The Vanishing Throne (4 page)

I sense Lonnrach watching, too. We see his sister with her face pressed to my mother's throat. Sorcha raises her head to reveal teeth glinting in the moonlight, dripping with my mother's blood. We hear Sorcha's laugh, a deep, throaty purr that makes my stomach clench. In a single, swift motion, we watch her tear out my mother's heart.

Next to me, Lonnrach's body goes still when he sees how the memory blurs from panic. How I can barely get enough breath into my lungs, how my thoughts are racing as Sorcha escapes into the night. How my memory of the event seems to speed up and black out until the moment I find myself next to my mother's body, pressing my hands to her chest.

We watch as I scream her name until I lose my voice.

Without warning, I'm standing back in the hall of mirrors. Lonnrach is still holding my wrist, his mouth hovering above where his teeth left their marks in my flesh. His lips are wet with my blood; it drips down his throat. Just like in my memory of
her
.

Sorcha.

I can't stop the sound that escapes my throat. When Lonnrach's gaze meets mine, his breathing is ragged and I'm startled by the glimpse of emotion there.

Before I can think to analyze it, he turns away sharply. He raises his arm to wipe his mouth, smudges my blood across his wrist like a brand. “That's enough for now.”

Lonnrach grabs his coat from the floor and strides through the nearest mirror, disappearing into it as if it were water. It undulates, spreading ripples across all of the mirrors before they finally settle into my reflection.

I'm alone once more. The vines retract into the floor and I'm surrounded by the different versions of myself again.

Only then do I realize my cheeks are wet with tears.

Lonnrach doesn't speak when he comes to visit me after that. He makes every effort not to meet my gaze, keeping his expression carefully composed. Guarded.

I resist at first. I become desperate enough to attack him—to loop the
seilgflùr
around his neck—but the vines wrap around my limbs so fast that I'm forced to give in. In the days that follow, the physical weakness from blood loss and venom takes its toll and I stop fighting entirely.

I begin to view my time with Lonnrach as a nightmare I can't escape. When he sinks his teeth into me, I shut my eyes and almost manage to convince myself that I'm dreaming and it isn't real. That
he
isn't real.

After a while, I become so used to the pain of his bites that it barely affects me. Now it's just a quick prick of teeth through flesh and the sting of venom through blood.

Lonnrach watches my memories and leaves like a thief with his bounty. Every image with Derrick and Kiaran is carefully examined, played slowly and deliberately.

Through his explorations, I relive the last year of my life. I hate the way I've come to view his bite as a respite from the loneliness of my mirrored selves. Violent Aileana hasn't attacked again, but I still sense her behind all the others. Waiting, watching. I see her as a quick flash of a monster's smile, a reminder that Sorcha still lurks in my memory—and then she's gone.

At first I would use the reprieve from her to press my palms against the reflective rock. I tried for the longest time to pass through like Lonnrach does, but the surface is always solid, hard. I count the mirrors—one thousand four hundred and sixty-seven—and all of them are inescapable. On particularly bad days, I hit the mirrors until my hands bleed. Until I'm left with bruises on my fists.

The longer Lonnrach drains my blood, the weaker I become. I barely improve when I finally take the food he leaves: servings of bread, cheese, and fruit. Kiaran always taught me never to accept food or drink from the fae, that it allows them greater control over a human. Accepting it is my tacit compliance to stay in the
Sìth-bhrùth
until Lonnrach decides to release me.

He'll kill me first.

I've memorized the shape of his teeth imprinted into my skin. My fingers trace the marks they've left as I recall each memory he conjured and examined.

Thirty-six human teeth. Forty-six thin fangs, tapered like a snake's. Together they form two crescents, grooves worn into each arm and each side of my neck, over and over and over.

Twenty-seven times.

Some are flecked with dried blood. Others have scarred from the rapid healing of
baobhan sìth
venom. I used to call my scars badges, each one earned from a fae I killed. But these . . . these aren't badges. They aren't marks of victory.

They're reminders of how I lost everything.

Today, Lonnrach sifts through the longer streams of my memory. He lingers on those before my mother's death, those he should find unimportant. I wonder if he realizes that I've noticed the way he slows down the hours I spent building with her, or the days I took tea with my friend Catherine. Inconsequential memories of simple pleasures before I had ever felt the mark of grief.

As if embarrassed, Lonnrach pulls forward in time. I watch a stream of images go by before he settles on the memory of Kiaran and me in the Queen's Park. Though it was the night of the battle, it seems so long ago now. Kiaran had resolved to take his sister's place if we managed to trap the fae once more. I thought I would never see him again.

At one time I would have resisted Lonnrach's intrusion on these memories, but now I eagerly go along with it. I am
desperate to feel again, for the spectrum of emotions my memories bring. They remind me of who I was, and that I'm still human.

Just for a little while
, I think.
So I have something to hold on to
.

I sense Lonnrach's surprise when Kiaran and I kiss, when Kiaran grabs my coat to pull me closer. This is one of my few memories that remains whole, complete. That kiss is imprinted in my mind: the press of Kiaran's lips, his fingers against my skin. I know that kiss by heart.

In my memory, I pull away. “
Leave
.” I can hear the desperation in my voice. “
You still have time. Save yourself
—”

Another kiss, as if Kiaran's telling me this is goodbye. As if he's memorizing my lips, too. “
Have I ever told you the vow a
sìthiche
makes when he pledges himself to another?
Aoram dhuit
. I will worship thee
.”

