The Vanishing Throne (8 page)

Her face scrunches into a grimace. “
Baobhan sìth
venom. It's all over you; I can smell it.”

I go rigid. Lonnrach marked my body. He stole my memories. Of course it would follow that he's polluted my blood.

I want to know everything. I just need to use your blood to see
.

I'm tainted. My skin isn't mine and my blood isn't mine and my mind isn't mine. There isn't any part of me that he
hasn't claimed or taken by force except for my will. And he almost took that, too.

Aithinne notices my expression. “Falconer, I didn't mean it like that. I—”

“Of course.” I can't help the urge to scrub myself clean. To get the scent of
him
off me. “It's all right.”

Her grip on my arm loosens. “‘No, it's not,” she tells me. “It's not all right. What he did to you”—she presses her fingers to my wrist, where he bit me most—“it's not all right.”

Since meeting Aithinne I've never heard her sound more serious. Like she
knows
. Like she's been through it. Maybe she has.

I almost say
thank you
. I'm tempted to break the rule even though the fae don't like to be thanked. Because she might be of
them
, but I spent
daysweeksmonthsyears
with no kind words except those that existed in my memories.

Aithinne's eyes don't leave mine. “I can heal you. The venom has to be purged on its own, but I can take away its effects.”

Yes. Yes yes
. To get rid of trembling limbs and short breath and something to take the pain away.
Yes
.

At my nod, Aithinne places her hands over my ears. She muffles the noise until all I hear is the rushing in my ears, the wavelike sea sounds.

Next comes the searing pain. I flinch, but I've become so used to it that it barely affects me anymore. My knees don't buckle like they used to. My eyes don't sting with tears. I use it as a gauge of
I'm here and I'm alive and I still feel and you can't take that away
.

I open my eyes just as the cut on my arm knits closed beneath the blood. The injuries along my legs vanish, perfectly smoothed over. The aching in my muscles fades and the helpless trembling weakness dissipates, and with it—all at once—the agony goes, too.

Now only the scars remain.

Aithinne pulls her hands away and smiles. “Better?”

To the devil with faery conventions. I don't care. “Thank—”

Then I hear it. The distant sound of hooves on dirt, crossing the countryside somewhere near us. Too far for me to taste their powers, but close enough to know that there are at least a dozen of them—and they're heading right for us.

A
ITHINNE MUTTERS
something foul. “We'll have to use the trail.” She gestures with a nod. “It's a passage that juts out just below the top of the crag. As long as they stay up here, they won't see us.”

I study the path she indicates and my stomach clenches. The cliff down to the river below is layered with perilous bends and twists in the rock that end in a steep drop right to the bottom. Like something out of the mountainous paths in the Cairngorms. They're majestic to look at, but there's a reason some say those blasted things are haunted, and it's because every year some explorer goes out and doesn't return.

If we fall,
she
would survive the impact. I would—in the words of Aithinne—go
splat
.

I immediately take a step back. “Oh? We can't just—”

“No,” Aithinne says shortly, in a very Kiaran-like voice.

I bite back a curse and follow her across the meadow. We continue down to where the narrow ridge extends just below
the cliff edge and out of the riders' view. The rocks there are rough as scoria, and colored a red so deep they're almost black. They smell of ash, as if a fire had been lit recently. From here, there's nothing directly below us—it's a long drop all the way to the bottom, straight down.

Unable to stop myself, I step closer to the edge and peek over. I wish to hell I hadn't. My head spins as if I'm whirling and nausea cramps my stomach.

I'm certainly not one to fear heights, but even I'm not mad enough to flee from the fae this high up. The trail is barely wide enough for my feet; it's only a small lip of rock that could break off and tumble to the bottom at any moment.

I scan the path for any branches to hold on to in case of a fall. None.

The pounding of hooves through the trees grows closer. They're almost to the meadow. If we don't go now, they'll see me and I'll be put back in the mirrored prison.

Lonnrach will steal my memories again. He'll punish me for escaping, and this time it might be worse. I won't go back to that. I might not have this chance again.

When Aithinne starts down the trail ahead of me, I don't hesitate. I take the first steps down the rocky path. I mentally recite my encouragement, my mantra.
Almost there. Almost there almost there
. Almost safe. Almost home. Almost free of
him
. Each step is
almost almost almost
.

When I hear the fae enter the field above our heads, I try to keep my steps as quiet as Aithinne's. The rocks are too unstable. My slippers have barely any grip on them at all.
Halfway across the path, my feet slip and I slide with a scrape over the rocks. I open my mouth to scream, but Aithinne smacks a hand over my mouth and hauls me to safety. She pushes us up against the rough crag, a finger to her lips. Then she releases me and gestures upward. The riders are on the ridge right above us.

“You said you tracked them this way?” I hear Lonnrach say.

My pulse quickens. I picture him in the mirrored room, teeth at my wrist.
This is really going to hurt
. It hurt every time.

Almost there
. I return to my desperate chant, a reassurance that Kiaran will be there once I escape.
I'll be waiting for you on the other side
.

Almost there
.

I'm so distracted by my own thoughts that when I finally look over at Aithinne, I'm startled to find that she's gone entirely still. Her eyes are wide and panicked. When I move to touch her fingers, they're ice-cold.

“They went through the forest,” another voice says, one I don't recognize. “There are two energy trails here. She had help.”

One horse is so close to the edge that a hoof knocks off small bits of dirt and rock to rain on our feet. Aithinne doesn't appear to notice. Her breathing grows more unsteady, gasping. Loud.

Above us, the horse shuffles closer to the edge. The fae are silent—too hushed and still. Dawning horror makes me grow cold. They're
listening
for us. Aithinne's breathing has turned heavy, a roar in the quiet.

