One Thousand Kisses (40 page)

His lips tightened. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She healed the mark on his leg with a soft touch. “I didn’t think it was true. Cats have strange senses of humor. This is the first one I’ve seen.” She waved at the fire. “Maybe the flames kept them away.”

He lifted her to her feet and frowned. “I’ll alert the others.”

Tell them not to kill the gnomes. That goes for you too
, said a voice in his head. In Anisette’s, too, based on her reaction. She whirled until she spotted the cat, who hadn’t been there a moment ago.

“What was I supposed to do, Master Fey?” She put her hands on her hips and regarded the black and white tom with some frustration. “Let it snack on my bondmate?”

The cat blinked, his eyes glowing red in the light of the fire.

When it became clear the cat wasn’t going to elaborate, Embor relayed the information to Skythia, who told him to get his ass back to the tower.

You’re like humans, causing your own problems
, said the yellow tabby behind them.

“Do you mean the rifts?” Embor asked. Even with the AOC’s crimes against Fey and human, their board hadn’t impelled the lost ones to work magic in the Realm. “We aren’t all like the Torvals.”

“Mrrrrr,” Master Fey growled.

I mean the magic. You’re breaking the cycle. Goes up, comes down, goes around, goes around. Everything in its place. You can’t change the loop, Fey.

Suddenly the tabby’s tail whipped back and forth. As they watched, the white tom shimmered into existence beside her. He was easily twice her size.

All two-leggers are the same
,
he pronounced.

Gnomes have two legs
, Master Fey said.

And?
The white cat arranged himself regally on the paving stones, his fur gleaming in the moonlight. His odd-colored eyes stared into Embor’s.
The big ones are overgrown gnomes. All appetite, no brain. Tearing everything apart, never thinking ahead.

Embor had developed a cautious fondness for one of the three cats in the courtyard. It wasn’t the white one. “What do you mean?”

What you’ve done, we can’t undo. Fix it yourself.

He’s ready
,
Master Fey said.
I saw to that.

Foreboding filled Embor in a way that was generally reserved for Seers and the superstitious, neither of which described him. “What am I ready for?”

Anisette’s campfire flared twenty feet into the air, its heat fluttering Embor’s hair and sending Anisette scurrying. His magic surged in response, but not his fire. Ether froze his body as the flames deepened, cycling through colors until he could see…

A vision.

All the fire in the world, all the fire inside him, searing the land. Red buildings, crackling forests, white-hot balls of pitch and destruction. He burned. He burned it all. He burned in a way he never had, never should and never would again.

He burned until he melted the world and himself with it. There could be no doubt. He was the Hand of Fire, and he was the only one who could.

Embor bowed his head. Anisette pressed her hand to her lips, but not in time to hide her cry as she felt his sorrow and submission through their bond.

“I know what I have to do.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“No.” Ani’s demand crackled like fire in her throat. Embor couldn’t sacrifice himself. “I forbid it. I’m your bondmate. I have that authority.”

“Don’t invoke that.” He tried to take her into his arms, his gaze regretful. “There’s no other way.”

She smacked at him. “Let the Realm go. I can live without magic. I can’t live without you.”

“It’s worse than that. If I don’t do this, when the fissures split the Realm, the results will be cataclysmic.”

“Then I’m coming with you.” With her enhanced strength, she could wrap him in a cocoon. As he burned, he’d heal, dying and living, but living in the end. He could shield her, and she could save him. This didn’t have to end with his death. “I’ll heal you, don’t you see? You’re not the only one who’s stronger.”

“No.”

It wasn’t the cleverest plan, but it was better than doing nothing while her world crumbled. That frightened, hesitant woman she’d been for so long was not the woman she needed to be. She needed to be as strong as he was. “How do you know this will work?”

“I saw it.” He kissed her, and she opened herself, pouring magic into him, infusing him though he was unhurt. She wanted to be inside him. How was this just or fair? She loved him. She loved Embor. They’d bonded, and now he insisted he had to die.

When he drew back, he was glowing.

“Was it a true vision?” She reached for him again, but he caught her hands. “What if it was a trick?”

“I do have ether.”

“But not precognition.” She batted away his grip and slipped against him.

He groaned and held her close, speaking into her hair. “It was ether or the cat.”

“You can’t trust a cat,” she wailed.

“You know we can.” He stroked her back and buttocks, long soothing gestures that wrung tears out of her, tears she didn’t want to inflict on him. Sorrow wrenched her apart like the rifts tearing the Realm. “Anisette, I love you. I’ve watched you and wanted you and not known how to tell you. I’m so grateful we—”

“Don’t you understand? I won’t survive losing you.” Their bond might be fresh, but it was rooted so deeply his death would be hers. If she had to tell him that to keep him alive, she would. She’d do anything.

