Shadows Before the Sun

Ah, there it is.

“After you have obtained your goal, set things to right, and have had time to recuperate from your journey, I would ask you to return here to Ithonia and grant me two days.” My eyes narrowed. “To study you. To learn. I will have you answer any question posed to you and demonstrate your gifts to the best of your ability.”

The cloak I could’ve gotten. The grimwyrd I could’ve gotten in place of the amulet. The mages to take me into Fiallan, could’ve gotten that, too. The language spell was helpful, but travelers also employed translators. So, Lightwater really hadn’t offered me anything I couldn’t have gotten myself.

“You give me two days, Charlie Madigan, and I will grant you one marker in return.”

“A marker,” I repeated.

“A promise. One. To put all my power, all the knowledge at my disposal, to completing one task, solving one dilemma, or granting a desire you ask. To the best of my ability and as long as it harms none, of course.”

Sandra let out a low whistle. “Never offered me a marker.”

Lightwater turned a kind eye to Alessandra. “There is nothing I can offer the oracle that she does not already have. And that which she does not have and desires is unobtainable. This you know.”

Sandra huffed as I slipped the amulet over my head, deciding to accept the offer. “I accept your terms, as long as the two days I’m here harms none as well.”

The Elder flashed a grin. “Of course. The deal has been struck.” She moved back to her seat. “Trahern and Brell will take you now.”

Sandra stood, said her good-byes to the Elder, and then faced me. “Ready?”

Trahern stepped next to me and curved his hand around my elbow as Brell did the same to Sandra. And then they vanished. I had a half second to see them blink out before the ground dropped out from under me.

I’d traveled this way before courtesy of Aaron, so I knew what to expect, but it sure as hell didn’t stop that brief flash of panic as my body dispersed into energy and then re-formed moments later in a new place, feeling about a hundred pounds heavier.

Yep, I thought. The sensation of going from weightless to weight? Still hated it.

6

He’d always thought going back into the grid would be a fate worse than death.

He was wrong.

Leave it to those fucking old hags to come up with something worse.

His laugh turned to coughs. He lifted his head a fraction to relieve the hard bite of the stone floor against his cheekbones and the side of his skull. He was naked and cold, chained facedown on the floor, arms straight out, held there by manacles on his wrists, neck, and ankles.

They wouldn’t let him die. And every time he did, every time his body gave out and his soul departed, their vicious spell would lasso it back, drag it back into his broken body. To endure. He’d seen the fucking light so many times it was making him mad, those glimpses of peace, the feeling it gave him, the brief absence of pain.

There was pure, soft, welcoming light. And then it would begin to dim, growing smaller and smaller and smaller, until he was surrounded in darkness and screaming to go back. This was a dark, despicable magic; one of the most heinous of spells, tethering a soul to a dying or dead body.

Returning to his broken body was a torture the like of which he couldn’t comprehend. The shock of it, the utter contrast between peace and pain . . . It was a sensation worse than the grid, worse than the whippings. It was a horror so unique that it fucked with his mind.

He was losing his hold on reality. He craved his own demise. They were turning him into a madman. His lust for death was only overshadowed by his hunger to kill the Circe, to exact the cruelest, most prolonged, most vulgar kind of end imaginable.

Over time, as he lay there, his pathetic body would actually try to heal, to knit some of his wounds back together. To give the whip master something else to tear back down. But nothing could repair his psyche, his mind, his tired soul. There was no healing for that. The sane part of him knew it and no longer cared.

As he went in and out of consciousness, visions of a former life flashed through his mind, of the forest of Gorsedd and the sidhé fae hermit who taught him, of a life that meant something, of a smiling child with big brown eyes, of a woman so fierce and loyal and beautiful that she took his breath away. He’d tried to hold on to those images, tried not to miss a single detail that played through his weary mind.

But they were all disjointed and random. All part of a shattered life, one that he’d been stupid, idiotic to believe could ever be his.

The most painful, intense regret filled him in the lucid moments after those flashes. It burned through him, searing his chest, his heart, his throat. And sometimes it burned so raw and fierce that he couldn’t hold it in and he dug his fingernails into the stone and roared in pain and rage.

He was no longer siren. He was animal. A crazed thing to be toyed with and tortured and lost. An animal that would ravage its keepers as soon as the slightest opportunity arose. Kill or be killed.

He laughed again, the sound ragged and thin. He laughed at that because he had been killed. Over and over and over again.

Red washed across his cloudy vision, and he could almost smell the iron tang, and feel its heat and thickness. Red, all of it red in Circe blood and Malakim vengeance.

* * *

The highly unpleasant sensation of losing all physical sense and then becoming whole again paled in comparison to opening my eyes and knowing I was there. In Fiallan. In Hank’s city. So close. I’m here, Hank. I squeezed my eyelids closed and forced down the emotion. I was here, and I was damned well going to succeed.

Trahern’s hand fell from my elbow. He stepped back, bowed to me, and then blinked out. Behind him stood Sandra; Brell was already gone.

We stood on a large platform, a wall rising behind us and a market spread out in front of us. I could smell the sea and, beyond the murmur of many voices and activity, I thought I heard it, too. The aroma of fresh bread and seafood mingled with the salty air and the faint scent of the stones warmed by the sun. I tipped my head to the sky and let it bathe my skin in warmth. It was easy, after a while, to get used to the darkness back home. The only times I acknowledged how much I missed the light were times like these.

Sandra stepped off the block. I followed her, walking backward to get a good look at the wall. It was two stories tall, broken by an arched gate manned by guards. Through this break, I’d guess the wall was at least fifteen feet thick. There were two towers far in each direction. The Malakim towers. I’d envisioned them looking more medieval, but they were actually obelisk in shape, made of smooth cream-colored stone, and rising at least five stories high. The remaining two towers weren’t visible from my standpoint, and I saw no rings of power, no visible force field of any kind.

I let out a disbelieving breath and turned around in a circle. I was in Fiallan, the inner wall in front of me and the outer wall—which was built after the city had expanded its old boundaries—far behind us. Both walls were shaped like a horseshoe, enclosing the city to all but the sea.

I knew from my earlier preparations to go into the city that a request had to be made at the gate in order to enter the old city. As I took in my fill of the large market, the gate, and the four streets that fanned off of this central area, I noticed Sandra straightening her veil, lifting her chin, and gliding toward the main gate. Request in progress.

I stayed back, allowing her to do her thing, knowing she’d accomplish the task with ease. And that was fine by me. The less notice I gained the better.

I turned away from the gate where Sandra held court and scanned the large marketplace and the crowd,