“I’ve never lied to you, McKenzie,” Aren says. “Never.”
“And I’m supposed to take your word on that?” I stop at the end of our narrow, curvy passageway and peer both ways down the main street. Two cloaked fae look our way. They’re breaking curfew. Technically, so are we. I bury my hands in the pockets of my cloak, trying to preserve what little warmth they have left.
“The gate is to the left,” Aren says.
The two fae watch as I turn that way. I return their stares and, surprisingly, they drop their gazes. Even with the occasional edarratae flashing across my face, I don’t think I’m very intimidating. Most likely, Aren’s glaring at them over my shoulder. He’s just behind and slightly to the right of me, walking through the night fully armored in jaedric. His sword, sheathed at his left hip, is easily accessible. He could kill both men before they throw aside their cloaks to get access to their weapons.
“That’s the shadow-witch?” the shorter of the two fae asks. The other doesn’t respond; he just backs away. Which is ridiculous, considering I’m on the opposite side of the street from them.
I just shake my head and keep walking. I try not to think, because when I do, I either flash back to ten years ago or think about the fae—the fae I barely know—who’s trailing me. Aren was Thrain’s protégé. It’s so hard to believe, and not just because my heart breaks a little when I think about the connection. Anyone who was associated with Thrain should be mentally unstable. They should go from calm to irate in two seconds flat. They should issue threats, dole out punishments with their fists, and be abusive both mentally and physically and…
The scar on the side of my neck throbs, and I freeze. It’s the remains of a horrible moment, when Aren and I were still on opposite sides of the war, when he threatened me…Maybe Aren is like Thrain. Maybe I’ve just been too blind to see it.
“I’m not a mistake, McKenzie,” he says softly, stopping beside me. His voice is soothing, reassuring. My chest tightens, and a warm, tingling sensation rushes through me. That scares me. I’ve told myself to take this relationship slowly, but my heart refuses to listen. I’m growing too attached to him too quickly. I shouldn’t be on the brink of falling in love with someone I know so little about. I shouldn’t want to believe every word he says. That’s what happened with Kyol. I loved him so blindly and so completely, I put my life on hold. I never questioned anything he told me, and I regret that so much.
I swallow down a lump in my throat. “You should have told me about him.”
“When?” Aren asks, and for the first time, impatience creeps into his voice. “Including today, I’ve seen you four times since we took the palace, McKenzie. Four.”
“That’s not my fault.” I start walking again, but he grabs my arm.
“You’re not being fair,” he says.
“Of course I’m not,” I yell, turning toward him. “You’re as bad as Kyol was about not telling me the complete truth.”
His nostrils flare. The comparison hurts. I’m almost sorry I made it—almost—but I’m sick of people withholding information.
I meet his gaze. “Anything else you want to confess?”
That gets under his skin. The silver in his eyes seems to sharpen, and he takes a step forward, pressing his body against mine so that I have to move back.
“The complete truth, McKenzie, is I’d do anything for you, but you ask for nothing. You won’t confide in me. You won’t rely on me. You’re so preoccupied trying to decide if you can trust your feelings that you won’t consider giving in to them.”
I back against a stucco wall. He’s breathing hard. So am I, and I have to admit it’s not only because I’m hurt and angry. There’s some truth to his words. I don’t trust my feelings for him, but there’s good reason for that. Learning about his connection to Thrain proves it.
I put my hands on his chest to push him away. He doesn’t budge. Instead, his grip on my arm tightens.
“Let go, Aren.”
He shakes his head. His eyes are narrowed.
“Seriously, let go.” I twist this time, trying to slip free, but his arms go around me, pulling me more tightly against him.
“Aren—”
“Shh,” he says. Then, when I keep struggling, he looks down at me. “You can be angry, McKenzie, but don’t be careless. Listen.”
I don’t allow myself to relax in his arms, but his hearing is better than mine, so I turn my head to the side and listen. At first, all I hear is his heartbeat. It’s a steady, almost hypnotic thumpthump. Thumpthump. But then I hear something else. A raised voice. A shout. A crash. It’s all coming from the direction we’re heading.
“I thought there was a curfew,” I say.
“There is,” he answers. “Stay close.”
I don’t protest when he places a hand on my back, just next to the dagger he gave me, and urges me forward. Rightly or wrongly, I trust Aren with my life. Even when we were enemies, he took care of me; my gut tells me he’ll take care of me now. I might be disturbed by his origins, his past, but that’s something I have to deal with later. Right now, I need to deal with what’s going on here.
The shouts and noises grow louder as the snow under our feet turns from a soft, white blanket to a wet, dark mush. People have been through here recently. Lots of people. At the end of our alley, an orb-topped lamppost turns the stucco walls a brighter shade of blue. We stop at the corner and peer out at the scene.
Standing between us and the river, some two hundred feet away, is what I can only describe as an angry horde of fae. They’re massed around the location where I remember the gate being. By the number of sleepy cirikith standing scattered throughout the marketplace, my guess is that half of the fae are merchants. I don’t know who the other half are. Not innocent bystanders. They’re pushing and shoving to get at the crates laden onto the carts the cirikith pulled here. Others are pushing and shoving just for the hell of it, I think. Aren said the people of Rhigh were almost rioting. I don’t think there’s any almost about this. They’re out here breaking curfew and looting just because they can.
I jerk back into Aren’s chest when there’s a crash to our right. It’s followed by an excited shout, and by the time I find the source of the noise, fae are pouring through the broken window of a store no more than ten feet away from us. The fae look like they’re the age of human teenagers, but they could be as old as thirty.
One of those fae slips in the slosh of melted snow and dirt. The whole marketplace is one giant mud pit. It’s been ten years, but I remember Rhigh’s riverfront looking like one of my world’s touristy boardwalks. Even in my delirious, half-starved state, it hit me as ironic because Rhigh shouldn’t have looked like a vacation spot. From my experience in it, it should have looked like a ghetto outside a prison.
It looks like a ghetto outside a prison now.
A strange-sounding wail cuts through the air to the left. A cirikith lies on its side, straining to get back to its feet, but its haunches are stuck beneath a broken cart. It’s bleeding from its neck. Even from this distance, I can see that its huge, opalescent scales have turned crimson. Cirikiths aren’t pretty beasts, with their oversized heads and thick, hooved legs, but I can’t help but feel sorry for it. Cirikiths are strong. The only reason this one hasn’t regained its feet is because it’s hurt, and it’s fighting off its nightly hibernation.