Page 23 of The Falconer

Crimson suits you best, a voice from my memories says with a laugh.

No. I thrust that memory away. I’m left with a rage that consumes me, brutal and destructive. I hate faeries. I hate them for what they stole from me, for what I am. For that night I spent so broken that I couldn’t even mourn someone I loved.

I clench my jaw and stride over to Kiaran. He looks up as I approach, his eyes blazing with unnatural light, and that only makes it worse. He’s one of them. He’ll never understand what he just did to me.

‘Kam—’

I slam my fist into his face so hard, it breaks my skin. My knuckles bleed from the impact, but he doesn’t even stumble.

‘Enough,’ he says.

I hit him again. Again. The blows have no apparent effect. I’ll keep trying until I see a mark, until something breaks.

He grabs my shoulders, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. ‘Enough.’ His eyes search my face, as if he can see that broken part of me. ‘Kam? Are you with me?’ He says it so softly, with a hint of humanity I’ve never heard from him before.

It makes me want to hit him again. I can’t let him do this to me. I try to gain control over myself and my memories again, burying them deep down inside me where they belong.

‘He knew you,’ I whisper hoarsely. I won’t explain to Kiaran what just happened, or that I’m horrified by what he did because it reminded me that he is one ofthem. ‘That redcapknewyou and youliedto me.’

The near-compassionate look is gone, and he’s back to cold Kiaran. His grip is so tight on me now that I almost cry out. ‘A bhuraidh tha thu ann.’

‘I don’t speak your bloody language.’

‘I said you’re a fool! Do you know what you’ve done?’

My breathing is quick and hard. ‘Hit you.’ I lift my chin. ‘Killed redcaps. That’s what you trained me for. I savedmyself.’

‘That –’ he nods to the bridge ‘– was not something I taught you. Where the hell did you get that explosive?’

‘I built it,’ I say through clenched teeth. ‘You always told me to do whatever was necessary to slaughter the fae, and I did exactly that.’

He taught me that was all that mattered. Hunt, mutilate, kill and survive. If I didn’t already have the instinctual urge to murder, Kiaran would have taught me that as well. His hatred for them mirrors my own.

‘Let go of me,’ I say when he doesn’t respond.

He doesn’t release me. Instead, he only pulls me closer. I receive the full effect of his burning gaze and I shiver.

‘You’ve been killing them, haven’t you?’ His voice is low. Emotions thicken his melodic accent and it surprises me so much that I’m not certain how to respond. He shakes me once. ‘Alone. Without me. When I explicitly told you not to.’

I’ve never seen him so out of control before. Whatever emotions he might feel are always so carefully reined in, coiled tight.

‘Aye,’ I say. ‘And I’ll do it again whenever I want.’

‘How long, Kam?’

I’m startled by the severity of his voice.

‘Just over a fortnight.’ Just after the ball when I was reintroduced into society. I went hunting with Kiaran, and when we finished, he left me in one of the underground wynds with a dead faery at my feet. As I relished the last remnants of its power, I sensed another come in with its victim. I couldn’t resist. And I couldn’t resist killing on my own the night after that, and the night after that. My new ritual.

He laughs coldly. I recoil as he strokes my cheek with a long, graceful finger. ‘I hope you have more of your little weapons,’ he whispers, his breath kissing my lips. ‘Because now they will never stop hunting you.’

I can’t breathe any more. I flatten my hands against his chest and push him away. His smile flashes, more ferocious than ever. Then he turns and starts towards Calton Hill.

‘And who might this innominatethembe?’ When it becomes clear that he has no intention of stopping, I move in front of him so he can’t escape. ‘You said the redcaps were in the mounds. I thought faeries couldn’t lie.’

‘Sìthichean,’ he corrects. He hates it when I call his kindfaeries. ‘No, we can’t.’

‘Then how did they escape?’

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