The Shattered Dark (9 page)

It’s hard to argue with that because it’s true. The rebels’ other Sighted humans and
I are almost burned-out already. We need a break, and while Naito and Shane will help
lighten our workload, it’s only a temporary solution.

Naito is still staring behind me. I look over my shoulder just as Kyol reaches our
table.

“I need a shadow-reader,” he says. “Quickly.”

I rise automatically, not noticing until I’m already standing that Kyol isn’t focused
on me. He’s focused on Naito. Naito meets his gaze but doesn’t say a word for a good
six seconds.

“I’m busy.” He returns to reading the documents in front of him.

I don’t know if it’s obvious what Naito is researching—I feel like it should be—but
Kyol’s face remains expressionless, even when he eventually looks at me. “Will you
come?”

It’s a question I was rarely asked when King Atroth was alive. The fae always assumed
I would drop everything and help them, and most of the time, I did. My own fault.
I should have stood my ground more often, made more time for myself.

“Yeah, I’ll go,” I tell him. Jenkins doesn’t need my driver’s license and Social Security
card until 5
P.M.
on Friday, two days from now. I have more than enough time to help Kyol and get back
to Vegas, and I
want
to help him.

I turn to Naito. “You’ll have to cover my watch.”

He doesn’t glance up.

“Naito,” I say again, sharper this time. I see his jaw clench once, twice. Then, when
I think he’s going to ignore me indefinitely, he finally says, “Fine.”

I’ll have to trust he’ll follow through on that because Kyol’s already heading for
the door. I was avoiding Kyol these past two weeks only because I didn’t want to hurt
him, but it doesn’t look like being near me fazes him at all. Maybe I’m a fool to
think he still wants me. Maybe he’s completely over me.

I follow him out the door, breaking into a jog when my legs can’t keep up at a walk.
Usually, Kyol would slow down for me, but when we exit the archives, he increases
his pace.

“We might lose him if we don’t move quickly.”

The urgency makes my stomach tighten. The last time I shadow-read with him was two
weeks ago in Montana. It didn’t go well. A lot of fae died securing the
Sidhe Tol
and fissuring into the Silver Palace. They’ve been dying ever since, and while I
want to believe we’ve made it through the bloodiest days of this war, my gut tells
me we haven’t. More lives will be lost before the high nobles accept Lena as queen.

K
YOL ISN’T THE
fae who fissures me out of Corrist. He hands me a cloak, a sketchbook, and an imprinted
anchor-stone, then lets Taber, his second-in-command, take me through the slash of
white light. As soon as the gated-fissure fades away, I release Taber’s arm, trying
to ignore the heat swirling in my palm. He doesn’t look bothered by our contact. I’m
sure he is, though. The majority of the Realm’s citizens believe humans and human
tech damage their magic. Chances are none of the three fae with me now want to get
too close to me; they’re just too professional to show it.

They’re all former Court fae who served under Kyol. I’ve worked with Taber before,
but not the other two, though I have met Brayan, the tall but stout fae standing to
my left, once. He was one of the men guarding the storage room where Kyol was holding
Naito and Evan, another shadow-reader, during the war. I haven’t seen him since then,
but being with the three former Court fae makes this assignment seem so familiar,
I almost feel like nothing has changed these past few weeks. Nothing, that is, except
our target. We’re not hunting Aren anymore.

“We’re hunting Dyler, son of Jielan,” Kyol says when he joins us. The shadows from
his extinguished fissure twist in the air behind him. Fae can’t see them. They don’t
feel the
itch to sketch out their peaks and valleys. They don’t need to know if the tiny swirl
in the middle of the black haze puts us on the east or west side of the river that
cuts through the city. I do, though, and my fingers tighten on the sketchbook in my
hand. I wish I had the strapped sketchbook I packed in my suitcase, but this one will
work, and it will take only a few seconds to slip the pencil from the spiral and draw
what looks to be a marketplace just north of the swirl. If I—

“McKenzie.”

