One Thousand Kisses (41 page)

The fissures popped like green wood, his intense heat searing the edges, melting the fabric between the two worlds. The air blackened into fragile strips like shadow glass before it burst, piercing him through and through.

The fissures groaned and ripped. If he burned hotter, he wouldn’t feel the pain.

He did. He used everything he had. The pain disappeared, and it wasn’t enough. The fissures splintered the world, eating the magic, a yawning infinity that would obliterate everything it touched. It would touch her. It would touch them all.

It touched him and threatened to douse his fire. His body limited him to this much range, this much heat. The fuel he could provide as a physical being was nearly gone.

He left his body behind.

Goodbye, my love.

She felt him go, her essence ripping like a butterfly losing her wings. Ani screamed in pain and tried to call Embor back, sending everything she had through their bond.

Nothing. Fire and nothing.

Death would be peaceful, but he wanted her to live. Ani squeezed past the last bulky cart, gnomes closing in, and stumbled onto Cappita’s main highway.

By the spirits, she couldn’t go on. Her vision blurred with exhaustion and tears. He was gone. He was really gone.

Embor, please!
He couldn’t be gone, but he was.

Run
, a cat said.

She smelled gnomes but couldn’t hear anything except a piercing whine. Heat built behind her like a forge. Embor’s collapse melted the city, releasing all his magic at once.

A red-hot shockwave blasted her forward, arching her spine like a bow. She hurtled through the air, she didn’t know how far, before hitting the ground and bouncing. Something popped. She skidded and rolled, skinning hands and knees.

Too hot. She couldn’t hear, couldn’t see, but she could smell gnomes and burning. They weren’t supposed to kill the gnomes.

Get up
, a cat hissed, barely distinguishable over the thin drone in her ears.
They’re almost here.

She got up. She ran.

Blades stabbed her arches with every footfall. Her breath wheezed. Ani ran, tiny spurts of energy that felt like magic propelling her. But there was no magic here. She seemed to blink through between-space. Cat’s eyes faded in and out, superimposed across the highway. Fields and cottages.

The world began to spin, Ani with it, and she ran toward the center of the vortex.

Maybe it would kill her.

Suddenly the whine stopped. The whole world stopped. Ani slammed into a wall she hadn’t seen.

No, a body.

Thin, strong fingers gripped her arms, and Ani felt nothing but pain from the other person. Pain like a butterfly without wings.

“You’re safe now.” A female voice, thick with grief. Tears wet Ani’s skin, both her own and the woman’s. “Breathe, Ani. You made it out.”

“He’s dead.” Ani sobbed so hard her throat grew raw. “Skythia, he’s dead.”

“I know, I know.” Skythia hugged her, her body and essence barely like his but just enough that Ani clung to her. He’d been snatched from them both.

“We’re going to die.” He was gone for no reason. Nothing had changed. There was no magic and the city burned, hot against her back. Clouds of superheated smoke and flames seethed above the Court complex. Shudders disturbed the earth. Voices babbled around her.

“No.” Skythia shook Ani gently, then harder. “Do you hear me, Ani? We need you here. Whatever he did, it’s working.”

“How can you tell?” she asked, her throat like knives.

“I have faith in my brother.” Her voice cracked. “Honor him, Ani. Stay with us.”

Ani sensed magic, globes, healing and communication spells. Her skin hurt all over, scorched by the flames of his death.

Embor.
Flames and nothing. She’d have healed him if she could, died with him if she couldn’t. She turned to watch the city as the unnatural blaze consumed it. Higher and higher, in billows and flares, red and white and translucent blue.

Would it ever stop or would it come for them all?

“Gnomes,” she remembered. “Running.”

And they did, scuttling from the city like a flood of rats. Flames raged behind them. Ani could barely see them down the long highway, but the gnomes quickly noticed Skythia’s group of rescuers and refugees.

They could hear the communal snarl even from here.

Skythia squinted and cursed. “Son of a sevensie. Is every Ka-bedamned gnome in the Realm in there?” She pushed Anisette into someone else’s arms. “They’ve got short legs. We’ve got about seven minutes, folks. Get ready.”

Don’t kill them
, commanded one of the cats. Gnomes poured through the gates, over the walls. The ground rumbled and seethed with them. Still they came.

