Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

I t was my only choice, that’s what I told myself, though if I was being honest, Orlaith had been right. I wanted whatever contact I could have with Cormac and Aaden, even if that contact was through Andas.

My breath and his mingled as we knelt there, so close, touching tongue to lip, fingertips to wrist, knee to thigh—like ignition points for the bolts of electricity racing between us and tingling across my skin. I traced my hand down his bare arm, watching the tiny jumps of his muscles and the uncontrollable twitching of my fingers. Like touching one of the little clouds in Underhill when it was storming—the contact wouldn’t kill you, but you’d feel more alive than you had in days.

“Stop it.” He growled and stepped away, cutting off the current that had danced between us.

I blinked and stared at him. “Why? It wasn’t hurting either of us.”

He shook his head, and flashes of gold and green rippled through the darkness of his eyes. My men were drawn to my touch, as I was to them. I just had to keep…doing what I was doing.

A wave of bone-deep fatigue caught me off guard, and I wobbled, stars and darkness coating my vision as I toppled toward him.

“You don’t fool me. Catch yourself,” he snapped.

What did he mean? That wasn’t my first concern as I fell to the side, the world tumbling with me, trees and sky twisting in the wrong direction entirely.

The lurch of my gut made me feel as if I’d fall through the earth instead of landing hard. What a strange, unsettling feeling. Had I fallen through the top layer of Earth?

Yelling, someone was yelling, calling my name. Muffled. I liked the voice.

A hard slap smarted across my cheek, once, twice, before I lifted a hand to stall a third slap. “Mm fine.” Shit, was that my voice? My words were as slurred as if I’d been drinking poppy juices from the plain creeks.

“I’m not here to keep you from killing yourself!” Andas roared in my face, though the look on his face wasn’t fury, or anger, or even indifference. He was fearful.

I swallowed and tried to sit, but the world wobbled again, and I fell back so Andas was left supporting me. This worked for me. Robbed of power as I was, I knew what I had to say to open that rift within him further. “My powers are drained, and I’m as weak as I’ll ever be, Andas. If you’re going to kill me, now’s the time to do it.”

My head lolled, and I looked up into his face, seeing the colors swirl in his eyes. His lips pressed together. Unbalance was torn.

“We leave this place,” he said. “Now.”

As if I hadn’t just offered my life to him again.

He slipped an arm under my legs and the other behind my back, then stood. He took three quick strides, and I smelled sulphur as he opened a portal. But my sights were set over his shoulder. The trees surrounding the waterfall had been lush when we’d arrived, but now they were dying. Birds lay lifeless on the ground, and the soil itself was blackening as if with disease.

What was that?

A flash of bright light, and we were through the portal and somewhere new on Earth. Why wasn’t he taking me to Underhill? I’d thought for sure that was where he’d try to keep me captive.

Cold cracked into me and against my skin, as if it were a living thing seeking entrance into me. I scanned the new place he’d brought us. Deep snow. And we were high in the mountains. From the high plateau, I could see the land was flat for miles in either direction until it burst upward into enormous peaks to the east and west. There didn’t appear to be another living being anywhere near us.

Andas set me down in the snow. “I imagine you can’t hurt yourself falling here at least.”

My teeth were chattering, and the snow soaked through my tunic. “I can’t pull magic to myself right now. Why not Underhill? You rule there now, do you not?”

“You think I’d take you there, and give you what you want? No, whatever this is, you’ll have an agenda and a plan to escape. I won’t take you where you want to be.” Andas held his hands out, his power roaring around us like a thunderstorm. “I will keep you captive here. For a time, while I decide whether killing you suits me best.”

I don’t know who he thought he was convincing.

Mountain rock shot from the ground, curling in on itself to form a foundation, then walls, curved doors, rooftops, a portcullis, and stone battlements. A castle high in the mountains. The amount of power Andas possessed still staggered me, and I’d grown up with Underhill for a mother. I couldn’t have built a castle like this when at full power—and I doubted whether I could have built a stone hut right now, magically or physically.