I blink. Kyol’s voice is firm, like he’s called my name more than once.

I give my head a little shake so I can focus on him and not the shadows dancing over
his shoulder. In the last ten years, I’ve only tranced out a dozen times looking at
them. Two of those times have been in the last week. I think sleep deprivation and
constantly being on edge is finally getting to me.

“Are you sure you can do this?” His silver eyes don’t soften like they usually would
with that question.

“I’m sure,” I say, keeping my voice neutral as well. We both know I’m the best person
for this job. “You said we’re looking for…?”

“Jielan,” Kyol says.

I recognize the name. I read the shadows for him just a few months ago. We were looking
for Aren in Jythkrila, but the rebels set a trap for us. For me, really. They’d killed
and replaced the inspectors at the city’s gate. The inspectors’ job was to make sure
the fae who used the gate paid taxes on the goods they took through it. They’d never
approached me before, but one did that time. He feigned interest in the sketchbook
I carried. By the time I realized something wasn’t right, he locked his hand around
my wrist.

Jielan saved me from the rebels. They were my enemy then, so I was grateful. I thanked
him. Now, I’m here to help Kyol capture or kill him.

“Up here,” Kyol says, motioning me toward a ladder. It’s only then that I really take
in my surroundings. My impressions from the shadows were wrong. We’re nowhere near
a marketplace. The ladder climbs up the side of a gray-and-black brick wall. The building
is big, stretching more than
fifty feet to either side of me. It’s plain, though, with a flat façade and what looks
like a flat roof. My guess is it’s a
bregorm
, a stack house, which is basically the Realm’s equivalent of a UPS.
Jaedric
, wood, textiles, and other bulk items don’t just appear in merchants’ stores. They
have to be brought there, and the fae who harvest or create them don’t have the time
to fissure what they’re selling in small armloads to every merchant who might want
them. So they bring them here, stacking them in their local
bregorm
, where other fae agree to the tedious job of hauling them to the nearest gate.

The stack house is the only building I can see. I don’t know what’s on its other side,
but there’s nothing but an open field at our backs. It was near midnight in Corrist,
but here, it’s maybe late afternoon, which means we’re a good ways to the east of
the Silver Palace.

I grab the first rung of the ladder and start up, thinking maybe I’ll recognize the
city when I have a better view. It’s close to a three-story climb, but I make it to
the top quickly. As I pull myself onto the roof, I notice the thick band of silver
edging the building. The metal prevents fae from fissuring up here or inside, but
that’s not the only reason we emerged from the In-Between at the base of the ladder.
One of Kyol’s swordsmen lies flat on his stomach on the far edge of the roof. His
head is pointed away from us and tilted at an angle that presumably gives him a decent
view of the door to the building that’s across the street. From where I’m crouched
by the ladder, I can only see a roof and the top edge of a window. No one inside should
be able to see me, but if we’d fissured directly up here, there’s a chance they might
have seen the flash of light.

I stay low and let my gaze sweep across the rest of the area. We’re on the outskirts
of a town. Most of the buildings are spread out, but a strip of structures built closely
together is off to my far right. I’m guessing they’re stores of some kind, maybe with
a few small residences scattered among them. The street they’re on snakes back and
forth, and I think I was wrong about a river cutting through the city. That road is
the wavy line I saw in the shadows.

“Is he still here?”
Kyol asks in Fae, climbing onto the
rooftop behind me. Taber and the other two fae remain on the ground below.

The swordsman lying on his stomach nods. His brown hair is cut short enough to see
a black cord hanging around his neck.
“Yes, lord general,”
he says.
“He and three others.”

Lord general.
The title puts a bad taste in my mouth. I’m not used to Kyol being called that. I
don’t think he fits the role. The previous fae who held that position was overbearing,
arrogant, and in the end, cruel. Kyol isn’t any of those things.

