Kyol stiffens. “He did what?”
I wince at the iciness in his voice. Most people describe anger as being hot, but it’s not. Not with Kyol, at least. His anger is so cold I shiver.
“It’s okay. Well, it’s not okay, but he didn’t give the elari my location willingly. He’s hurt.”
“He’s inside?”
“Yes, but he needs—”
Kyol slams open the door.
Damn it. I hurry after him, but catch up only when he suddenly stops at the entrance to the sunroom. He’s not staring at Lorn, though. He’s staring at Nick, who slowly, silently rises to his feet.
If it wasn’t for the life-bond, I’d have no idea how surprised Kyol is. His face is a mask of stoic calmness. There’s no sign he’s startled or confused.
“Nick,” is all he says.
The human clenches his jaw. “Taltrayn.”
“I see you two remember each other,” Lorn says. Finally, Kyol’s gaze swings to the injured fae.
“He needs a healer,” I finish what I tried to tell him on the porch.
“Please,” Lorn adds.
Kyol angles his body slightly to look at me. “I left you only a few hours ago, and you’ve managed to find Lorn and Nick Johnson.”
“He’s Kynlee’s dad,” I say, nodding toward Nick Johnson or Walker or whoever he is. “And I didn’t find Lorn. He found me.” All I wanted to do when I got home was curl up under the blankets and sleep.
Kyol’s expression softens. He releases his grip on his sword hilt and places his hand on my shoulder, squeezing it gently.
“It’s okay, kaesha,” he says. I stiffen, expecting to feel some wave of regret for calling me kaesha, but there isn’t any. Roughly, the word translates into loved one, only, it’s so much more than that. For the last decade, it’s been Kyol’s way of telling me that he loves me. He used it rarely since we weren’t supposed to be together, but that only made it more special. It’s still special now.
He senses my confusion, my unease, and drops his hand.
“You’re safe here?” he asks. In other words, the false-blood doesn’t know I’m here.
“Yeah,” I say. He takes another look at Lorn, then at Nick. He must trust the human because he tells me he’ll bring back help before he walks out the back door to open his fissure. Even though a pane of glass separates us, I get caught up in his shadows and the warm mix of emotions tumbling through my stomach. I can’t tell if they’re mine or his. Both, most likely.
A headache starts hammering behind my eyes. My personal life is one big fucking mess. The guy I wanted for a decade would finally and fully return that love now, but I’ve fallen for someone else, someone who wants nothing to do with me.
And I hate this. I hate hurting someone I care so much about.
I ignore the look I get from Nick as I pull a burgundy throw off a nearby chair and drape it over Lorn.
We wait. I watch Lorn breathe. He answers a few simple questions with grunts, but his sarcastic humor is gone. I’m worried about him. I don’t know how long it will take Kyol to bring back help. Most fae know basic first aid, quite a few are the equivalent of techless doctors, but a healer is the only thing that can save Lorn’s life now.
He falls into a restless sleep.
Sometime later, two fissures split through the night air. Kyol and Lena. They both look regal, standing next to each other in Nick’s backyard.
Backyard? Why not fissure directly into the house?
I look at Nick. “You have silver here?”
He nods stiffly. “In the insulation.”
Kyol opens the back door for Lena. She enters, her gaze locked on Nick as she walks to Lorn’s side.
“You’re alive,” she says as she kneels.
Nick doesn’t respond. He just rises and leaves the room.
“You know him?” I ask when he’s gone.
Lena removes the throw and the bloodied towel that’s been doing a poor job of staunching Lorn’s bleeding. She looks at his side wound, then places her hand over it.
“He gave the throne to Atroth,” she says.
I glance at Kyol.
“What do you mean?” I ask when she doesn’t go on and he doesn’t add anything. A human can’t just give a throne to someone.
“He slept with fae. Many and often until he had sex with the wrong woman, Casye, the daughter of the former high noble of Ristin Province.”
Ristin is one of the four provinces Lena reinstated. Tholm is on its western border. A small line marks the division between it and Corrand Province, just above the Imyth Sea, on the old maps of the Realm.
“Her father slaughtered all the tor’um in Ristin because of that,” Nick says from the threshold of the sunroom. “Because of me. Killing and banning humans from his province didn’t satisfy him.”
He takes a sip of the drink he’s poured himself, and it’s like he’s downing a shot of regret.
Kynlee. Nick must have saved her from the slaughter. But who is she? She can’t be the result of his affair with Casye—or any other fae for that matter. Fae and human can’t reproduce. Plus, fae aren’t born tor’um because of something the parents did or didn’t do. It’s a completely random occurrence.
“Atroth stopped it,” Kyol says.
Nick looks at him. “What?”
“Atroth stopped the cleansing. A few tor’um were killed, but not all of them. Not most of them. Atroth had Lord Kelyon arrested and executed for what he did.”
“And he dissolved Ristin Province instead of allowing another fae to rise to the position of high noble,” Lena adds bitterly. “That laid the groundwork for him to dissolve the other provinces. Without that precedent, he wouldn’t have been able to remap the Realm and strengthen his position as king.”
The others included Adaris, her home province.
No wonder Nick hasn’t been back to the Realm. Anyone in those dissolved provinces along with anyone else who opposed Atroth would blame him for what happened, and in a world as violent as the Realm, they’d kill him.
“Kynlee’s from Ristin Province then?” I ask.
Nick’s jaw tightens. He takes another sip of his drink and doesn’t answer.
Lena shifts her weight. A bead of sweat breaks out on her brow, but for the first time in half an hour, Lorn opens his eyes.
“Lena,” he murmurs. “Lena, you came.” He’s regressed to Fae again.
“Quiet, Lorn,” she says. Surprisingly, her tone is gentle, not impatient or scolding. Lorn’s so out of it, he just murmurs nonsense before he turns his head to the side and goes silent.
I sit beside Kyol on the wicker sofa. Nick leans in the doorway, finishing his drink. Five minutes pass. Ten. Lena’s still healing Lorn.
Kyol stands.
“I’ll return soon,” he says. Then he walks outside to fissure out. I’m staring at his shadows, itching to draw them, when I see Nick’s hand twitch in my peripheral vision. He’s staring at the shadows, too, and I’d bet a million dollars he’s not just a Sighted human. He’s a shadow-reader, too.
I hug my legs to my chest, then rest my chin on my knee.
“Do you know what happened to him?” Kynlee asks, breaking the silence. I’m not sure when she returned. She was supposed to be in bed.