Without missing a beat, as if it had cost him nothing to raise the castle into being, he strode back to me, scooped me up, and carried me in through the front gates. They fell shut behind us with a resounding clatter of stone on stone.

He didn’t set me down but continued to carry me up a tight flight of stairs and down a long walkway.

Rift.

If he intended to leave me here, I needed to make the most of each moment with him. I couldn’t remember what Sigella had told me about seduction, but I’d grown up watching Kik whore around. I had nothing else to pull from. “So, we just stay here until you decide to kill me or fuck me?”

Andas stopped and stared down, our eyes locking. “You say that like they’re mutually exclusive.”

My brows rose. “You mean like Petr Mantis?” They were the only animal I knew of who preferred to reproduce with a recently dead partner.

He rolled his eyes. “Not literally dead.”

“I don’t like when people speak words and the meaning is different.”

Andas’s brows slammed together, and he hissed, “I could fuck you one hundred times and care nothing for you. I’d use you and discard you, Mistress of Underhill, and then I’d ensure everyone knew it. I might even bed you just to see if Balance is anything more than the miserable fuck I expect she’d be. You think fucking me will bring Cormac and Aaden back, and I’d enjoy every moment of watching you try your hardest, only to see it fail.”

He laughed, his mouth showing off Cormac’s dimples. The curve of Aaden’s lips.

I might not know how to seduce, but I knew not to back down ever. “Fucking me would break you, Andas. That’s what you’re afraid of. You wouldn’t survive touching that much of my skin. You’d be my creature from the first touch. So you’re right to hide your fear behind all those words designed to hurt me. Which they don’t, by the way. Because I would fuck you as hard as I could, but only because that’s how I imagine I’d like it.”

I could almost hear Sigella and Orlaith groan. That wasn’t a particularly sexy thing to say, I was sure, but it was the truth. Something about our connection made me feel certain that sex with Andas would be…catastrophic. For him more than me, or perhaps that was wishful thinking.

His smile and laughter cut short. His throat worked before Andas said low, “You can be sure, Silver, that if I ever bed you, there will be nothing soft about it.”

He kicked into a room, then tossed me onto the huge bed inside. Not only had he manifested this castle, he’d furnished it too.

I looked at him. “Promise? And there will be no bedding between us, Andas. Only fucking.”

I’d never seen him breathe harder. He looked furious. “I’ll kill you in the morning.”

I frowned when he slammed the door shut.

“Why in the morning? Why not now?” I shouted after him, then smirked.

Part of me enjoyed getting under his skin. Without the distraction of him, the ache of my body registered full force. I looked around, wonder creeping in.

My fantasies of entering Andas’s cage hadn’t included this bed, covered in thick blankets. It definitely hadn’t included a table weighed down with food or the steaming hot bath in the corner with plush towels laid out on a stool beside it. Did he keep this castle design in his head or something? I would’ve gone for a tree hut personally.

I sniffed my armpit and grimaced. I was on the ripe side of ripe. My gut told me I needed to drag Andas to me in order to push the rift within wider. Smelling better seemed like a good step toward achieving that. But the question was, would cracking apart the rift between Aaden and Cormac do as I hoped?

The questions and fears of what could be rolled through me as I set to the arduous task of stripping.

I crawled across the room and half rolled into the perfectly hot bath. “So good.” Nothing had ever felt this good.

As I scrubbed my hair and body, for a short time I let my mind float in nothing. How would life be if I had nothing much to think about? Some people must live like this, with no worries and/or realm-sized worries to puzzle over. They’d just soak in the hot water and feel peaceful and…bored.

I shot up, water sloshing everywhere. “Gaia!”

Scrambling out of the bath, then slipping, I landed on my knees on the cold stone floor.

I pressed my palms to the stone. “Gaia, can you hear me?”