I press my palm to her lips to quiet her down, and she doesn't react. Her gaze is unseeing, distant now. She's lost in a memory.

“It's Aithinne,” Lonnrach says, his voice tight. “She's with the Falconer.”

Aithinne gasps against my palm, her eyes squeezing shut.

“It can't be,” the other faery says. “She couldn't have come through without our sensing—”

“Oh, she could,” Lonnrach says. “But with limited power, she'd need the right conditions. She'll be looking for a way to escape.”

Aithinne is wheezing against my palm, her lips moving. I edge closer. I can hear what she's saying through my fingers, her lips forming words against my skin. Three of them. Three words like icy fingertips down my spine. “It doesn't hurt.”

“Shh.” I try to make my breath sound like the air. I don't know how to comfort her or to get her back, not without speaking. If I touch her further, she might respond badly.

“Go through the forest,” Lonnrach says. “Try to pick up their trail there. We'll double back and see if we missed anything.”

The riders disperse, their steps heavy on the ridge above us. I listen until it's quiet around us again and lower my hand from Aithinne's mouth. She still has her eyes shut, her chest rising and falling quickly as she repeats her three words:
It doesn't hurt
.

“Aithinne,” I whisper. “They're gone. It's all right.”

It's not all right. What he did to you, it's not all right
.

She stops mouthing her chant, but it takes so much longer for her breathing to slow.

I made it out. And so shall you
.

It was Lonnrach. It had to be. Aithinne became like this the second she heard his voice. She spent two thousand years trapped in the mounds with him. Two thousand years for him to do to her what he did to me.

“Did he—” I can't say the words. So I touch her fingers to my marks.
Did he try to mark you, too? Even though he'd never succeed, did he try? Did he steal your mind like he did mine?
“Did he do this? Like mine?”

Aithinne's eyes open. They're not silvery anymore, not molten. Now they're as unyielding as steel, not emotionless, but cold and numb. “Worse,” she says, her hard voice slicing through me. “He did worse.”

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

I don't ask. I don't want to picture how much worse it could have been for someone who doesn't scar and who can't die.

Aithinne pushes to her feet, her emotions shuttered again. Her movements are stiff as she brushes the dirt from her coat. “We have to hurry.” She's brusque, cool and detached. As if nothing happened. “Before the wind changes.”

Before I can say anything, she starts down the path. I follow behind. Though I can't see her face, the set of her shoulders remains tense. Her fingers are clenched into fists. I consider saying something—pointless chatter to fill the silence—but I don't.

I prefer the quiet, too. It gives me time to observe the landscape, how the sun is beginning to set across the loch on the other side of the bend, where the river empties. Stars fill the space between clouds and the landscape has darkened since we first arrived. I can hear the wind blowing through the trees above us, rattling the leaves and branches.

Aithinne maintains a quick pace and I try to keep up. I stay focused on the path, never daring to let my eyes stray over the edge of the cliff. If I do, the dizziness comes back—so it's one foot in front of the other, over and over again.

Unlike me, Aithinne seems perfectly content on the trail. Her steps never waver. She still doesn't speak, not even to ask infuriating questions. She keeps herself shuttered, a perfect study of indifference.

Suddenly, she snaps her head up at the same time I taste Lonnrach's power heavy on my tongue.
Oh, hell
.

As one, Aithinne and I turn. Lonnrach is on the very far side of the trail, mounted on a metal horse with a dozen fae at his back.

He sees us. I can feel his eyes on me. He's in my mind, probing, pushing, gaining entrance—all because I accepted his food and drink. He whispers a single word:
Falconer
.

It's a command, that word. A simple command.
Come back to me
.

Damned if I don't take a step forward, as if I have no control over my body. No control over my mind.
Aye
, he says.
That's it. That's it
.

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

I jerk back at the memory of Lonnrach's words, breaking his influence. “
No
,” I snarl.

I whirl so I'm no longer facing him. Beside me, Aithinne has frozen at the sight of him. I don't have the time to soothe her, to say comforting words to bring her back. So I grab her coat and yank her down the path with me, my fist white-knuckled around the fabric.

But Aithinne is still too distracted, and that's all it takes. Her feet slip. She slides forward and nearly goes over the edge, but I grasp her arm. I dig my heels into the dirt and pull, straining hard, using my weight to wrench her back.

Aithinne manages to recover just enough to gain her bearings and then we're running again. We sprint down the treacherous path with the fae at our backs. They've dismounted their horses to pursue us on the narrow path.

The ridge begins to quake. Rock cracks around us, as loud as cannons and gunfire. The taste of faery power is slick down my throat, aching, burning.
They're
doing this. They're causing the ground to tremble beneath us.

A fissure forms beneath our feet, the soil breaking, parting. I lose my footing. Aithinne grasps my arm, pulling me painfully hard to safety.

“Hold your powers!” Lonnrach's shout echoes across the canyon. “I need the Falconer
alive
.”

The tremors stop just as we reach the end of the trail. Aithinne and I, breathing hard, climb over the rocks to the top of the crags. All I can hear are the rapid footfalls behind
us, determined and quick. It won't take them long to reach us. If we don't do something, they'll be here in minutes.

At the top of the rocks, Aithinne stops short—so fast that I nearly careen into her. At the sudden, unexpected taste of iron heavy in my mouth, I go cold. It's like a thick stream of blood, concentrated enough that I nearly heave.

I recognize that taste.
Sorcha
.

I shift around Aithinne and Sorcha smiles. “Falconer,” she greets me. “And
Aithinne
. My, my, this is quite a reunion.”

She's dressed in a shift like mine, only the black fabric of hers glitters like the night sky. The
baobhan sìth
's beauty is uncanny, terrifying. I watch as fangs lower over her teeth and elongate enough to press into her full lips. She smiles wider, a nightmarish grin of pointed teeth.