Fae (2 page)

I looked up at Cailen,
curious, and all he did was smile even wider.

He led us behind a small
group of soldiers that formed a line to go out the door. When the
soldier in front of us--a giant girl with shocking red hair and
arms as thick as my waist--stepped up to go through, we followed at
her heals. The three guards looked right past us.

I was kind of surprised to
realize there weren't stairs up to the outside world. I'd expected
a workout up several flights. In fact, I'd taken a fleeting moment
to wonder if transporting wouldn't be the better option, but shook
it off with a shudder. Being nearly ripped apart does that to a
person. Even now—and even though I knew I was safe--the idea of
melting air made my heart sink into my stomach.

But I shouldn't have
worried. Instead of stairs, the small group of us--soldiers
included--stepped onto a large platform just a few hundred feet
beyond the door, and waited.

The room grew dark and
silent. No one said a thing. And then a blue light glowed at the
center of the platform and swelled outward. I stared at it, at the
beauty of the mellow light as it throbbed and brightened with each
breath. My hair prickled at my scalp and I felt it lift off my
shoulders and back. I felt light, like a cloud floating high above
the ground. The blue fully encompassed us now until I could barely
see anything else; only light shadows and hints of people even
though they were right next to me. Cailen's hand in mine barely
registered.

My stomach tingled as I
floated higher and higher and grew lighter and lighter in the blue
haze.

And then the blue faded
bit by bit and I started to feel heavy again, weighed down and
tired, like it would take everything I had to hold myself up.
Cailen's grip on my hand grew stronger and the shadows became
people once again.

The room we stood in now
was bright with a dry breeze blowing through cracks in the stone
walls. The air in front of me still vibrated,
shimmering.

As soon as the soldiers in
their uniforms--which were silver down below, but were now brown
and grey, changed to blend in with their surroundings--started
leaving the platform, Cailen led us close behind. Glass cracked
beneath my feet, and Cailen and I froze. The soldiers closest to us
looked where we were standing. Their gazes passed through us. They
still didn't see anything. And then, shrugging, they walked out of
the crumbling room into the city above The Block.

Outside, the world burned.
Brown dust hovered in the air, setting the light of Soltak's sun on
fire. Dirt flew into my mouth and nose and I coughed before I could
stop myself. Cailen lead us behind a crumbled wall, away from the
eyes of the dozens of soldiers guarding the only door back to The
Block. I dove my face into Cailen's chest to muffle my coughs. I
pressed my hands into his shirt and stuffed the cloth against my
mouth. More dust flew into my nose as wind whipped past my face and
curled in my hair. My nostrils tickled, my throat burned, and I
gagged again.

Pinching my nose closed, I
breathed through his shirt and eventually reigned the coughing in.
I covered my mouth and nose with my hands and leaned my back
against the wall, close to Cailen but no longer touching. "What
happened to this place?" I whispered through my makeshift
shield.

He'd covered his own face
with his hands so all I could see were his bright green eyes. Right
now they looked pinched with worry. "There's been a
drought."

I nodded. I'd heard
something about that in the bunker. People would whisper around me
and cast me sideways glances. Apparently they thought I might be
responsible. No one trusted the Auri anymore. Not after I'd
attacked a few Ladeshian soldiers, and destroyed an entire solar
system.

But they were silly to
worry about us. Cailen couldn't control water and I was there to
help them, not kill them. Plus, I couldn't even imagine the kind of
power it would take to slowly seep away a world's water supply. If
they wanted my opinion, I'd say it was an act of El.

Cailen stood up and
offered me his hand. "Let's go. I don't want to be this close to
all of Lastrini's men."

I got to my feet without
his assistance. There'd already been too much touching going on. I
could barely contain the want as it was. The burning heat of it
that coursed through my veins, getting stronger whenever I thought
about it, whenever I looked at his hands, his lips, his
eyes.

I closed my eyes and
pushed it all back down.

When I opened them again,
Cailen's back was to me. His shirt was open at the back to expose
the long, slender mounds where his wings hid beneath his skin. But
I could see more than the mounds where his back stood exposed. I
saw the sharp contour of his muscles. The subtle way he moved and
breathed.

He turned around and
stared down at me. Fire and heat burned in his eyes. My breath
caught in my lungs and I realized my whole body was hot with the
pulsing electricity, all of it humming in my veins from the top of
my head all the way down to places I only knew existed when the
drilium pulsed. I pressed my hands tighter against my mouth and
breathed in. I needed to get in control. Nothing could happen until
I knew what I felt was real.

Cailen closed his eyes and
took a step back. We both needed to get in control.

He turned his back to me
again and motioned for me to stay close. We skirted around the
loose formation of soldiers, all of them guarding the crumbling
stone structure with looks of penetrating steel. Nothing escaped
their notice. Nothing except us.

The dust clouded
everything as the wind swirled. I couldn't see a dozen feet ahead.
My dress pressed against me and wrapped around my ankles. Little
stones bit into my arms and legs when the wind whipped my dress
above my knees. I walked with my eyes squinted, making sure I kept
Cailen in my sight. Suddenly I wished I had the goggles and mouth
and nose guards the Soltakian soldiers wore.

Eventually we made it down
the hill, beyond the soldiers and their broken wall, and into what
was left of the New City. Not much remained of the once glorious
metropolis, but we needed a place to stay until the dust storm
subsided, so we walked with our faces shielded against the wind and
the dust and the sand, looking for anything. Piles of rubble
crowded the stone streets. They circled craters of parched silt
where lakes once stood. As much as we looked, we couldn't find any
type of real shelter. The city was gone. The crystal towers acted
as a barricade around the wasteland, no longer beautiful but
imposing, a constant reminder that they were at war.