Silence for a moment, then a whisper of warmth curling around me.

I can always hear you.

Always? Or just since I’d become the caretaker of Balance? “There’s a rift in Andas. What should I do with it?”

Her answer took some time. The sword of the wolf is the key. Use it.

Her warmth slid from me, leaving me cold and dripping on the floor. I didn’t mind. I bowed my body, touching my forehead to the stone. Even if I didn’t like her answer, it was more than I’d had before. “Thank you.”

Carefully standing on trembling legs, I dried myself and made my way to the table where the food was laid out. The urge to topple into bed was hard to deny, but I’d feel better for eating. Damn it, Andas could have poisoned it…I didn’t think that was something he would do though—at least not to me. But did Unbalance have any boundaries, or was I being naive and stupidly hopeful to imagine he did?

I bit into cold cut meat and had barely chewed before I shoved flaking pastry into my mouth to chase it down. This food was nowhere near as good as Cinth’s cooking, but it would help restore me. I needed to be strong to face what I was going to have to do.

Gaia had referred to Cormac’s sword. Did she mean power was locked away inside of the weapon much as Sigella had been locked away in the harp? Or had Gaia been suggesting that I should use Cormac’s sword on Andas. Run him through? That was what you did with swords, after all.

I grimaced and lowered the chunk of fruit I’d been gnawing at.

Suddenly I wasn’t hungry.

The door flung open, and I turned to see Andas standing in the doorway.

I stood naked as I faced him. “What? I thought my execution wasn’t until the morning.”

“You were speaking with someone.” He growled but didn’t stalk closer. His eyes roved over my body, and I watched as his breath hitched and the colors in his eyes swirled faster. A storm brewed within them. I wanted to be caught in that storm. My own breath fell short from the heat of his gaze. His focus slid over me the way I wished his hands would.

“I miss my friends,” I said simply. “I miss Kik, most of all. I keep imagining what he might say to me if he were here.” That was easy. Kik would give me a hoof to the face if he’d been here.

I shrugged and forced myself to turn from him, and immediately felt the heat of his gaze lower to my ass.

I picked up a piece of food and put it in my mouth, pretending I wasn’t keenly aware of Andas on every level. In truth, I wasn’t sure what to do to seduce him in this moment.

I licked a trickle of fruit juice off my fingers and swept my silver hair aside, so it didn’t get sticky.

Behind me, Andas choked.

“You truly…miss that foul-mouthed creature?” he said after a moment.

I glanced back and lifted a shoulder. “He was the closest thing to a brother that I’ve ever had. I miss him with all my heart.” For a second time, I put my food down. I should stop thinking about murder and death while I ate.

There was a moment of silence, followed by the scrape of the door closing.

But had he shut the door and stayed, or left? My heart raced as I checked, fully expecting to find him there.

He was gone, and the sharp pangs of disappointment were deep and…unsettling.

Because Gaia had been clear that I had to use the sword. The sword was the key to undoing all this.

That would probably mean ending his life. While I trusted the reverence I felt in Gaia’s presence, I wasn’t sure I could do that. I’d never been sure I could do that. In the same way I now saw the scale of problems differently than the average two-legged fae, did Gaia perceive the scale of this situation differently than I did? Did she think nothing of Andas dying? Or perhaps it suited her agenda for him to die, and she considered my grief as natural and acceptable collateral damage?

I wanted to ask her more questions. I wanted guidance in all this because while some balance existed in the path I followed, there was still so much I didn’t understand.

“Though I’m getting used to that,” I said begrudgingly. If I lived long enough, maybe I’d desensitize to the sense of the unknown, just as I was desensitizing to suffering. I mean, look at me, trapped in a castle of the being who’d trapped my soulmates in his body, and I am still trying to seduce him while also gearing up to run him through with a sword. Suffering had less and less influence on my actions.

