Page 73 of Rebel in the Deep

I thought it was exhausting helpingto run a rebellion. That was nothing compared to what it’s taken to keep Threshold from ending up in an all-out war after the Wild Hunt rode. I am…so damned tired. More tired than I knew I could be. Every day is filled with bickering nobles and more and more representatives showing up from the various islands in the realm. We will be setting up a new Council tomorrow, a truly representative one. Each inhabited island is sending two people who have been voted on by their people. The fact that it tooka yearto get to this point just speaks to how effectively the last Council—and the many before that—have misused power and policy for their own gain.

No longer.

I’ve seen Nox only a handful of times in the last twelve months, short intervals where we spent as much time as we could manage wrapped up in each other. It’s not enough, neverenough, but with so much at stake, we can’t prioritize our relationship over the good of the realm. We speak regularly with the new desk they installed in theAudacity. They’re personally escorting the representatives from Three Sisters, so they should have arrived in Lyari hours ago.

I meant to go meet them on the docks. Truly, I did. But the sun started to set before I could, andthisis not something I skip for anything. Even Nox.

As the sun sinks to the horizon behind me, I climb up onto the roof of the old Council building. It’s the tallest spot in Lyari. I don’t know if the height actually helps, but it can’t hurt.

I kick off my boots and step into the permanent amplification circle Evelyn created for me on her and Bowen’s most recent stop in Threshold. I have to draw out the pattern each time I use it, but she burned the template into the boards so it’s easy enough. I kneel in the center and carefully draw a few drops of blood. I hadn’t thought I was any good at ritual magic, but apparently all I needed was the motivation tobecomegood.

As soon as the power stabilizes, I take a deep breath and exhale just as slowly. It hurts to do this. Not the power expenditure, but the hope that I should have killed long months ago. Instead, here I am, a year later, trying to call her home.

Another deep breath and I’m ready. I send my magic out, farther and farther and farther, to the very edges of my ability. The amplification circle drains my magic twice as fast as normal, so I can only hold it for about fifteen minutes.

I close my eyes.“Siobhan. Siobhan, come home. Your hunt is finished. You’ve saved us all. Come home to us.”Again and again and again, the words carrying a lilt of melody that helps the magic cling to them.

At the end of fifteen minutes, I reluctantly release the magic. Beneath me, the chalk amplification circle has blurred to the point of being unrecognizable, its use fulfilled. I sit back on my heels and let loose a shaky breath.

“That’s beautiful.”

I look up to find Nox standing before me. They’re dressed in black, which somehow suits them even more than crimson, their duster flowing dramatically in the light wind, their clothing beneath fitted to their body. I use my forearm to wipe the sweat from my brow. “I’m glad you made it in time.”

“Me, too.” They carefully step into the circle, avoiding the sigils and offering me their hand. “Tomorrow, the next step starts.”

“Yes.” I let them pull me to my feet and then hug them close. “Fuck, I missed you.”

Nox holds me just as tightly. “I missed you, too.”

Tomorrow, the newly formed Council votes on how to proceed with returning the refugees to their home realms—and settling the ones who have no interest in returning in communities with room to spare. People will get a choice; I’m determined to ensure it’s so. We’re starting the new Threshold on the right foot, on the promise of being better.

Even though I know I shouldn’t, I can’t help but ask. “Have you seen her?”

“I don’t think so,” Nox says slowly. “We caught the edge of the Hunt a month ago. I don’t know if they were coming or going, but we heard them and saw the mist. No hounds or riders, though.”

We had thought the Wild Hunt would disappear the same way it’s been gone for time unknowing. Instead, wherever theyride, they seem to use Threshold the same way normal people do—as access to other realms. There are regular sightings, but they don’t bother any of the people left after the purge of the Cwn Annwn.

If they had disappeared, maybe I would have been able to give up hope that Siobhan would return to us someday. As it is, I can’t help doing everything in my power to summon her home.

Nox loops their arm through mine and turns us toward the door to the stairs. “You know, you’re getting quite the reputation. The young eligible nobles wax poetic about the Lyarian Banshee, calling his lost love home. It’s considered quite the coup if they can seduce you out of your sadness.”

I wince. There have been plenty of attempts in the last year. “You know I’m not interested in any of them.”

“I know.” They press a kiss to my cheek. We share a bed when they’re in town, and we’ve spent no little amount of time losing ourselves in pleasure, but there’s no escaping the grief of Siobhan’s absence. I keep thinking it will fade, will lose some of its jagged teeth, but it endures. Instead, it’s as if it’s compounded when Nox and I are together, two-thirds of a whole that might never be whole again.

“What if she never returns?” I hate to give voice to the fear I can’t escape, but if I can trust anyone to hold space for it, it’s Nox.

We walk in silence through the building and out onto the street. “I’d like to join you tomorrow night. Give a little warm wind to carry your call farther.”

I glance at them. “Do you think it will help?”

“It can’t hurt.”

It’s not until we’re back in my bed, sweat cooling on my skinand Nox sleeping beside me, that I realize they never really answered my question.

Siobhan

Blood in my mouth. Flesh between my teeth. The ground falling away beneath my paws. Always the next surge, the next prey, the next call from the Hunter to change direction. There is nothing else.

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