As we neared the heart of
the New City and had yet to find any shelter, I was about to
suggest we at least block some of the dirt and dust blowing in our
faces by putting our backs to one of the larger piles of rubble
when Cailen made a sharp left turn. Ahead of us, I saw what he saw:
a big square structure, mostly intact. We pushed aside rock and
cracked timber to crawl through the doorway.

The roof had caved in,
along with most of the rear wall. Luckily, though, another building
stood almost intact right behind it so most of the wind was
blocked. Crystal shards and porcelain littered the floor. Broken
table legs and the ruins of glass cases had been piled high in the
far left corner.

I thought back to my first
day in Co'ladesh and wondered if this was one of the many fancy
stores Malik and I had passed.

I swallowed the growing
lump in my throat and brushed the dust off my dress and arms and
out of my hair. It puffed out in a cloud before slowly settling to
the ground. Cailen did the same. I looked at him and laughed. So
much for our great escape. We would probably have had a better time
if we’d stayed below. He laughed too and the shimmering air
straightened and smoothed out.

"What?" he said. "Aren't
you having fun?"

I kicked flecks of marble
away from one of the walls and slid down to the floor. "Oh, it's
been great. I especially loved how we got past everyone without
being seen." I tried--and failed--to raise one eyebrow, and
smiled.

His grin grew smug as he
slid down next to me. "It's my secret weapon."

"Secret, huh?" Another
one. Always another one.

"Yes. It's how I survived
the training at Freor." I felt his eyes on me then and a touch of
fear coming off him. "And I'd appreciate it if you never told
anyone." His voice was low, almost pleading.

I turned my head to look
at him, really look at him. I'd never seen this vulnerability in
him before. It almost knocked the breath out of my lungs. "I don't
even know what I'd tell."

He half-smiled. "Don't
you?"

I just shook my
head.

He laughed and shrugged.
"It's a rare skill, but I can shift the air, the way light moves
around it to make myself invisible. It's difficult because I have
to let some light through, or we wouldn't have been able to
see."

Wow. Suddenly my awe and
respect for him hit a whole new level. This boy was so much more
than that. And he was mine. My skin tingled in delight. "And no one
knows?"

"Only you."

I felt my head tip towards
his shoulder and I did nothing to stop it. Sometimes it took too
much work to fight off the pull. At least, that's what I told
myself. I couldn't actually want it, could I? Sometimes I thought I
just might.

Pain and need rippled and
oozed over to me from him. "Come home with me," he
whispered.

Most times I hated that we
could feel each other's emotions, that I could keep nothing from
him, but right then, my heart felt like it was going to break.
"Please don't."

"Why don't you want to see
your home? What about your friends?" He paused and ran his
fingertips along my arm. "Your mother?"

I pressed my eyelids shut.
"I wouldn't be able to live with the guilt." I felt my voice on the
urge of cracking. I cleared my throat. "I just can't
go."

"You're mother's not going
to last much longer."

"I know," I whispered.
Pain ripped through my chest. More guilt. More things done wrong.
My father was dead. I'd already lost so much. And now, because of
the drilium bond, my mother would die soon as well. Bonded partners
couldn’t live without the other. Cailen and I had barely survived.
If one of us had died, we would have faded much more quickly. And
now my mother’s days were limited. She had a month left, and
possibly much less. I had a hard time breathing just thinking about
it.

"If we go, we can still
help the Soltakians." His fingers pressed into my arm, urgent,
needing. "You can give the order to send Auri ships, but you have
to be present to do it."

I ripped my arm out of his
grasp and sat back. "No.
No
." I pressed my fisted hands
against my thighs to rein in the sudden frustration broiling
through me. "We've been over this before. The rule of isolation was
started by Elsden, the
First
Aurume
. They won't accept a major break
like that. You said so yourself. The Council of Elders would have
to approve it with me. That could take months. Or years. And
honestly? I don't know if I want to put an end to the law. It was
made for a reason."

Flashes of what Cailen had
told me rippled through my mind. The Fae'ri. Rogue Auri who'd set
themselves up as gods to rule the weaker peoples. I couldn't break
the one sacred rule of no contact that had kept Fae'ri numbers in
check. Once I saved the Soltakians from the horror I set upon them,
I'd go home and the law would be complete and as it was intended to
be. But there was no way I'd breach it to that extent. Not unless
something catastrophic, something universe-changing, happened. And
we weren't there yet.

Cailen didn't argue. He
didn't say anything. He just looked very disappointed.

Minutes passed in silence,
our backs pressed against the wall of our temporary shelter. Inches
separated us, but at times it felt like miles. Other times it felt
like he was inside me and I was inside him. I didn't know what to
say.

I needed Meir, my savior.
But Meir was...not here.

Eventually the wind died
down. Without a word, Cailen got up and waited in the doorway, not
looking at me. I thought I felt a hint of pain coming off him, but
I couldn't be sure. It felt so controlled, so hidden. For the most
part I felt nothing, but then there would be little wisps of
emotion that would flutter like whispers in my mind. And almost as
soon as I felt them, they'd be gone.

He turned to me and gave a
tight, controlled smile. "The storm's over now. Would you like to
walk around?"

I nodded and joined him at
the doorway.

Blackened craters and
rubble covered the ground. Off in the distance, beyond the edge of
this broken older district, I saw the ring of crystal towers more
clearly. The impenetrable wall they formed, moved from their normal
perches and no longer swaying, looked more formidable than ever
with the bright sun gleaming off their walls and no dust to hinder
it. The ground, though, and everything on it was coated and brown
with dust. People trickled of their hiding spots, trudging around
the craters and broken buildings with heads down and faces covered,
like ghosts or shadows; just forms of the people they were
before.