I flopped into the bed and rolled myself under the thick, velvety covers. I sighed and closed my eyes, sleep crashing over me.

No peace came. I slept for hours, only to be startled awake by my thundering heart. My throat was raw and my mouth dry. The room was dark, but I wasn’t alone.

I could feel him there, in the shadows.

“That’s a concerning quality.” I didn’t know whether I should pull the blankets higher or throw them off, and I could guess which option had appealed to me more in sleep by the heat coursing through my body.

“You were screaming in your sleep.” The reverberation of his voice sounded more like Aaden than ever before.

Clearly I hadn’t had the dream I’d assumed.

And then his words sunk into me, and I touched my throat, understanding dawning. “Oh.”

He was suddenly by the bed, the shape of his body was slightly darker than the windowless room. “Why don’t you want to kill me?”

I swallowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about?—”

“You were screaming that you didn’t want to kill me. Why not? We’re enemies, you and I. That will never change.”

Of all the things to scream. I bit back a groan. Had I said anything about the sword?

His hand found the side of my face, and he brushed his fingers along my jaw with an exquisite gentleness that I remembered from Aaden.

I let myself lean into his hand, let my lips brush against his palm.

He hissed and pulled back as if burned. “Enough screaming.”

And then he was gone a second time. Or were we up to three?

I lay in the dark, still feeling his touch. Still tight with the need for more. I threw my arm over my head.

I didn’t want to kill him, no.

Like Andas, I knew that another Unbalance would come into creation if he were to die—because one of us couldn’t exist without the other.

So now I found myself considering Andas’s confession.

If I had a choice, what would I choose? The predator I knew, the predator who carried two of the most important souls within him? Or a predator who’d try to kill me instead of only threatening to do so and kissing me instead?

I groaned and rolled onto my stomach, wishing I had a release for this frustration. My power was still dim inside, distant like a vision in the desert. But that didn’t matter, at least not right then.

Nothing mattered except for the tightness of my body.

I was out of the bed and grabbing for my still filthy clothes. But that wasn’t quite right, as it turned out. Someone had cleaned my clothes while I slept. The leathers and tunic were spotless, and the scent from a purple flower filled the room. Beautiful.

Swallowing hard, I dressed, then stuffed leftover food into my mouth. Exhaling first, I scooped up Cormac’s sword and then glanced at my boots. I left them behind. Ungrounded as I felt, I wanted stone under my feet.

I strode to the door, fully expecting it to be locked, so when the door opened easily, my instincts took note.

A trap?

I didn’t think so. At least not one that was going to hurt me. Maybe this was bait to draw me out. Maybe not. I just didn’t know with Andas.

“You keep things interesting at least,” I muttered under my breath, unable to keep the smile ghosting over my lips.

I made my way through the small castle and down to the main courtyard. There was no one around—not that I’d expected anyone to be in a castle created by Unbalance in the middle of some isolated mountaintop.

Breathing slowly, I focused on the weight of the pommel in my palm. I allowed my body to absorb it so it could learn to counterbalance the weapon’s weight. My body craved some activity after the long sleep, so I let myself work through fighting patterns I’d been taught long ago. I felt confidence return. I knew how to look after myself. I knew how to make hard decisions and take risks.

Like challenging the Old Man.

Or dodging the Naga.

Racing against the tarbeasts.

Sweat dripped down my body, and as the sun rose, my frustration and discomfort slid away from me. This was my path, for better or worse.

I was doing the right thing by listening to Gaia.

The earth and rock underfoot warmed and softened, and I found the tranquility of balance that I’d missed for the last day. I continued to flow with the power that circled around me, not realizing my eyes were closed until a flutter of dark energy disturbed the warmth I’d created.

Gray, death, and the smell of rot.

I spun and opened my eyes.

A gray fae lurched forward, his hands outstretched. No, not one gray fae…

A thousand.

More. They filled the courtyard and beyond. The entire plateau was covered in them. Everywhere I looked, gray fae filled the space.