Lonnrach pulls out of the memory so quickly that I sway on my feet. We're back in the hall of mirrors and he's already wiping his lips with the white kerchief he brought. Always a different one. My blood stains them all.

My legs won't hold me. I sink to the ivy floor as Lonnrach turns away, wordlessly striding toward the nearest mirror.

“Wait.” I'm surprised by my voice. It seems like an eternity since I've spoken. I sound raspy, my throat dry from disuse.

Lonnrach stops. He doesn't even turn. “Is there something you need?”

It's been so long since I've heard his voice, too. He has no need to taunt me anymore, to break me with his words. I've
accepted his food and drink. He has taken my blood. He's stolen my memories. What else is there to say?

And yet . . . that memory made me feel longing again. Passion. Grief. Once I'm alone, that will all go away and I'll go back to pressing my fingers against his bloody teeth marks, hoping to conjure it all up again.

“I only want to talk.” I swallow once.
Good god, I can't believe I'm doing this. I'd kill him if I could
. “That's all.”

This time, Lonnrach turns and looks at me. The weight of his gaze is heavy, assessing. “Why?”

Because I don't want to be alone anymore. Because I don't know how long it's been since I've been here. Because I don't have anyone left. Because we've shared more than a year of my memories. Because you've left two thousand two hundred and fourteen individual teeth marks on my skin that will never, ever let me forget that everything I've lost is my fault
.

I bite my tongue so none of those words spill out. Maybe one day I'll become hopeless and desperate enough to utter them. Maybe. But not yet. “Because you've seen my memories and yet you've said little about yourself at all.”

“Your memories serve a purpose.” He takes another step, raises his hand to the mirror. “Mine don't.”

I try again. I don't mention how he extracts the inconsequential memories of my life before I saw my first faery, ones that serve no purpose at all. “Why do you hate Kiaran?”

Lonnrach's hand curls into a fist. I persist, possibly against my best judgment. “You told me I would regret not killing him. I want to know why.”

Lonnrach slowly turns around. His eyes are sharp and slate gray; his gaze falls upon the teeth marks he left on my wrist. I immediately pull my knees into my chest like a shield.

Just when I think he might do something to make me regret my words, he finally speaks. “Your
Kiaran
is the worst sort of traitor, and his sister is no different. Now it's up to me to fix their mistakes.” The way he regards me, his message is clear:
Which includes you
.

Me. He considers me a mistake. Because Kiaran made me the same as him.

“And save your realm?” I try to say it lightly, but I can't stop the bitterness that tinges my words.
You sacrificed my realm to save yours
. “Is your monarch dead?”

Lonnrach seems to go still, as if startled by my question. “Perhaps.” He considers his words carefully. “No one has seen the Cailleach for thousands of years. The heirs she left behind to rule were . . . unworthy. Without a monarch, the
Sìth-bhrùth
will wither. Someone must take her place.”

“And you think you're worthy.” It sounds like an accusation, but I'm trying to understand why he has spent so much time painstakingly exploring my memories.

He casts me a meaningful glance, as if he can read my thoughts. “No. But I will be.”

I call his name when he turns to leave. I see the tightness in his shoulders, as if he dreads my next query. “What was it like when you were trapped below the city?”

Was it like in here? Did you stop fighting, too?

Lonnrach speaks deliberately, devoid of emotion. “The first hundred years we spent trying to escape until our nails wore grooves into the underground rock. Energy we stole from the occasional humans we managed to compel through the prison's shield was barely enough to keep us all sated. That place became like a tomb.”

In his profile, I notice how tight his jaw is, as if he's controlling his anger. “I won't ever forget that it was your kin who put us there. That your precious
Kiaran
and his sister helped.” He looks over at my mirrors, to my hundreds of different reflections. My cage. “Now you know precisely how it feels to be that helpless.”

I
'M BEGINNING
to forget my life more easily now. It's been
daysweeksmonthsyears
—I don't know precisely—since I've seen anyone but Lonnrach. I can't recall the things he's stolen on my own anymore.

To remember, I have to press my fingers a little harder into his teeth marks each time, until I leave half-moon marks of my own over the scars of his bites on my skin. I have to shut my eyes so hard that I see stars beneath my lids.

It's a rush of relief each time I manage to relive precious moments with all the people I care about. I can't help how often Kiaran lingers in my thoughts, even though the sting of Lonnrach's words is still there. It hasn't even faded.

He let you think he cared about you. You're not the first human pet he's discarded
.

I flinch and try to redirect my focus away from Kiaran. I need to forget about him. He left me behind. I've been in the
Sìth-bhrùth
through dozens of Lonnrach's little sessions.
Through hours and days or maybe weeks spent alone with my reflections. Through counting mirrors and leaves of ivy. I'm discarded. I'm—

“Kam.” Kiaran's whisper of my nickname invades my thoughts. I almost shiver at how he says it. Like he loves the sound of it. Like it's an intimate word, a promise.

I try again. Desperately, I pull up another image of my mother. Her smile, her laugh, the way she could always—

“
Kam
.” Kiaran's voice, louder this time. More insistent.

“Go away,” I hiss. I press my fingers harder into the bites beneath the sleeve of my shift. My nails dig in.
Focus. Remember
.

His impatient Highland brogue tears through my concentration. “Goddamn it, open your eyes and look at me.”

What the . . . ? My eyes fly open.
Oh, lord
. My imagination doesn't do Kiaran justice. He's standing over me, inky black hair long enough to rest at the collar of his pale wool shirt. My memories never could quite capture the way light gives his skin a tawny glow, or the way his eyes are as bright and vivid as a lilac in bloom.