“Let me be your blade.”
Fifty-Two
The door below still hung open, and the cries echoing from within were weaker now.
“The breaking of the casting hurts,” he said quietly.
It wasn’t enough. Not for what I’d seen.
Fieran descended first, cautious, and I followed close behind him. The corridor’s stench surged up, rot and metal and something older. When the dim glow lit the walls, my breath caught.
It wasn’t just a body hanging.
It waspieces. Mortal pieces. Arranged. Used. Enchanted to still move, twitching faintly as if remembering what they once were.
The caster lay on the floor, dragging himself toward the foul little nest he’d made of bones and stolen flesh. His eyes were wild. Shocked. He hadn’t expected company.
“Vile, even by Fae standards,” Fieran said coldly.
The caster tried to scramble back, but Fieran’s sword glowed into existence on his back. A heartbeat later it was in his hand.
A heartbeat later it was buried in the Fae’s gut.
The caster choked on a sound. His eyes went wide and empty.
Fieran withdrew the blade; it dissolved into air before the body hit the ground.“He won’t hurt anyone else, Cara.”
I couldn’t speak. My knees gave out, and Fieran swept me into his arms before I hit the stone.
I hated that I needed him like this.
Warmth surged around me, wind whipping past, and suddenly we were airborne, the ground dropping away as the night opened up beneath us. The sea glittered far below, black and endless. The wind roared in my ears, cool and sharp, but his arms stayed firm around me.
Then the cliffs rose to meet us, carved with firelit windows. We swept into the heart of Clan Bismyth, the world narrowing to torchlight and stone and the thud of Fieran’s heartbeat against my cheek.
“I have to tell you what happened tonight,” I told him frantically as we landed on the floor of his room.
“Is that so?”
“The queen had a trap for me. I need you to know what I said so you can be prepared.”
He gave me a look that was unexpectedly full of affection. I’d expected his disdain. But maybe it was yet another trap of his. “I know you told her whatever you’ve worked out. You won’t ruin my plans.”
I frowned at him, still waiting to trigger the volatile reaction I expected, the rejection. “She knows I think you’re going to use me to create a mortal army. That I think you want me to marry you.”
“I do,” he admitted, the expression on his face quizzical, as if he didn’t understand why I sounded like I was confessing.
“Fieran. Tay brought me there under her commands…my own brother…”
“I know how she can get one to betray another,” he promised me. “I’m not angry at you or at Tay. As much as I want to be angry because you were in danger…it was neither your fault nor his.”
It was all too much of a release of the tension for me. I felt myself dissolve, my body shaking with tears.
I never cried in front of anyone, and now I couldn’t stop.
“Come here,” he told me, as if he weren’t still carrying me.
He sat in the enormous arched window through which we’d entered. The curtains blew around us in the wind coming off the sea. He settled me into his lap, his arms wrapped aroundme. “You can go back to hating me tomorrow, and I’ll still deserve it. But for tonight, let me make you feel better.”
