The Vanishing Throne (14 page)

Yet I hoped—always hoped—my father would come to love me. I still did, even after I went into battle. Now I am a true orphan, both parents lost to the fae.

“He could still be alive,” Aithinne suggests softly.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Kiaran sharply shake his head at her. He knows as well as I that it can't be true. More than likely, my father is dead. He was probably killed the night I sent him away from the city; when the fae rode in, he wouldn't even have seen them coming.

I block out the images from my mind—of my father dying, being murdered by
them
. “We should go,” I say, no emotion left in my voice. “I'm sure we've lingered here too long already.”

W
E RIDE
through the countryside on the faery horses Kiaran brought. The only time I ever rode one was during the battle, and then briefly. I don't remember it being this fast; the creature—Kiaran named it Ossaig—cuts through the landscape like a blade through skin.

We don't stop for the longest time. When the horses reach water, they leap through the air, graceful as ever. Their hooves are a blur across the water, so featherlight that they sprint across the surface. It's as if we're flying. Their hooves strum against the ground like hummingbird wings, like a song on the breeze.

But the air around us is still, as if we're moving so quickly that all time has stopped. As if we're frozen in a single moment—except we aren't. Though it feels as though mere minutes have gone by, nightfall turns to deep, dark starry night, which turns to morning as the sun rises over the
mountains. The entire countryside is illuminated, the rain clouds tinged golden from the blazing light.

The scenery around me is startling. I've never seen the countryside so vibrant, so
alive
. Just as in Edinburgh, the faeries' freedom has caused the flora to grow over, far more rapidly than it would have naturally. The horses race through forests that weren't there before and hills that have risen in my absence. The countryside of Scotland has been reshaped, re-created through battle. The land south of the Highlands, once flat farmland, has been made uneven by craters and valleys and rivers.

We cut across a field and down a hill, where we're met with the sight of another city in ruins. My heart slams against my chest.
Glasgow
.

I haven't seen our rival city in years, not since my father took my mother and me there to oversee another one of his properties. The city is now nothing more than smashed buildings and piled rocks and overgrown shrubbery; the damage is far more extensive than in Edinburgh.

We pass between ruined tenements, fallen stones piled high. I try to close my eyes and block it all out, but I can't take it anymore. “Stop.”

My horse comes to a halt and I slide off her back to stand among the ruins, so bright in the setting afternoon light. As in Edinburgh, there are sporadic domiciles still standing, but the fae have shattered all the beautiful modern buildings on Queen Street. And the rest . . . there are craters amid the
destruction, new valleys between the streets. As though the fae were playing a game while they destroyed it all.

My fists clench as I stand in the thick grass and deep muddy soil. Something sticks out of the dirt. I nudge it with my foot. When it doesn't dislodge, I lean down to pull it out of the mud.

A boot. A child's boot.

I drop it and back away, sensing Kiaran and Aithinne have stopped behind me. “It's like this all over Scotland, isn't it?” I can barely say it. My throat almost closes.

Suddenly Kiaran is next to me. He's standing so near that his arm brushes mine. “Not just Scotland,” he says quietly.

I can't breathe. As if sensing my response, Kiaran curls an arm around my shoulders and pulls me against him. I'm startled by it. Kiaran isn't affectionate. Before our first kiss, he always kept his distance. He only ever touched me in combat.

His words ring in my head, and each one slices through my gut.
Not just Scotland not just Scotland not just
—

I pull away from Kiaran. I can't handle his touch, not now. Not when I wish my vengeance would rise. The Violent Aileana from the mirrors would have gone out for a kill. She would have torn out their hearts and loved doing it.

But she's been buried by something even more dangerous: guilt. Because I was supposed to save them. That was my task. I failed them all, and now they've paid the price.

“I didn't think there could be anywhere worse than the place Lonnrach kept me,” I say numbly. “I was wrong.”

I know a thing or two about prisons, and this one may not be a locked, cramped room of mirrors, but it's no different. It's still a cage. This one is built with the bones of the dead.

A single, harsh thought directed at Kiaran flickers across my mind before I can stop it:
You saved me from one prison without realizing you were putting me right into another
.

Kiaran stares down at me and I swear he reads my mind. He abruptly steps away. “We'll stop here. I'll find us a place to rest for the night.” He turns on his heel and stalks off, as if he can't get away from me fast enough.

Now I see why Kadamach wanted me to move heaven and earth to find you
.

I almost call him back, but the words die on my lips. I watch him walk away as guilt settles heavy inside of me.

After a while, Kiaran returns and leads us to a building with a roof left partially intact. Inside, the second-floor ceiling has collapsed onto the old, dusty stone floors. The carpets on the ground level are covered in mud and dirt. Clothes are strewn about, moth-eaten and dirty.

I find a spot to lie down. I press my cheek against my arm, pulling my coat tight around me.

I've never stayed in such meager conditions. At the end of a hunt, I always returned to a warm bed in an immaculate house. There were always clean sheets, a fire, and my
inventions to stave off my nightmares. I washed the blood off my clothes and went right back to the comfort of my ladylike life—as easy as changing coats.

