Page 66 of The Shadowbound and the False God

“There were four,” she said monotone. “Four elements, four arenas. Fire, air, earth, then water. He gave me a riddle; the answer was my way out, but I couldn’t solve it. Not until the end.”

Despite the distance she’d put between them, Kael moved closer and touched her shoulder. “Were you hurt?”

Aisling shook her head and squeezed her waist a bit tighter. “No. Yes. I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like any of the injuries came back with me, but I can still feel them.”

The pain in her quiet voice made his muscles tense and his heart race. He searched for the right words to soothe that ache but found none. Words would never be enough, even if he were more skilled at wielding them.

“My reflection—that was the answer. I thought it was shadows. I’ve never been much good with riddles.”

“He should never…Ishould never…” Kael fumbled for an adequate response. He so desperately wanted to do this right; he’d pray to any god who might help him at this point.

But Aisling only shook her head again. “It’s all a part of it. The prophecy.”

Hot, choking anger rose rapidly and before Kael could tamp it down he’d slammed the side of his fist into the stone wall beside Aisling.

“Damnthe prophecy!” he shouted. The sound echoed sharply in the chamber, too loud for the small space. “I will not stand by and watch you risk your life for me again and again because someone centuries ago wrote a cryptic poem on a scrap of parchment!”

“You died once for me already.” Aisling’s voice turned cold. “It’s only fair I get the chance to do the same for you.”

Kael was too far gone to give any sort of rational, reasonable response to her cool retort. It was never meant to be this way—his sacrifice was meant to save her. To free her. That it had only been the first way she’d be hurt for him filled him with such rage it was blinding. His shadows roiled beneath his skin and scraped at his bones in response, desperate and hungry and feeding off his fury just as they always had. If only he could set them on himself; he’d gladly let those vicious tendrils tear him apart without a second thought now.

Kael stalked out of the chamber, out of the cairn, and back into the dark to search for some small, hidden piece of himself that might be able to take back control.

The boundaries of Saothrealain magic were tenuous at best. They were artificial, created long after the magic itself was born, and in truth held very little power over it. Their effects were felt mostly by the magic’s practitioners that did not know their way through the gaps. Rodney had never quite gotten around to mastering them: those gaps. Some he could navigate with ease—with his eyes closed, and one hand tied behind his back—but not all. It was those uncharted ones that frightened him, and it was those uncharted ones that he was building up the courage to explore now.

He’d left the group to venture into the smallest chamber in the back of the cairn. He had to crawl inside; sitting cross-legged in the center, there was barely an inch of space between the tips of his ears and the root-addled stone. He preferred it that way, though. Outside, when he’d attempted to Create something small, Elowas’ magic had been overwhelming. He’d been able to weave the glamour that hid their group crudely, and only outof sheer necessity. But here, the enclosed space would help him focus and, he hoped, would limit the magic swirling around him.

Rodney closed his eyes and blew out a long, slow breath through pursed lips. He reached out, testing, running his fingers through the threads of magic. He thought with a smile about how he used to do the same with the beaded curtain he’d hung over his bedroom door when he first moved into Aisling’s trailer. It was a tangled heap on his closet floor now; he’d gotten caught up in it one too many times trying to get to the bathroom in the dark and had ripped it down.

With a full stomach, still warm from the fire and the stew and watching Aisling finally eat, and finally start to sound like herself again, Rodney felt somewhat better about the task he’d volunteered himself for. Not confident by any stretch, but less afraid.

For the time being, at least.

He set Kael’s dagger aside; it would be unwise to attempt anything with it yet. He needed to work up to it, to learn the feel of the magic there. He shut his eyes once more and tried to envision the threads around him as they rubbed against his skin. He’d forgotten just how distinctly he could feel them without a glamour dulling his senses.

He’d always been able to intuit the colors of the threads when he pictured them in his mind. He’d seen them all across the spectrum, from the darkest black to the most beautiful, opalescent shade of white. The magic here was the color of the sky, the deepest shade of midnight blue. It was rigid, and pressed in on him as it had before. He tried not to let that crushing feeling drive him away, though. Instead, he leaned into it. He pushed back.

Rodney again pictured that long lost ring on his finger. The smooth, cool titanium of the band; its brushed matte finish. He’d liked the weight of it when he picked it out of a box of gaudycostume jewelry at a yard sale. He had bought the whole lot of it, knowing just how valuable those sparkly broaches and overlarge baubles would be to a faerie in a bargain. But that ring, he’d kept for himself.

He rubbed the pad of his thumb over the side of his middle finger, again and again like he was spinning the band. The repetitive motion helped him focus, helped him keep his thoughts from straying from the task, helped him hold onto every ounce of concentration he could manage until…

Metal.

Smooth, cool titanium.

He’d done it.

Rodney opened his eyes slowly and looked down at his hand. The ring was solid; its edges didn’t waiver or warp when he turned his hand this way and that. He pulled it off of his finger and held it at eye level, squinting. It smelled faintly of spent magic, but apart from that there were no imperfections that might have given away that it was Created.

Rodney let out a loud whoop and pumped his fist. His enthusiasm was curbed when his knuckles scraped the rough stone ceiling, though, like Antiata was reminding him where he was. Rodney huffed and wiped away the few droplets of blood seeping from the scrapes on his jeans. Still, quietly, he celebrated his accomplishment.

Once he’d settled, Rodney considered what to work on next. He glanced around the small space and reached for a jagged bit of rock. It was brittle; bits and pieces of it broke off when he turned it over in his palm.

He’d make it strong.

It was one thing to Create something from nothing; it was a wholly different beast to change the nature of something that existed already. He’d failed at it before, a hundred times. Some failures worse than others. One, catastrophic.

The memory left Rodney feeling apprehensive again, though he knew he couldn’t afford to be. Fear was a luxury, and one he didn’t have the ability to fall back on any longer. He had to be brave, like Aisling. It was his turn.

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