To me, Kyol says, “The house is protected by silver. Jielan will most likely fissure
as soon as he exits, but if he doesn’t, you’ll need to be ready to move.”

“There isn’t a back way out?”

“There is,” he answers, “but he doesn’t know we’re here. He has no reason to exit
the other way.”

Staying low, I inch forward until I’m at the edge of the roof. Kyol does the same.

“Where are we?” I ask, moving the buckle of the belt Aren fastened around me so it’s
not so uncomfortable to lie on. That moves the sheathed dagger a little more to the
left on my back, but I can still reach it fairly easily.

“Spier,” Kyol says.

I stare at him without saying a word. Each of the Realm’s provinces has a capital
city with a gate, but Spier is nowhere near any of them. And unless there’s a Missing
Gate—a gate not on the public maps—that I don’t know about, the nearest place for
me to safely fissure is half a day’s walk from here.

“I needed a shadow-reader,” Kyol says without looking at me. Usually, his tone would
be apologetic—he always hated keeping me away from my human life—but it’s firm now,
just as it should be. I never needed to be coddled, and as frustrating as it is to
be stranded so far away from a gate, it’s good that I’m here. Jielan could lead us
to the other remnants. He could lead us to Paige.

I open the notebook on the roof in front of me, taking the pencil out of the spine
so that I’ll be completely ready when Jielan comes out. The quicker I sketch his shadows,
the more accurate my map will be. I just hope we don’t have to kill him.

“There he is,” Kyol says sharply.

My gaze snaps to the front door. Jielan’s there, stepping outside without so much
as a glance at his surroundings. He immediately disappears into a fissure. The light
winks out, leaving behind a twist of shadows.

My hand is already dragging my pencil across the sketchbook, dipping into a shallow
valley near the continent’s southern coast. Jielan’s stayed in the Realm. He’s even
still in Cadek Province, most likely. I scratch down a few more broad strokes—an ocean
to the east, a fairly dense forest to the northeast—then flip the page as my mind
zooms in on his location. A part of my brain registers that the other three fae who
were inside the house have exited as well, but they don’t obscure the shadows. I keep
my pencil moving, and within seconds, I identify a dark swirl to the west of a river.
It cuts through a village that…

No, wait. It’s not a river. It’s a street. It’s
the
street.

“Watch out!” I shout, pushing up off the rooftop and spinning toward the ladder. My
warning comes too late. One of the swordsmen waiting below lets out a bellow and the
sound of clashing swords rings through the air.

“Stay with her!”
Kyol orders, already moving. The fae wearing the black necklace takes up position
at my side, sword drawn. I know Kyol wants me to stay up here, to stay safe, but as
he disappears over the side of the roof, I grab my sketchbook and scramble to the
ladder. Jielan might fissure away. If he does, I need to map his shadows.

I peer over the building’s edge just as Taber deflects a hard swing from Jielan, then
counters with an attack of his own. Both their swords move impossibly fast, diving
and slicing and stabbing through the air. Taber retreats a step, stumbling. He doesn’t
look injured, but I’m certain I see red on Jielan’s blade. I don’t know if it’s from
Brayan, who’s scrambling back to his feet, or from—

I spot a wisp of white shadow. Yes, the blood must be from the other fae. He’s nowhere
to be seen now because he’s dead. Jielan killed him. All that’s left to mark his existence
in this world is his soul-shadow, and even that disappears when Taber lunges through
it, his blade narrowly missing Jielan’s shoulder.

Then Kyol’s there, leaping off the ladder and drawing his sword. Jielan sees him.
He has to know he’s outmatched and outnumbered, but when he fissures, he doesn’t leave
the fight. He emerges from the In-Between only a few feet away from where he disappeared.
It’s the perfect position to snake his arm around the neck of a still-unbalanced Brayan.
Jielan pivots, pressing his back against the wall and using Brayan as a shield.