They surged at me in a wave, their mouths open, their hands clutching for my body.

I could have killed them all at once if my power had been at its peak. But it wouldn’t have been right—they’d been fae once, and it wasn’t their fault that they’d been pulled into Unbalance’s clutches. Clutches they’d never escape.

Worse? I saw creatures of Underhill among their ranks.

“You left us,” they hissed.

“You promised you’d save us.”

A hollow shout. “We rot because of you.”

There were too many, and their words hammered into me, along with their sheer numbers.

They’d suffered so much, and I had no choice but to fight them. The sword was light in my hands as I drove it through fae after fae, removing heads and piercing hearts. I felt each blow ripping me apart, too, just as I’d felt the loss of the creatures I’d left behind in Underhill.

“Andas.” I screamed his name. Was this my execution then? He couldn’t do it himself, so he’d set his creatures on me while I was still weak.

“I’m coming, kiddo!”

My world crashed to a stop as a land kelpie burst into view, his long, icicle-crusted mane tinkling like tiny bells.

This wasn’t happening. This was a dream, or a cruel nightmare. It had to be.

But I felt the warmth of the rock under my feet and the thunderous rumble as his hooves lanced the ground.

Kik spun into view, booting the gray fae away from me. “Kid, don’t freeze up on me, come on! Let’s go!”

A hand clawed at my arm from behind, and even though Kik was here—impossibly here—I said, “I can’t leave him.”

I spun and struck the gray fae holding me.

The feeling of how the sword entered the fae struck me first. The gray fae tended to be crumbly and easily tear. That wasn’t what I felt as my sword slid into this fae. The grunt registered next, not hollow or hissed or eerie, but the grunt of a man.

Andas stood, still gripping my arms with his hands. He didn’t wear a shirt, and was barefoot like I was, dressed only in a pair of pants. His eyes swirled with greens and golds and blacks.

“I suppose you win,” he said.

Only then did my horrified gaze fall to the blade I’d buried deep into Andas through his middle.

I caught Andas as he fell to the ground. The gray fae slid away as if they’d never been, and even my thoughts of Kik disappeared as the realms narrowed to the force of darkness cradled in my arms. “No, no! I didn’t know it was you.”

“It’s better this way. Living that way would have ruined us both.”

My hands shook, and his words didn’t penetrate my panic. “I don’t…I don’t want you to die. You can’t die!”

His eyes fluttered. “Why not? Now you will be free of fear for a time.”

Was that what he’d wanted for me? “Just don’t die, I command you not to die!” Fear lashed at me. This was Cormac and Aaden all over again. “I won’t do this without you!”

A small crease appeared between his brows. His eyes were unfocused. “Without me? We were destined to exist on opposite sides.” A sigh. “Fate was cruel to us, Silver.”

I swallowed hard. Fate was cruel indeed, and she wasn’t fucking winning this time. “Kik, pull the sword on three.”

“You got it, kiddo.” He clamped his teeth around the pommel.

“One,” I shouted.

“Why would you save me?” Andas lifted his hand and touched my face. “Let me go. This feels right. I have no wish to fight or kill you. This is best.”

So he’d said. “Two.”

“Leave before I am reborn. I hope you win. Be…happy.” His hand slipped and I caught it.

“Three!” I screamed.

Kik yanked the sword out, and I dropped my mouth to Andas’s lips and pulled on what little power I had, pushing the silver essence into him to heal the sword wound and knit him back together. Fire, sweetness, dark, light, black, gold—the kiss was everything in this world and something that had not yet existed. Something real but impossible.

Set against the stark fear of losing him forever, my other worries seemed small. Insignificant. Worth it.

Andas.

Cormac.

Aaden.

Silver.

Four souls seeking a path through the darkness.

I wouldn’t lose them this time. I refused to walk through immortality alone. Whether Andas liked it or not, he wasn’t dying today.