Blood Before Sunrise

made you a protector if you were nothing more than a vicious killer.”

His smile was sad as he turned his gaze on her. “The Enphigmale had sworn an oath to serve Badb, and she pulled us from the battlefield. I was the wolf of war no longer. She made me a Guardian. Chosen to protect…”

I pulled away from Faolan’s grasp, hoping he was too distracted to hold me. “Be still,” he growled, and I had no choice but to obey the command. “You’ll hear me out. Badb took the hourglass and broke it in two. The veil was created to protect humanity, and she split the world into separate realms that stood apart from each other, yet existed in a natural accord. Our kind was forced to make a choice: Live openly here, never to visit the mortal realm again, or live there, where we are forced to hide our true selves for the benefit of a lowly, ignorant species. She appointed two Time Keepers to watch over the halves of the hourglasses that maintained the flow of time, and Guardians to protect the doorways to each realm. We were each given a key. My key opened the doorway from the mortal realm into O Anel. And so in the mortal realm I would reside.

“For centuries after the realms had been split, there was unrest. Many sought to seize the hourglasses and thereby control time. So many Keepers died. I’d never cared before. The others before Brakae meant nothing to me. But then I fell in love,” he almost whispered.

“I loved you too, Faolan. How could I not?” Brakae shifted as if she wanted to stand, but something prevented her. “You were fierce and passionate and loyal. A true protector, though you believed yourself nothing but a heartless warrior.” Her voice broke. “You were gentle. Don’t you remember how you comforted me when I was afraid?”

Something glistened in Faolan’s eyes, pooling like mercury. Tears? He cleared his throat and turned his gaze from Brakae as if her words threatened to convince him to change his course. “Everything changed. I no longer wished to live amongst the mundane and watch from afar. Protecting the doorway to O Anel and maintaining the balance of time became an asinine notion. I cared for nothing but her; yet I was forced to abide by tradition and follow the path Badb had laid out for me. I abhorred it. I despise it still. And when I rose up against my goddess, I prompted my brothers-in-arms to do the same. Warriors, bound by oath and blood, they yearned for battle and were more than eager to see an end to Badb’s peace. The Enphigmale were her first children, her most beloved, and she cast us aside for her precious humans. They wanted revenge as much as I did. We wanted to lift the veil between the realms and see an end to her segregation once and for all. I was betrayed by the woman I loved and the goddess I had worshipped for thousands of years. Badb allowed Moira to raise an army, and Brakae, ever the devoted Time Keeper, kept to her vow to protect the natural order, even if that meant destroying our love in the process. She lured us into an ambush. Well outnumbered, we were easily captured and had no choice but to wait until Badb passed judgment.

“We were sentenced to be frozen in time and made to stand guard for all eternity. And over what?” he shouted. “Nothing! An empty dais and ceaseless time. But before I went to serve my sentence in that solitary green place, I bade an Oracle to help me. Her sister had been killed over the same secret I’d sworn to protect: that of Brakae’s existence in the Faerie Realm. She was all too willing to find a way for both of us to be avenged. Love had sent me to my end, she said, and only love would release me from my prison.”

As Faolan rambled on, I listened with half an ear while I looked around us in search of escape. I wrenched myself free enough to glance behind me, and I noticed that Faolan had shed his glamour completely. Though it didn’t change him much, I found him almost too beautiful for my eyes to comprehend. The strands of his hair glowed faintly in the dark, and his eyes, not a touch of gray left, shone completely silver. Had he been so tall before? And had his skin been so flawless and smooth? He’d fucked with my brain to the point where I had a hard time recalling. But I could see why, in this magical place, Brakae would have been drawn to him. I found it hard myself to tear my gaze away.

“The veil was created to protect humanity!” Faolan shouted, breaking me from my trance. “On either side of the veil, we suffer! But no more!” He exuded the raw charisma of a dictator. It wouldn’t be hard for Faolan to sway others to his cause. “I will set our world aright and rid it of humanity once and for all!”

