Blood Before Sunrise

time had gone silent in this place-but I had to at least try. I looked out across the vast fields of green, turning full circle before letting my attention fall to Faolan, still acting the fool as he smelled the grass.

“I’m home, Darian,” he said, wonderment coloring his voice. “It looks just the same as when I left.”

“Good for you,” I said. Lucky Faolan. He didn’t have to hide his emotions. Crazy bastard just let it all out like he were a guest on a Barbara Walters special. But not me. I took every emotion swirling within me and bottled each one up, storing them all in the deepest, darkest recess of my soul. If I allowed myself to feel the despair, the pain, the loss-I’d crack. And I was already running at half capacity. Faolan had made sure of that. I needed every ounce of apathy I could muster.

While I waited for Faolan to pull himself together, I took stock of the situation. Preoccupied, I realized he didn’t exercise quite as much control over me. His concentration must’ve been the key to absolute control, and that had definite benefits for me in this place. I stretched my neck from side to side, releasing only a fraction of the tension I felt. No weapon. Not even a goddamned throwing knife. If anything had happened to my katana…well, let’s just say I’d kill him twice.

Faolan’s black dagger-the one he’d killed Delilah with and later used on Raif-hung at his side. The only justice worthy of what he’d done would be to kill him with his own weapon. I could take his knife, but that would require close combat and concentration. With his full focus on me, I doubted I could overpower him. Some Guardian I’d turned out to be-captured, manipulated, without even a stick to hit the enemy with. Lovely.

Finally, Faolan’s homecoming celebration ended. Silver chased across his eyes as he dusted himself off and came to stand beside me. His influence pulled at my mind, clouding my thoughts just enough to confuse me. But I held on by the barest of threads. Kill him. Protect Brakae. Get home. No matter what. From my backpack, Faolan produced the broken half of the hourglass. The sands no longer passed in a peaceful track up and down, up and down. Now they swirled about the glass in a torrent before traveling up into nothing and back.

“We’re so close,” he said. “I can feel it. The last time I saw this place, I was beaten, chained. About to face exile and eternal imprisonment. But then she helped her,” he said to me in disbelief. “My Time Keeper helped Moira and her army to capture me and my brethren. She betrayed me, Darian, and she has to pay. Since she’s now yours to protect, you’re going to deliver her to me. Come, let’s find her, shall we?”

“How do you think we’re going to manage that?” I asked. I mean, seriously, did he not notice we stood in an ocean of green grass? There wasn’t another soul for miles. “It’s not like I can pull her out of my ass.”

“You have a foul mouth,” Faolan snapped, grabbing me by the arm. His fingers bit into the skin, bruising. If I had to rip him apart with my bare hands, I would. “You have yet to see the true Faerie Ring, Darian. I’ll find her without your meager assistance.”

“Oh yeah?” I said with a sneer. “What are you going to do-go gargoyle on me and sniff her out?”

Faolan shuddered at my words, his steps faltering. “I was trapped in that form for centuries,” he said, none too graciously jerking my arm. “Don’t think for a moment that I’m anxious to return to it anytime soon. Besides,” he continued, his cruel gaze locked with mine, “I don’t need to assume the form of a beast to be deadly.”

He pulled me along, and I jerked my arm free of his grasp. But he let me. I knew if he’d really wanted to hold me, he would have. We walked for somewhere close to fifteen minutes, and every step made my stomach sour. Minutes equaled days, and in this place time stretched out in an unfathomable distance. Every step took me farther away from Tyler. Five minutes here was two days in the real world. It had already been almost a week since we’d left the hotel room, and I had just gotten here. Despair constricted my lungs as I thought of Raif, lying on the floor as he bled out. I couldn’t save him. I’d stood by and watched as Faolan ran his dagger through Raif’s stomach. But I had to hope that he’d lived, despite his injuries. For the moment, hope was all I had.

I hadn’t paid much attention to the scenery as we traveled. Why? Everywhere I looked was blanketed with green; it wasn’t like I’d miss anything. But as I looked up and really took stock of our surroundings, I noticed the landscape had changed dramatically in the short time we’d been moving. “You could see for miles in all directions from that knoll,” I said. “I didn’t see a single tree. Where did they come from?” A thick forest had sprung out of nowhere. Lush ferns, bushes of deep green and light with bright-colored berries, and trees of every species imaginable-and some I doubted existed in my world-dotted the landscape.

