Page 25 of The Shadowbound and the False God

And in between waves of worship and death, sacrifice and redemption, the Low One allowed Kael glimpses into a different story altogether: His own. They were visions of another time, another place. Things the Low One wished for Kael to see, accompanied always by His velvet whispers.

He was weak, once. Kael remembered as much from the lectures Werryn used to deliver at length when he was small. The Low One had been just as fragile when the first Unseelie Fae came upon Him as the beginnings of the court itself. He grew in strength as they grew in devotion. He led them into the first age, and through all those that followed.

The next vision was blinding, engulfing Kael in a light brighter than any he’d seen. Three glowing, ethereal figures bore down on the Low One as His shadows battled great white flames. They were in The Cut, or a version of it—the trees that towered above the space as Kael knew it were younger here, the runes etched into the earth less refined. Outnumbered and outmatched, the Low One fell to His knees before them. As viscerally as if he were experiencing it himself, Kael felt the Low One’s pain as the beings carved out His eyes with a shimmering blade.

They stole from me,His voice whispered as Kael pressed the heels of his palms over his own eyes.They trapped me here.

The Low One was crouched in a warped cathedral of trees, tracing runes on the floor with one finger, shadows pooling around him. Kael saw, too, that vision’s mirror: a different king kneeling in The Cut, opening himself to receive the Low One’s shadows and to hear his edicts. The first Unseelie King that would serve as the deity’s vessel.

Kael was in a dimly lit room then, looking down at the lifeless body of a woman on a blood-soaked bed. His mother. A male wept at her side as two robed Prelates murmured over a swaddled, screaming babe.

I chose you to bear my magic. You, out of all others.

“Why?” Kael couldn’t tell if he’d spoken the question out loud or in his mind as he watched the Prelates carry the bundle away. It was his beginning.Theirbeginning. He wondered whether his mother had known all along what she carried, or if the violence of his birth had been the first sign of what he would eventually become.

I could sense your strength, even then. I have known many Kings, Kael, but none that I have loved as I love you.

It was a vicious sort of love, just as the Low One was a vicious sort of god. He needed to be: the Unseelie Court would not have followed any lesser deity, with any gentler virtues. Kael hadalways felt that love. Each time the Low One had reminded him of it in his darkest moments, he always found himself willing to endure a little more, to work a little harder. He so desperately wanted to feel worthy of it.

Aisling once again: this time, smiling at him through her pixie glamour as she led him away from the Nocturne revelry.A lie, the Low One hissed. Another reminder of Kael’s mistake.

The first time he’d killed Aisling, and the second, and maybe even the third, some small part of whatever he was now, floating as he was, had fought against it. He’d searched for truth in the visions, for a kernel of what was real. They always started as he remembered before twisting into something far darker, and no matter how hard he fought he couldn’t stop it.

At times, he questioned how much he truly wanted to.

The pain ebbed away slowly, pulled from him on the breeze alongside the last few bits of his shredded glamour. Rodney kept his head down, his elongated fingers dug deep into the damp earth. His skin was raw and sensitive—he could almost pick out every individual particle of soil that had worked its way under his nails, each tiny pebble and bit of decaying plant pressing into his palms. It was overwhelming, as was the brush of cool air across his neck and the heat of the tears that still ran intermittently down his cheeks. Without the mantle of his glamour to shield him, Rodney thought he might be able to feel acutely every last molecule that made up the whole of the realm. For a moment, that rush of sensations distracted him from the panic.

With one final, gut-rending shudder, Rodney forced himself to his feet. His vision sharper now, he turned in a slow circle, searching amongst the trees for anything else that might test him. No more ashes fell from overhead, no apparitions cried out to him. The forest clearing was quiet once more, without asingle sign of that twisted illusion besides the deep grooves his desperate hands had left behind in the dirt.

Still, he had very little desire to remain unguarded there. He scanned the forest once more then picked a direction and began walking. He hoped the path he chose would take him to the tree line, but in that moment all Rodney truly cared about was getting away from the spot where Sítheach had stood before him, screaming and pointing her finger. Blaming him for everything, just as he had for so, so long blamed himself.

Rodney shivered again and pulled his cracked leather jacket tighter around his shoulders. He was, at the very least, grateful that he’d managed to keep his size as a human relatively close to his true form. He was thinner now, though, so he had to hike up his jeans as he walked. His feet were larger, too—not by much, but enough that the fit of his boots was just this side of uncomfortable.

He let his heightened senses take over to guide him through the forest. He was alert to every rustle of leaves and every distant chirp, but the volume of sounds and the feeling of his ears shifting subtly to pick them up was more irritating than useful. He tried to focus, to filter out the unnecessary noises and find something familiar. As he trudged onward, he thought he caught glimpses of movement through the trees—flickers of light and streaks of shadow, brief and indistinct. His heart raced as each sighting ignited a spark of hope. Maybe it was one of his friends. Maybe he wasn’t as alone as he felt.

Aisling couldn’t have gotten far—shecouldn’thave. Rodney wasn’t that fast a runner. Though he’d lost all concept of time, flimsy as it was there, while he’d been trapped in the vision. If it had been minutes, she was likely still close by. If it had been longer…he didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to think about what she was doing, either. What she was going through. Above anything else, he needed to find her before she foundKael. He needed to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid. Aisling wasn’t a reckless person—far from it, really—but she was absolutely selfless, and would do absolutely anything for those she loved. And although she hadn’t yet said as much to him, Rodney knew she loved the Unseelie King.

Misguided as that was.

Despite knowing that about her, a small part of him was fearful of what she’d think of this version of him—so far from the human man she was used to. The Fae were still new to her, and the way he looked now, while certainly not as frightening as some, was still a rather stark departure from the more handsome, human-like Fae like Kael or Raif.

He was just as uncomfortable as he suspected she’d be, anyway. He felt like an impostor in this skin. Not because he’d been Rodney for too long—in fact, his time as Rodney, just shy of thirty years, had been a mere blink of an eye in comparison to some of the other lives he’d lived. No, he felt like an impostor because he had spent so long adopting any other form besides his own. He hadn’t cared what it was, who he was, as long as he wasn’t himself. Now, a púca again for the first time in a very, very long time, Rodney felt utterly and unbearably trapped.

The terrain grew more and more challenging as he pressed on, with roots jutting out to trip him and low-hanging branches scratching at his face and arms. A fleeting thought sent a chill zipping down his spine: the forest was leading him. He’d veer right, and the underbrush would become impassable. Too far left, and an immense, downed tree blocked his path. Without a map or a light or any tools to defeat the obstacles, Rodney had little choice but to let Elowas dictate his direction.

Something familiar brushed the back of his shoulder but he swatted it away, just as a quiet voice murmured from the darkness, “A faerie once more, I see.”

Rodney wheeled around to find Lyre hunched in the shadows beneath a tall tree, half-leaning against its trunk. He was gaunt, with hollow cheeks and a haunted look in his cat-yellow eyes. Rodney let out a sharp breath.

“Where the hell did you come from?” There was no hiding the relief in his voice. Though Lyre was the last of the three he wanted to find, Rodney was grateful nonetheless to be back in the company of someone other than his own internal voice.

Lyre gestured vaguely in the opposite direction. His robe was missing, leaving him in only plain black vestments. Without the Prelates’ signature garment, he looked much smaller and far less imposing. “Deeper,” he said. “That way, somewhere.”

“I’m looking for the tree line. Raif told us to meet him there.” Rodney began walking again, too anxious to stop for long. Lyre fell into step alongside him.

“Us?” he asked.

Rodney nodded. “Me and Aisling. After you’d already been separated.”

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