Page 48 of The Vanishing Throne

Kiaran guides me at a slow, steady pace toward a passage that leads to the back of the cavern. Daniel’s voice cuts through the dark. ‘I told you I wouldn’t allow her into the city, faery. Take her right back out the way you came.’

Kiaran stops and turns slowly. ‘I assume you value that remaining eye, Seer. One more word, and I’ll blind you.’

‘Daniel, are you in here?’ A familiar voice calls from the passage at the back of the cave. ‘Gavin said—’

Catherine freezes when she sees me and Kiaran. At twenty, my best friend’s features are mature, even more beautiful. Her hair is pulled back into a single plait that falls to her waist. Instead of the dresses she usually wears – always in the latest style – she’s dressed practically in dark trousers and a raploch shirt.

She mouths my name, as if she can’t believe it’s me. ‘You’realive.’

Then she’s striding forward and her arms are around me and she’s crushing me against her. I make a sound of pain and she releases me, as if she hadn’t evenrealised that I was bleeding.

‘Oh god.’ Her eyes meet mine. ‘They tested you?’

‘Your husband did,’ Kiaran says sharply, ‘and your idiot sibling helped. I’m surprised you didn’t know.’

Husband? She marriedDaniel? Good god, this is like a never-ending nightmare.

I try to step away, but I sway from the blood loss. Not wasting any more time, Kiaran swings me up into his arms. He’s much better at it now than the last time he held me, when I was ill. He shifts me in his grip with care as my blood continues to drip from my hundreds of bites.

I open my eyes. Catherine sharply assesses my wounds, the blood around Kiaran’s feet. ‘No one told me you were alive.No one.’ She looks away then, at her husband. ‘Daniel, I believe I need a word.’

‘Cat—’

‘To the study. Tell Gavin to meet me there, too.Now.’She waits until his footsteps disappear down the passage before addressing me more gently. ‘Some of your wounds look deep.’ She presses a hand to one of the scars on my arm and I bite my tongue. ‘I would have been here with Daniel to help you if I had known. I would have greeted you.’

He is her husband? Really?

Catherine looks so upset that I can’t help but say, ‘It’s all right.’

‘No, it’s not,’ she and Kiaran say at the exact same time.

She glances up at Kiaran and I don’t miss how she goes rigid, or how her voice shakes slightly when she speaks. ‘Where do you intend to take her?’

My vision clouds and my head starts to pound. I don’t hear Kiaran’s response. He says something about a door.What door?I open my mouth to ask, but just before I can, the lightheadedness becomes too overwhelming. The last thing I remember is Kiaran cradling me gently against him.

Chapter 18

I slip in and out of consciousness. I could have been lying here for hours, or days. For the longest time, it’s as though my limbs are weighted, too heavy to move. My entire body feels like it’s burning from the inside.

During the haze, I manage to open my eyes. I stare down at my arms to find hundreds of bites healed over into scars. My skin is overly reddened– as if I spent too much time in the sun – and damp with fever. Even the brush of my fingertips is painful.

Sometimes there are people in the room, voices I recognise. I try to open my eyes, but they are so heavy. Always heavy. My lips move to ask for Aithinne, for her painful healing, but I can’t speak.

Everything hurts except for when he’s near.Kiaran. The taste of his power lingers on my tongue, the breath of his name on my lips. I could swear I hear him whisper to me in that fae language that sounds as soft and lyrical as a haunting lullaby. I want him to say the words again, the ones he said to me before the battle.

Aoram dhuit.I will worship thee.

He never says them. I almost ask him to as I wake, my eyes opening painful fractions at a time. Then I realise it isn’t Kiaran sitting next to me whispering soft unintelligible words. It’s Catherine.

‘Hullo,’ I say. The word is barely more than a croak.

Catherine raises her head, her eyes weary, as if she’s been awake for hours. ‘Hullo,’ she returns.

I take in my surroundings, trying to ignore how hot my eyes feel, how I can barely keep my eyelids open. I’m in a room.My room.

Everything is just as I remember it. The walls made of teak, with hundreds of tiny bulb lightsplaced between the wooden panels. A ship’s wheel I salvaged from an old schooner that hangs on the far wall, next to a map of the Outer Hebrides. Clicking gears along the edges of the ceiling that connect to the electricity tower in the heart of New Town.

Home.Am I dreaming?WasI dreaming? My head is pounding, my vision starting to blur and blacken around the edges again.

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