“I told you,” Faolan said. I was getting sick of his disdainful tone. “O Anel is special. It isn’t like the human realm we’ve been imprisoned in. Nothing here is as it seems.”

Sunlight streamed through the many branches forming a canopy above us. The eerie yet ethereal light captivated me, swelling my chest with warm emotion. Beautiful. Faolan was right; I’d never seen anything so awe inspiring in all of my existence.

Up ahead, the trees began to clear. I squinted through the muted light, trying to make out the shapes looming in the distance. They looked oddly familiar, but I doubted my own eyes. How could it be? Faolan moved with silent grace beside me, barely rustling a blade of grass as he walked. My bones hummed with the power he exuded, growing stronger the closer we came to the hulking shapes. Something of great importance and even greater power lay ahead of us, and my stomach clenched in fear of what I’d see.

“I haven’t been here for centuries,” Faolan mused, “but even still, its power calls to me.”

The circle of stones stood tall and proud, nothing like it did in the human world. But there was no mistaking the pattern: the larger circle and the smaller one inside of it, the rough, natural placement of the stones, and the archways they constructed. And though I’d never seen it in person, and though this circle was complete and not damaged by time and man’s interference, there was no doubt of what I was looking at.

“Stonehenge,” I murmured.

Faolan laughed. “In the beginning, before the hourglass was split, it was called Kotja A’ma. Font of Time.”

If I’d thought Faolan’s power overwhelming, it was a drop in the bucket to what I felt coming from the ring of stones. I had no doubt O Anel’s name had sprung from this place. I was staring at the true Faerie Ring, the heart of this realm and probably the twin to the heart of the mundane world. I stood in awe of the structure. A divinity resided here, a connection to something bigger than me-or anything I knew, for that matter. It stole the breath from my lungs to look at it, and I averted my gaze, so overcome by its power.

“Now you see,” Faolan whispered, “why I would do anything to return to this place.”

I could. In fact, I’d lost track of the minutes as we stood here. Panic set in as I tried to calculate how much time we’d spent behind the veil. Thirty minutes? An hour? Oh God, how I could I have been so careless? Months could have already passed in the human world. I turned in a circle and ran my fingers through my hair, pulling at the roots. I was poised for a full-on anxiety attack.

“Darian, stop your fidgeting and come here.” Faolan’s voice bounced around inside my brain, bringing with it a foggy confusion. What had I been upset about?

I walked to his side like any obedient pet, and he pulled me close, as though we were simply two friends looking at a blazing sunset or silvery moon. His silence pressed upon me, coupled with the control he exuded with no effort whatsoever. Idly, he traced a pattern on my wrist with his thumb. “There is something special about you. The other Guardians were weak. They died after I’d taken their blood. A powerful Guardian used her blood to imprison me. It took the blood from an equally powerful Guardian to release me. None of the three who came before you could withstand the connection. And their power wasn’t enough to release me from stone. None of them loved deeply enough. But you…,” he said, trailing off with a sigh. “You are different. Your strength astounds me. This was meant to be, and you have done well. Perhaps I won’t kill you after all. If you continue to prove your worth, I will give you a place of honor in the new world.”

Through the haze, a small shred of my mind forced its way to the surface. It seemed easier to do here, in this place steeped in magic. Strong? I felt so weak. I let him control me. I didn’t have the will to fight him; yet he thought me strong. A force apart from Faolan supported me, holding me up under the pressure of his influence. I felt safe despite the danger. Brakae was close. Somehow I recognized her energy as a pure force of nature, like a breeze that blew the fog from my mind. Maybe with her help, we could undo this clusterfuck after all.

I couldn’t let Faolan in on my clarity. So, like a good little zombie slave, I stood passively at his side, accepting his light touch as if I had no other choice. What I really wanted to do was break his arm in two.

“What now?” I asked, ignoring his musings. “I brought you here, like you wanted me to do.”

“Yes, you did.” He patted the top of my head, and I suppressed the urge to slap his hand away. “But this is only the beginning, Darian. There is much to be done.”