I expected a Yankee Stadium-sized round of applause and shouts when he concluded his tirade. I’m sure he imagined one. His diatribe did nothing for me except make me want to spit in his face. Clarity returned with every shout of his fervent oration, and I no longer sensed his utter control, though I didn’t doubt it could return at a moment’s notice. Brakae sat helpless, watching us with the calculation of a hunting cat more than that of a curious kitten. I needed her like this: an adult for starters, mature of mind and body, and able to fight if need be. An unsure teenager or wobbly child would do neither of us any good, and I hoped for once that time would be on my side.

“Faolan,” she implored, “this is not you! The man I fell in love with would never have killed innocent people. If you do this, you lose me forever. Is that what you want?”

His demeanor changed from anxious to enraged as he released his hold on me and shoved me to the ground. “I have lost you already!” he railed. “What has passed can never be undone!”

“Exactly!” Brakae said, her tone harsh. “It can never be undone. So why seek revenge? Whom will it punish? No one. This is madness!”

“This is a necessity! And I will do what must be done!”

Faolan had to have fallen far to have once been worthy of Brakae’s love. I found nothing in him even remotely lovable or redeemable. But then again, I’d thought I loved Azriel once. The heart wasn’t only blind; it was deaf and dumb. Tyler’s obsessive nature had infuriated me; yet I loved him fiercely for it. I doubted there was anything he could do to make me fall out of love with him.

Whether Brakae had loved Faolan or not, I had an obligation to protect not only the key to the Faerie Realm, but also time and the natural order. My conscience would not allow me to stand idly by while Faolan killed off every last human on the planet just because he’d suffered a broken heart. Talk about displaced rage. Faolan had been right about one thing: All the events of my life had led me to this one moment. My transformation from human to Shaede; my hidden existence from the world by Azriel’s secrets and lies; my eventual discovery by Xander; my love for Tyler; the blood sacrifice to give life to lifeless statues-all of it had led me to this.

Faolan pointed the dagger at Brakae. “Come here, my love.”

Standing with fluid grace, Brakae made her way to us. Her gait was slow, as if she resisted some invisible pull. I recognized that zombie dance, though I wasn’t sure how Faolan was able to control her. Faerie magic went way over my head. Another encyclopedia’s worth of information I’d have to pay Levi for-if I made it out of here in one piece, and if he was still alive when I got home. Brakae’s eyes, glowing soft blue in the wan moonlight, darted back and forth from me to him and back again. The stern set of her jaw told me she was fighting like hell. The way Faolan drew her to him like a magnet told me she was losing.

“Darian,” he said, so calm I knew something bad was coming, “you have exceeded my expectations of you. You are the strongest Guardian I have ever known, except maybe for myself. Had we met under different circumstances I would have initiated you into our order, given you a place of honor. But you have worn out your usefulness, and I have no need for useless things. Go well into the afterlife.”

He pulled the dagger away from my throat and handed it to Brakae before he shoved me hard into her arms. She caught me against her, looked deep into my eyes, and whispered, “I hope you’re as tough as everyone thinks you are, Darian. Remember, I trust you.” And before I could ask her what the hell was going on, she plunged the blade into my abdomen, low and to the right, carefully-or not so carefully-missing any major organs, just below my ribs.

“Wake up. You have things to do, and you’re wasting time!”

The sound of her voice was a high-pitched buzz increasing in volume as I came nearer to consciousness. A gnat hovering at my ear would have been no less annoying.

“Where is he?” I asked. That sonofabitch was going to pay for what he’d done to me.

The Sprite swirled around my head to the other ear, as if the one she’d been speaking into had malfunctioned or something. “He has stolen time and time’s Keeper. It won’t be long before everything is destroyed.”

Even though I happened to be in the loop on this particular matter, I hated cryptic talk. Just once, I wanted someone to lay it out for me without the fancy subtext. What a serious waste of time.

“Look, Tinkerbell, how about telling me something I don’t already know?” I said, batting all four or five inches of her away from my ear canal. “Wait a sec.” My torso throbbed with every word, and I laid my head back down on the grass to stave off a wave of nausea. “How do I know you’re a Sprite?”

She giggled before circling my head in a dizzying loop. If I hadn’t felt like yakking before, that was sure to do it. All around me, I heard the cacophony of tiny wings buzzing. As my vision cleared and the star-filled sky came better