“I’d rather you did,” he commented with an arched eyebrow. “I’m sort of sacrificing myself so you can live, and so on and so forth.”

“Not now, not now.” She aimed blows at his chest and face. He trapped her fists. When she sent agony magic into him, he kissed her knuckles, swallowing the pain.

It didn’t relieve it. She only hurt more. Spirits, why?

“I won’t live,” she threatened. “You might as well take me into the fissures and give me the chance to save us both. You cannot do this to me. You cannot!”

You’re needed here, my lady.
Master Fey’s voice was apologetic and soft.
You have to get the gnomes out.

“I don’t want the gnomes out!” Ani yelled. “I hate them and I wish they were all dead.”

If you two-leggers have your way
, the white cat grumbled,
we’ll all be dead.

The fissure roared closer, the ground cracking, the magic screaming. The flow almost tugged her off her feet. The situation required drastic measures, but why Embor? Why did it have to be her happiness, her bondmate, her life?

Why could she never have anything? Everything she’d ever loved, ever wanted, ever hoped for, she lost.

“The researchers and rescue teams are evacuating. You need to transport to a safe distance.” He wrapped her hands around a globe, warm from his pocket. “This should be strong enough to pull you free of the rift.”

Ani breathed shallow and fast, her throat and eyes burning. “Is Skythia coming?”

“No.” His gaze grew distant. “She feels you and I have the greater… She won’t come. She won’t say goodbye.”

A lump the size of an egg formed in Ani’s throat as she imagined never seeing Tali again. Never seeing Embor again. Soon she wouldn’t have to imagine it. “Embor, I’m begging you. Please don’t do this. We can find another way.”

When Embor didn’t answer, Ani buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

Arms held her. Lips brushed her forehead. His warmth flickered through her, oranges and reds and yellows, showing her what he couldn’t say with words. She opened her heart and mind completely. Colors danced around them like when they’d bonded. He would miss so much, and so would she. Their future. Their children. Their happiness. Everything they could have had.

She didn’t even want to survive. She’d stay here and cease to exist when he did, and nobody would even know.

The colors intensified and changed.

Let her go, Fiertag
,
Master Fey said.
She won’t die. She’ll have me.

When Ani looked up, Embor was gone, and the black and white tom, the yellow tabby and the old white cat waited for her beside the smoldering remains of the fire.

“Come back!” She fell to her knees, crying out. Her heart and soul twisted and tore. Everything good and right inside her bled out on the cobblestones and turned to dust.

She was the Realm. His absence would swallow her magic and kill her essence.

Let it.

A cold nose nudged her hand. Silky fur pressed her fingers.

You may want to get a stick
, the tabby said.
A long one, dear lady. We’re about to call the gnomes.

He walked through a human forest in flames, a section of ruined Court complex. Magic didn’t work. Not globes, not his own. He couldn’t hear his sister or his bondmate. He couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe sometimes. He couldn’t transport to the center of the fissures, so he had to ford the nightmarish landscape, never knowing where he’d be with his next step.

Which made finding the session chamber difficult. The two worlds, human and Fey, had meshed here, to the detriment of both.

Bodies that shouldn’t have existed lay bloodied across rubble and devastation. Dead gnomes, dead cats, dead fairies, dead humans. He flashed into the Realm, perturbed to find himself in the white debris of the laundry when he could have sworn he was in the administrative wing.

It was dawn. It was dusk. He was on a beach, in a city, in a field. It was as pitch-black as the underground lake. Cold, clammy water enveloped him to the waist.

Magic began to fume, pounding him from all directions but pushing him only one. Deeper into the water. Closer to the heart. The original fracture must be nearby.

The water slowed his progress as he clambered over heaps of stone and down, through masonry, slick with oily substances. Was it ice? It was so frigid, he instinctively reached for his fire.

It wasn’t there. But he’d seen himself in the vision. He’d unleashed the spark he always kept dimmed and burned the world away. There had been nothing cold.

Hm.

He let the magic batter him. Great gouts tumbled him this way and that, or tried to. He thought of Anisette’s calmness, and it rooted his feet to the earth. Waves lapped him, splashed his face. He could be in the middle of an ocean in humanspace.

A shallow, cold ocean that echoed like a vast cavern of holes and magic.

If only he could see. If only he could burn.

His knees struck another pile of rubble. He groped downward, feeling knobs and ridges of carved wood. A banister. Holding his breath, he plunged beneath the surface and found more.