“You,” Skythia raged at the cat. “You tell my brother to sacrifice himself and want us to do the same? How in Hella’s name can we deal with them if we can’t kill them?”

Ani’s vision cleared. Her three feline guides huddled beneath a cart. Their fur was matted and sooty. The yellow tabby bled from a wound on her flank, and the white tom’s magnificent whiskers had charred into blackened curls.

Master Fey licked a bloody paw, though the blood didn’t seem to be his own.

Skythia yelled at them when they didn’t answer. “Explain yourselves, you hairy little bastards.”

Don’t kill them
, the white tom repeated sternly.
They’re part of the balance.

Look at them. They can’t help it. They’re slow and stupid, and so many are male
, the yellow tabby chided the others.
Yellow lady, turn them but don’t break them. Shield them. Freeze them. Transport them. Trap them. Finally, when they’re safe, run from them.

“I. Hate. Cats,” Skythia said through gritted teeth. She issued the orders using an amplification globe one of the Stonehauses handed her.

Ani pushed away from the man supporting her. Her knees quivered, so she locked them to remain erect. Sweat beaded her skin as the red billows above the city turned white and the gnomes scurried from the annihilating heat.

There were so many gnomes that the ground had disappeared.

Could Ani help anyone while missing half of who she was?

He’d wanted her to live. Skythia had marshalled herself and her forces, despite losing her twin, a bond that had endured much longer than the single day Ani had had with Embor. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, wondering what she should do, and watched the colors dance above the city.

Not just red and orange and white. Blues threaded through the swirling gases. Greens. Was it a mirage or did the world fabric die in all colors?

Fairies everywhere were in motion. Some transported the wounded out of the combat area. Some erected barriers and distributed globes to escapees willing to fight. It was clear they hadn’t planned on battle, just on rescuing fairies from the city, but they rallied nonetheless.

Warm fingers probed Ani’s exposed back. Her shirt had burned half-off and she hadn’t noticed, mesmerized by the death throes of her bondmate’s essence. When she concentrated, when she pretended he was alive, she could send magic into the fire like she was infusing him. Healing him. Her earth, her water, laced through the flames and created shapes in the inferno.

She could see visions. She had no ether.

“Hold still,” Gangee said. Cool succor spread across her skin. When he was finished, he shoved a bag of globes into her hand. “Go heal, Anisette.”

But instead of tending refugees, Ani clutched her bag and headed straight for the horde of gnomes. For the gates of the city.

Something was coming.

Spirits, something was here.

A dragon glimmered above the city, vast and golden and translucent. Gnomes dashed past her, ignoring her as they fled the conflagration—the manifest fire, a spirit’s heat.

The fissures screamed to a stop, cauterized and silenced.

The fairies behind her, the ones attempting to save her from her suicidal impulse, exclaimed in wonder. They could see Ka too.

Their shouts turned to curses as the gnomes attacked. Ani walked on. The horde parted for her as the dragon blazed the fissures closed.

She neared the gates. The sounds of battle faded to nothing as the roar of flames surrounded her.

It was hot here. She might burn again, all her skin this time. Ani rubbed sweat from her eyes. When she opened them, a massive figure was silhouetted against the flames.

Ka. The Dragon. Had any fairy ever been this close to one of the spirits?

She went to him. Every step closer she took, he shrank into himself, smaller and smaller, until he was a man.

She had fifty healing globes, and she had to use every one of them before he could take her into his arms and kiss her senseless.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The first Cat Appreciation Day in the Realm, held on the anniversary of the sealing of the rifts, began with an official proclamation from the Sun Tower to a joyful crowd that numbered in the thousands. Leprechauns, fairies, even some sphinx and other sentients gathered to celebrate the feline species. Their saviors.

When the cats failed to put in an appearance, some Fey returned home to celebrate the world’s continued existence privately while others transported to the next pilgrimage site in hopes of spotting at least one cat.

Elder Embor, deep in his campaign for a second term as Primary of the Realm, was not surprised by the felines’ absence and felt some inclination to return to what he’d been doing yesterday—overseeing the placement of the final repository stone at the rifts.

His bondmate had other ideas.

“You established the holiday, sir, and now you’re going to take it.” Anisette smacked the last of the foam across his skull and stalked through their bedroom in a huff. She stared out the window at the vista laid before the Sun Tower like a green patchwork. “We’re going to our beach and to the green ring and to the Serendipity clanhome where you’re going to thank everyone for your gifts without judging them. Not one peep.”