They were soothing, those rituals. My home was always safe. My room was always safe. After all that happened, I counted on that. I depended on it. I took for granted that it would always be there.

Now there is no safe space. There are simply safe hours spent in the ravaged shelters where the dead once lived.

I watch Kiaran lead the horses inside, their hooves clicking against the stone as they move to stand opposite me.

Kiaran's gaze meets mine, but I shut my eyes and turn my back. I pretend to be asleep, even as his words fill my mind.
Not just Scotland
.

I press my fingers to my scars, my new nightly ritual. And I remember. I remember safety. I remember warmth. I wrap those memories around me like an old blanket and bask in the comfort of them. They're all I have left.

I wake later to the warmth of fire and the scent of burning wood. I'm surprised I managed to fall asleep, but I was exhausted after all the fleeing and fighting with Aithinne.

I open my eyes to find Kiaran sitting next to me, feeding more wood into the flames. He's put together a makeshift pit with stone from the surrounding buildings. A small stack of firewood is piled next to it.

“Where's Aithinne?” I ask.

“Out scouting the area.” Kiaran glances at me. “We heard
sluagh
a few hours ago.”

Sluagh
. I'll never forget the time one of those creatures went through me, a ghostly presence invading my body and sheathing my insides with ice. Kiaran told me that when the Seelie and Unseelie kingdoms were still standing,
sluagh
were the perfect aerial spies—quick, efficient, and brutally destructive if they needed to be.

“Why didn't you wake me?”

“Because”—Kiaran nudges the fire with a stick, sending cinders into the air—“you never rest, even when you should. When was the last time you slept?”

I don't remember. I didn't sleep in the mirrored room so much as . . . lie there. In a constant state between sleep and awake and dreaming.

When I don't answer, Kiaran says, “I thought so.”

I sit up to smooth my hair, wrestling back the rebellious copper curls with a scrap of twine left discarded on the ground. After some success, I shift closer to the fire, stopping only when I realize my thigh is now touching Kiaran's.
Damn
.

Instinctively, my thumb presses against one of the marks at my wrist. I remember precisely how his lips feel. I counted the seconds of our kiss. I memorized the pressure.

Aoram dhuit
. His whispered words flutter like moth wings across my mind.
I will worship thee
.

Our second kiss was even more desperate, right in the middle of the battle. My fingers trail up to just above my
collarbone where the puckered scar from Lonnrach's teeth is uneven; it was deeper than the others. The memory there flickers through my mind, quick as a pulse. It was a kiss that said,
You carved out a part of me and filled it with a part of you and now you plan to leave me forever
.

You have to let me go
, he'd said.

I only wanted to hold him closer.

Kiaran stokes the fire again and I pull out of the memory fast. Do I shift away? Would he notice? My cheeks burn, and thank god he can't tell it's from embarrassment.

“I never thanked you,” I finally say. “For not giving up when you searched for me.” I want to take his hand, but I don't. My fingers curl against my palm. “And for finding me.”

Despite my earlier thoughts, I'd rather be here than in the mirrored room. At least I stand a chance of surviving. At least I can fight Lonnrach on my own terms instead of bound by ivy and weakened by his venom.

Kiaran stares into the flames, his skin glowing in the light. I've never seen him look more beautiful. “If it had been me, you would have done the same.”

“Aye,” I reply quietly. The heat of the fire is warm through my coat—too warm. I unbutton the heavy raploch garment.

I don't miss how Kiaran's gaze strays to the marks at my neck, the only ones not covered by my coat. Or how he grimaces and turns back to the fire, his jaw tight.

“You should button back up,” he says, rather stiffly. “Before you catch a chill.”

I can't help the sting of hurt at that. He hates my scars. They're not badges. I didn't earn them fighting. I earned them the way an animal in a snare gets its throat slit: restrained and unable to fight back. A prey animal; not a predator.

Now you know precisely how it feels to be that helpless
.

Something in me snaps. I'm on my feet and yanking off my coat to toss it to the floor. I shove up my sleeves to bare my arms. I pull the neck of my shirt open until the fabric strains. Kiaran hadn't seen the extent of my scars. My shift had hidden the worst of them. I want him to see.

“Look at me,” I tell him.

He doesn't. I notice he sets his jaw. “Stop it, Kam.”

“
No
. Look at me.”

Kiaran is on his feet with my coat in his grasp. I see that light in his eyes that I remember from the mirrored room. The cold, hard rage that I'd never seen from him.

He shoves the coat into my hands. “You've made your point,” he says. “Now I've seen them.”

When he backs off, the Violent Aileana from the mirrors rises in my mind. One minute, I'm standing by the fire. The next, I have him pinned to the wall, my arm pressed to his throat. The coat is discarded on the floor.

“Do you think I'm not ashamed? You trained me to resist, and I
tried
,” I say, hissing the words. “Until one day I was too tired to fight him anymore and I
let
him.” My voice is rough with anger. “I let him, and I have to live with that. You don't get to judge me for it.”