Page 55 of The Shadowbound and the False God

“What is this place?” Aisling looked hesitantly at the darkened entrance to the stone structure.

“Antiata,” Fenian supplied. “The sole place in the realm safe from the god’s Sight. He will not find you here.”

“Us,”Raif insisted. He shifted under Kael’s weight to look up at the centaur. “He knows that you are involved now, my friend. You must remain here with us.”

Fenian smirked. “I have my own methods of staying out of his reach. I will not be far, and I will likely return, but as I told you once before: I will not hide.”

“See to it that you do return. AsItoldyou: you have a place in our party if you desire it.” Raif held out a hand and Fenian gripped his forearm firmly. Raif did the same, both dipping their heads in respect. The centaur nodded to each of them, then galloped back in the direction from which they’d come.

“I need my sweatshirt,” Aisling murmured, more to herself than anyone else in the group. She was shivering, her teeth chattering loudly, cold even beneath Rodney’s jacket. A sliver of her marked stomach showed as she wrapped her arms more tightly around herself.

“What is all that?” Rodney asked. He reached out to pull back the edge of the coat but she swatted his hand away before he could expose her further. Aisling looked down, then over her shoulder. Her movements became more frantic.

“My bag—I left my fucking bag.” Still speaking to herself, she wheeled around to scan the ground outside the ring of trees.

“It’s okay. Look, I have a spare. See?” Rodney dug in his pack and withdrew a wadded-up sweater. He held it out, voice low as he tried to placate her. Kael’s jaw tightened.

“It’s not okay!” she shouted at him, at all of them. She sounded breathless now. “I packed…I packed everything in there, everything I thought we’d need. Food, extra clothes, my water bottle—I packed everything I needed.”

“I know you did, but we all brought extras too,” Rodney insisted, still holding the sweater out for Aisling. Even from a distance of several paces away, Kael could feel the rising panic radiating from her.

“You hardly brought anything!”

The alseid hushed the group sharply. Kael glanced to where she stood, a protective hand pressed to the trunk of the nearest rowan tree. “Quiet down, all of you. This is a place of peace.”

“You’re freezing Ash, please. Take the sweater.”

Angrily, she snatched it from Rodney’s hand. She shrugged out of his jacket and it fell to the forest floor with a light thud. When she tore through the rest of her own ruined sweater and threw it to the ground, too, Raif and Rodney both went cold at the sight of the archaic runes inked across her bare flesh.

“That is not Rhedelas,” Raif observed. His eyes narrowed. “Who made those markings, Aisling?”

“I did,” Kael said. Though it pained him, he shifted his weight off of his friend’s shoulder to stand on his own. Every aching bone in his body protested the motion, but the sight of Aisling’s bare arms, trembling with cold and rage and panic, drew him forward. She’d become so adept at calming his tempest; now, it was his turn to soothe hers.

She didn’t register his movement at first. Her jaw was tight, her eyes unfocused. He approached her cautiously, as though anything more sudden might frighten her. Then he reached out and ran his fingers lightly down her side, tracing a clean patch of skin between the runes. She was ice beneath his touch.

“You did everything right,” he said gently. She’d come for him, had brought him back from that dark place he was trapped in. She’d done everything. But despite his insistence, she shook her head.

“I left my bag,” she replied, hoarse. “Food, water. First aid. Everything. I just left it there like a—like a fucking idiot.” Herbreath hitched, and she pulled the púca’s too-large sweater over her head in one rough motion, briefly hiding her face beneath the material.

Kael waited. When her head emerged, her eyes were glassy.

“Those are only things,” he said, smoothing a strand of messy hair behind her ear. “We have what matters. You.Us.We’re here.”

“We almost weren’t. I didn’t—I couldn’t control it.” She swiped a tear away harshly before Kael could do so himself.

He pushed away the image of his mimic’s sadistic grin leering at him from within the fog and the way those voices called to him so sweetly. Pushed back against his shadows pulling and twisting in the hollow of his chest. He was torn in two now, one hand reaching for Aisling and the other for his god. He could have both—hewouldhave both. The Low One was angry, but He’d been angry before. He’d always forgiven Kael for whatever misstep he’d made. With enough time, enough piety, this would be no different.

“You were incredible, Aisling. We’re here, we are safe, because of you.”

She relented for just long enough that he caught the briefest glimpse of her: that open, honest kindness she carried so innately. But it didn’t last long before her eyes shuttered once again. She looked away and said, “He told you to sacrifice me. You would have.”

He couldn’t recall the words that were spoken to him when he was in the dark, not with any real clarity. But surely,surely,his god would not have demanded Aisling’s death. And surely Kael would not have abided if He had.

Kael frowned, letting his hands fall back to his sides. “Aisling, the Low One would not—”

“He’s not the fucking Low One!” Her exclamation brought a sort of still; a hush that fell over them more stifling thaneven the púca’s woven glamour. Aisling was dressed now in Rodney’s overlarge sweater, eyes alight with rage. They flicked from Rodney to Raif to Kael, only hovering on him for a fleeting moment before she turned to face Raif more fully.

“What?” Raif’s face remained neutral, but the word came out closer to a breath than a question.

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