Banisters. The gallery above the session chamber. Embor began to climb, emerging from the icy surface inches at a time. If he squinted he could see stars. He reached the top of the pile.

Did he hear a waterfall? Voices? Screams?

This was taking too long, and he was damned cold. Embor spread his arms, ripped his power open like a parachute and jumped.

Her companions called the gnomes, all right. Ani didn’t know how they’d done it, but as soon as she found a weapon, gnomes boiled out of every hole and crevice around the courtyard as if they’d been waiting for her to be alone, no bondmate to shield her.

She’d be alone forever. Ani shut her eyes and tried to contact Embor, but his spirit was nowhere. Either he’d lost already or was in humanspace.

The rifts drained magic like the desert drank rain. She refused to accept he could fail, but failure and success would mean the same result for him.

He’d be dead.

Let’s go
, the tabby yowled in her ear.
Hop to it.

“I want to die.”

The stench hit her in the next instant. Snarls and cries of “Fairy!” assaulted her ears.

She did want to die, but not beneath a pile of gnomes. Ani raised the transportation globe Embor had given her and prepared to use it.

No.
The white cat swatted her calf, drawing blood through her trousers.
Lead them.

His demand made no sense. “Why must I lead them? Why can’t you call them somewhere else?”

Too late for that
,
the cat said, hissing at the gnomes.
They’ll chase you even with the magic gone.

The gnomes teemed at the edge of the courtyard, regarding her suspiciously. Then they broke in a massive wave.

With a shriek Ani sprinted toward the gates, which led to the city.

Master Fey, loping ahead, flicked his tail like a flag.
Run faster.

She did. She raced through the empty Court bazaar, sellers’ carts unmanned and forlorn. She dodged a gridlock of carriages, another, the horses as absent as the drivers. She ran through the desolate streets, nothing alive except for gnomes. And more gnomes. And more.

The vermin had infested Capital City. How and why had the cats drawn them here? What did they hope to achieve? Why weren’t the cats running with her, helping her, telling her what they needed?

The city streets were organized like spokes, creating a lopsided wheel with the Court near the hub. Lungs burning, legs pumping, she reached a split. One route would take her deeper into the huge city. One route would take her out of it.

She chose deeper. She wanted to be able to barricade herself in a building if she grew too tired to run.

As though she’d called him, Master Fey appeared, his tail fluffed and eyes wild. His claws skittered on the cobblestones, counterpoint to the whack of her feet. The constant, faint overlay of gnome snarls grew louder ahead. Ani tried to access her magic to fend them off.

But there was no magic here. It had all leaked into the fissures.

West gate
, the cat told her.

She couldn’t answer, just reeled down a side street. Her ribs stitched with pain, but what did it matter how much she hurt? She wanted to die.

Instead she ran. The three- and four-story residences in the wealthy district gave way to tenements, businesses and clutter in the streets as fairies had escaped.

After a while she realized the only thing she could hear was the faltering slap-slap of her footsteps. The west gate, closest to the Court complex, was in view.

Normally she could see the golden dome of the session chamber from here, even at night, when the moon’s rays highlighted its curves. Tonight she could see nothing but narrow streets, blank windows, discarded baskets and packs, and dead fairy lights atop iron lampposts. A few bodies, all dead. Her surroundings glowed bluish and eerie from the unnaturally full moon, closer and rounder than she’d ever seen in her life.

The west gate’s giant doors were half-open, carriages clogging the egress.

Panting, wheezing, she bent over and considered her next move. The cats wanted her to lure the gnomes out. Out of what? The city? The district? Out of the radius of whatever Embor hadn’t done yet?

The thought of what he intended sealed her throat and made it nigh impossible to draw in the great gasps of air her body demanded.

Either he hadn’t done it or he’d failed. The fissures remained. The earth rumbled beneath her feet as the rifts lengthened, again.
Embor, where are you? What are you doing?

She received no response, not even an echo. So she ran.

He fell through humanspace skies. He fell through space. He fell through ice and snow and sandstorm and finally blasted through into fire.

Burning. He knew burning.

He released himself to the heat and floated in it like Anisette floated in her cool, blue oceans. Molten lava invaded his lungs and pores. It was too hot, even for him. Pain woke as a seed inside and unfurled. Vines of fire and anguish shot through his body.

Fire became his body.

He crackled and blazed, hotter than he’d ever burned in his life. All the power he kept trapped inside, leery of frightening his loved ones—and himself—he called it forth.

A stitch in his side. His lungs pumping, bellowing, as if burning were a physical effort. His joints ached. His breath came hard and fast and short. He couldn’t suck down enough air, and he had to keep burning, keep going.

So he burned. And burned.