It was indeed Cat Appreciation Day but also Embor’s re-birthday, so to speak, since he’d become a dragon. It was a point of debate whether he’d been a dragon or The Dragon, but he was inarguably the only fairy known to have been born twice. It didn’t seem to have affected anything but his hair, or lack thereof.

“Yes, dear,” he said to Anisette.

“Then we’re going to spend the night in the Xerode desert and you’re not going to take your communication globes and Skythia is not allowed to mind-speak you. This is a vacation.”

“Yes, dear.” Embor rubbed a palm across his scalp, trying to feel the stubble Anisette swore was starting to sprout. She’d managed to coax brows and lashes onto his face after he’d turned into fire and back again, but the rest of his hair had confounded her vast skills.

Magic was not a cure-all. Nor was it eternal. It had taken a year to rebound partly from the great draining. It hadn’t been a full Incident. Magic had lingered in outlying districts. But the central portion of their nation had been bereft and was still changeable. Gnomes ran amuck, and the game wardens protected them instead of killed them, though the cats had never deigned to explain why. The Court had reestablished itself at the Sun Tower, and hill clans like the Drakhmores had achieved a certain prominence and influence.

They still had magic while the civilized lands did not.

It hadn’t been easy to keep the upheaval concealed from the humans. They’d managed to shift the blame to a freak earthquake. There continued to be issues with bleed-through and brownouts, but there would always be issues in the Realm. These were just the recent ones.

The AOC had been disbanded—not a problem, considering how many rings had closed when they’d shuffled the repositories—and agents willing to pledge their allegiance to the Court were assigned as liaisons to the sadlings.

The Realm would endure. The Seers said so.

Embor’s and Skythia’s Primariship, on the other hand, faced serious opposition from the Braithwaits. In the wake of the cataclysm and the reveal of the sadlings, the move toward disclosure was stronger than ever. The New Expansionist party added followers every day, and all of them planned to vote for the Braithwaits.

He did not approve of disclosure. Skythia did not approve of disclosure. Their cabinet—most of it—did not approve of disclosure. Perhaps he shouldn’t take the day off. If he put in an appearance at the fissure site, it might be a better use of his time. His secretary of communication, Janelle Serendipity, had informed him the ring scientists had been attending Nexie lectures on a regular basis.

How could he change Anisette’s mind about today? If the cats weren’t going to allow themselves to be feted, what was the point of feting them?

She turned from the window and said to him, “Why won’t he come?”

“Who?”

She sighed. “Master Fey.”

Embor was positive he’d seen the tom perched outside their bedroom window last night. Yes, it was one hundred floors up, but cats did like high places. He hadn’t mentioned it to Anisette because they’d been engaged in activities he hated to interrupt.

“He’s a cat,” Embor said, sensing an opening. “Are you surprised, my dear? They’re contrary. Perhaps we chose a day they didn’t like.”

“Cats were all over Xerode yesterday, and Tali saw six at the clanhome this week. We still have a shot.” His lady tugged on a wide-brimmed hat to shade her skin from the summer sun. “We’re meeting Jake and Tali in Serendipity for the rest of the pilgrimage.”

“I’m not sharing a tent with the triplets again,” he warned.

“They’re not staying over.” She smiled, and her whole demeanor changed. “I’ll have you to myself all night long.”

Suddenly, the idea of a vacation, especially one almost guaranteed to be free of cats, was much more attractive. Embor had yet to tire of bedding Anisette, though they’d agreed to postpone children for a hundred years. Or more. Especially after the campout with the triplets.

“Three hundred and eighty-four?” he suggested. He didn’t know what it corresponded to, but it didn’t matter. They all meant sex with Anisette.

“Wait and see,” she teased, stocking her capacious purse with globes, ointments, silk scarves, a wallet, cat treats, crackers, moist wipes, a cell phone and his scalp gel.

Then she dangled a set of handcuffs from her pinky. “Happy re-birthday, Mr. President.”

“Hm.”

Embor decided he couldn’t wait and see, so he didn’t. Wait.

They were late to meet the Serendipities at the clanhome and just missed seeing a calico cat. By that time, neither of them cared.