Page 3 of The Vanishing Throne

But I can’t focus on that. I can’t. I find that the question I truly desire to ask – if he’s killed everyone I love – sticks in my throat. So I try another. ‘Where is Kiaran?’

I don’t miss how Lonnrach’s eyes avert briefly from mine, as if he’s trying to smooth his expression first. ‘His sister killed my men to rescue him.’ His smirk is brutal; it cuts right through my heart. ‘They obviously didn’t think you were worth saving.’

Another memory of Kiaran flashes in my mind from the battlefield. Of his motionless body and his scorched face.Wake up. Wake up!I couldn’t get him to move. Not even his lashes fluttered.

Lonnrach said Kiaran was alive, but if that were true, Kiaran would never have left me behind. He couldn’t have.

‘You feel for him.’ Lonnrach’s fingers grasp my chin, forcing me to look at him. ‘He made you think he cared about you.’ He looks almost sorry for me, but I know it must be a trick. ‘Kadamach doesn’t give a damn about anyone, least of all you.’

Pretend his words don’t affect you.I try, but then Kiaran’s words from that night whisper in my mind.Have I ever told you the vow asìthichemakes when he pledges himself to another?A featherlight kiss, then two words against my lips that I felt down to my very soul.Aoram dhuit.

I will worship thee.

Lonnrach’s next cruel words cut short my memory: ‘You’re not the first human pet he’s discarded.’

Before I can stop myself, I wrench out of Lonnrach’s grip and smash my fist into his face. He staggers back. I bury my knee in his gut and punch him again. And again. I wind back to keep at him, but he grabs my wrist and twists my arm behind me at a painful angle. He’s at my back, breath tickling my neck.

‘You need me alive.’ I swallow hard to keep the pain out of my voice. I wiggle to extricate myself from his grip, but he holds firm; any movement on my part is excruciating. ‘Why?’ When he doesn’t answer, I press further. ‘Why?’

‘You can unlock an object I seek. That is your sole purpose.’ I understand the subtext:And when I get what I want, I’ll kill you.

I snap my head back and slam it into his nose. The satisfying crack of cartilage and his startled fae curse only makes me smile. I round on him, but he’s too fast. He locks me into a hold, fingers digging into the wrist of my blade hand. Any sudden movement from me and he’ll break it. I may heal faster than the average human, but I’d rather not learn how long it takes for my bones to mend.

As if in subtle warning, his grip tightens. I grit my teeth against the pain. ‘If I knew what you were looking for, I’d destroy it before I let you have it.’

I feel his body shudder, as if in anger. ‘You really don’t understand, do you? You think this is just about war. Your kind against mine.’

I’m surprised by that. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Look around you, Falconer.’ He motions with his free hand, sweeps it across the landscape. ‘Do you think it’s always been like this? TheSìth-bhrùthwas once full of a thousand different colours your human eyes have never beheld. The land was whole and now it’s cracked right down the middle. It’s all falling apart.’

He draws me in closer, releasing some of the pressure at my wrist. ‘I brought you here to show you this chasm. It’s a reminder that one day soon everything here will crumble to dust. The kingdoms are dying and the throne here is vanishing. It’s already begun.’

I can’t help but look to the cliffs on either side of us, studying how the landscape only exists in shadesof grey and deep black. How the buildings floating in the middle are the final remnants of the place Lonnrach describes. ‘I don’t see what that has to do with me.’

‘What I seek could save theSìth-bhrùth. You’re the key to finding it.’

At that I pause. Not that I care the slightest bit about theSìth-bhrùth, but Kiaran might. He spoke very little about the fae realm, of course. He once told me it was beautiful and brutal, that he both hated and loved it. I wonder if he would consider saving this place.

But I have to know one thing first. I ask the question I’ve been avoiding all along: ‘Why save your home instead of mine?’

Lonnrach’s silence is deafening; it stretches vast, eternal. He wouldn’t be like this, unless … unless …

I have no home to save.

I swallow back the lump in my throat. ‘Show me.’ When he hesitates, I snap. ‘Now.’

Lonnrach releases my wrist. Before I can even move, his fingers are in my hair, pressing against the wound at my temple.

Then I blink … and I’m in hell.

It’s too much to take in at once; I can barely focus. Ash rains from the sky, fluttering to the ground like snow. All around me are destroyed buildings, as if something had rammed through them with tremendous force. Thecobbles lie broken up, the streets naught but barely visible rubble through the thick layer of ash. I can barely see beyond the buildings in front of me; the smoke is too thick. I inhale the scent of scorched wood,metal and stone and my lungs constrict.

The swirling dust and soot clears just enough for me to recognise where I am. Princes Street. What’s left of it. Barely any of the shops that lined one side of the street are left standing. The Scott Monument – that beautiful, pointed ivory-coloured monument that had just been finished in the months before the battle – lies toppled on its side. Scott’s own statue is ground to dust.

I caused this.I caused this it’s my fault they’re dead and it’s all my fault. ‘Stop.’ The word is a strangled breath, barely audible. ‘I saidstop!’

Suddenly I’m back in the faery realm. I’m on my knees in the sharp, obsidian-stone dirt. Hot tears blur my vision as I draw in ragged breaths.

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