He had always come back for me. Just as I would always come for him.
I just had to be fast enough.
Chapter Eighty-Two
Max
Hello.
This was not Reshaye.
It slithered through my head the same way, and had the same inhuman, unmarked quality. But this was a different voice. This connection was more chaotic, more tenuous. I could feel the ragged edges of the thing that was speaking to me, like a silhouette that couldn’t quite step into focus. It was more real than Reshaye. More alive. And its hands were wrapped around my throat, squeezing, squeezing.
The world had fallen away. I was somewhere different now, somewhere I had only caught glimpses of during the worst of my Reshaye-induced fever dreams. A dead plain, and a starry sky. In a physical world that seemed very far away, I understood that my body was still there, time suspended, my knees on the stone ground of the Scar, surrounded by fire.
This place? This was different. Deeper than the physical world. And the voice had dragged me here.
Where are they? it asked.
Who are you? I demanded.
Where are they? Where is she?
She? Tisaanah? Nura? With my confusion, their faces shot through my mind, and the presence grabbed the images.
It paused at Tisaanah’s face. Familiarity.
I didn’t like that. Not one bit.
Who are you? I repeated.
I am the blood of the people that yours have stolen, the voice said. And I’m reclaiming what has been taken from me.
Focus.
If I tried very hard, I could solidify the world — or, the not-world — around me enough to see it as a physical place. If I focused, I could see the shadow as something resembling a person. My magic snaked out towards it.
The images split my vision, like a crack of lightning lighting up the sky for a fractured second at a time. A man’s face, startled and angry, gone too quickly for me to recognize it. Copper gates covered in crawling vines. Overflowing bookshelves and glimpses of writing I did not recognize.
All there and gone in less than a second.
The presence flickered, like it had been struck, then charged towards me with renewed rage.
I sense her in you. In your blood and in your magic. And I will not abandon her, nor any of the others your people have taken from me. Humans are past the point of earning our forgiveness. You had mercy once and squandered it. Now I see that you have never deserved it.
Another avalanche of images. This time of bodies strewn in swampy forest. Dead faces beneath the water. A woman’s face that I did not recognize, with sad violet eyes. The images merged and tangled with those of my own, the aftermath of Sarlazai, my family’s burnt corpses. Tisaanah’s mismatched gaze.
All at once, I realized.
I realized why this magic felt so unfamiliar, so inhuman.
I realized why I had been dragged here, the moment I opened that passageway between me and the deepest levels of magic.
You’re Fey, I said. You’re the Fey king.
Now I understood. The Fey that Nura held— the ones that she was trying to make into the next Reshaye—
She had created it. She had created the war she was trying so hard to stop.
We don’t want a war with you, I said. Your people were taken by one human. One misguided human who doesn’t deserve the power that she had. But her reign is over. And I swear to you that I’ll return the people she took from you.
You are lying to me.
I never lie. It’s a personal flaw.
A humorless chuckle shivered up my spine. You do not know that you lie. But it is a lie, nonetheless. And even if it is not, I am past the point of trusting any word that comes from your fickle mortal minds. And how easy it has been, to turn you against each other. Humans are weak and selfish, easily-divided. My people were that way, once. Too busy squabbling over petty issues of pride to innovate, to fulfill our potential. Not anymore.
He would not stop. He would kill for Reshaye. He would kill Tisaanah for it, and anyone else who stood in his way. He would ravage Ara, and maybe we would deserve it.
But I wouldn’t let it happen.
Listen to me. My magic grabbed for his. We tangled, equally matched. He was very far away. I could feel that. The distance was the only thing keeping him from overpowering me.
A war between our peoples would be bloodier than either of us are prepared for, I said. I don’t support this, and I never will. We can still stop this from happening. I will return your people to you. We will never hurt you again. I swear it.
Funny, how an hour ago, I was begging Nura for the exact same consideration.
You’re right about humans, I said. So much about us is vile. But we also have the potential to be better. Give us that chance.
The presence paused in consideration.
But then the sky lit up. Both of us stopped, our attention snapping to this new intrusion: a burning thread of magic drawing from this deep, deep level.
My blood went cold. I recognized it immediately.
Tisaanah.
The king’s focus on her was all-consuming. He reached out for that thread, as if examining it, pushing further. And it was only then that I realized there was something else intertwined in it, too. It was a faint little fragment of magic, so weak that I wouldn’t have seen it if I wasn’t looking. But once I did, I knew it. Of course I did, because once it was a part of me, too.
The king’s desire was ravenous. He wanted her. He wanted Reshaye.
It was only a split second of distraction. Still too much. I lost my grip on the magic above, my resistance slipping. It was the only opening he needed. He forced his way through the door.
I heard the voice
