae, there’s no doubt war would break out. Not all humans would be content to leave the fae alone. Some would want to kill them. Others would want to capture them. They’d want to find a way to enslave them for their magics. King Atroth enforced the secrecy law just as strictly as the previous kings, and whenever the fae decide to approach a human who can see them, they do so with caution.

Most do so with caution. My introduction to their world was anything but gentle. A fae named Thrain abducted me. He starved and threatened me, demanding that I use my Sight to point out fae hidden by illusion. I did so once, the first day I was in his custody, and he slaughtered that fae right there in front of me.

Aren draws in a breath. When he releases it, it’s like all his responsibilities fall away. I know they’re still there, still weighing on his mind, but he hides them behind a haphazard smile and confident attitude.

“We’ll find her,” he says, pulling me out of the car. His confidence is contagious to other fae—I think that’s half the reason the rebels were able to win the palace—but I’m human, and I stopped believing in miracles years ago. Paige could be anywhere in the Realm or on Earth. The chance that we’ll just stumble across her is virtually nonexistent.

“Hey,” Aren says, tilting my chin up with a finger. “I found you, didn’t I?”

The half smile on his lips is cocky but reassuring. It’s sexy as hell, too, and despite all my worries, my stomach flips. I’m trying so damn hard to be smart about this. I’m trying to take things slowly, to carefully wade into this relationship because, God knows, we didn’t meet under the best circumstances. I don’t want Aren to be a fling or a rebound, but I tend to forget caution when he looks at me like this, like I’m the only thing that exists in this world.

A chaos luster leaps to my skin, traveling along my jawline until it reaches the nape of my neck. Whether he leans in toward me or I lean toward him, I don’t know, but our lips touch then—

“Aren.”

It’s not Shane who speaks. I peer around Aren’s shoulder and see a fae—an illusionist named Brenth—stepping through the thin tree line that separates the road from an empty field. He’s one of Kyol’s swordsmen, a former Court fae who’s sworn to protect Lena. His armor isn’t shoddy like the rebels’. It has a smooth, even texture and an abira tree etched into its surface, but he’s added four branches to it, one for each of the provinces Lena plans to reinstate.

“Perfect timing,” Shane mutters, just before Brenth says in Fae, “We were out of time ten minutes ago.”

“It will be fine,” Aren tells the latter.

I’m already following Shane to the tree line because I need to walk off the tingling sensation that’s swept across my body. I’m hoping the heat I’m feeling doesn’t reach my face or, if it does, the others think it’s a result of the bright Texas sun overhead.

“So anxious to get away from me?” Aren asks, a note of amusement in his tone as he falls into step beside me. He knows exactly why I needed to move.

“Call it a habit,” I retort, but I let the smallest of smiles bend a corner of my mouth when I slant a glance his way. I spent the first few weeks I knew him trying to escape. I was almost successful a number of times, but he just wouldn’t let me slip away.