Page 87 of The Shadowbound and the False God

“Remain here with me, sweet king, and I will allow your companions to leave Elowas untouched. No riddles, no games. You are the only plaything I care to keep.”

It would have been an easy bargain to agree to: Raif would return to his love; the púca to his tricks. And Aisling…to her world. Her life. His Red Woman would grow old, would find happiness. Would forget him, with time. The thought was at once both comforting and aching; the agony of imagining Aisling so very, very far from him was more acute than even that of his magic being torn out of him.

He should agree. He would agree.

But he’d promised.Where we go now, we go together.

Together.

That single word echoed over and over in his mind, his heart.

Would it be more selfish to save her or to keep her?

At his feet, the dagger’s hum had faded to a faint whisper. There was still a bit of blade left: short, jagged, but sharp. Kael barely registered it, so captivated by the shadow-filled deity before them and the weight of his decision—until a sudden movement broke him out of his daze. A blur of motion, a brush against his arm. Kael snapped his head to the right just in time to see Aisling lunge.

His breath locked in his throat as she stooped, fingers closing around the hilt in one swift motion. No pause. No hesitation. Only action, swift and certain, as she propelled herself toward Yalde. Toward the endless void that churned beneath his robe.

Too quickly. Too recklessly.

Raif and Rodney both pushed forward. Kael followed, but he felt as though he was wading through thick, sticking mud. The scene playing out before him seemed so surreal as his mind detached itself, protecting him from the outcome. Aisling hadnearly reached the god. She raised the broken blade. And in that moment as Kael wrestled himself back into reality, he saw it—saw her. The way she didn’t falter, didn’t second-guess. The way she looked straight into the abyss and struck.

Except Yalde was faster.

A human versus a god—there was no realm in which the match would have ended in any other way than this: Yalde’s long, blackened fingers catching Aisling’s descending arm, using her momentum to spin her back to face them and holding her frozen with that broken blade pressed against her throat. Her eyes were wide and fearful when they met Kael’s.

There was no sense of detachment now; Kael was honed in with predatory focus. Tension rippled through his body and a faint, threatening growl rumbled in his chest, a warning sound he made no attempt to rein in. His heart hammered like the drums of war as his gaze flickered between Aisling and Yalde.

Kael studied them for another moment until a twisted sense of calm settled over him and his thoughts finally arranged themselves into something he understood: rage. Familiar, burning rage. It bubbled up and filled every inch of him before the words finally escaped his lips in a vicious, broken whisper: “Let her go.”

“I think not. You spent far too long considering my offer; now, my terms have changed.” Yalde tightened his hold on Aisling and she whimpered as he drew a talon down her cheek, leaving behind a thin red line. A bead of blood bloomed in the center.

He’d marked her.

Kael bared his teeth in a savage snarl that stilled both Rodney and Raif behind him. This was his fight—this would be his kill. He shifted his weight, poised and battle-ready. It was not love that moved him now, but hatred, as powerful and all-consuming and cleansing as fire.

“Understand this, King: without everything I am, you are nothing at all.” Yalde opened his mouth unnaturally wide once more to laugh, and Kael’s reaction to the sound was visceral. A force built deep in his core and rose within him, flooding his veins and scorching everything in its path.

His shoulders trembled with rage; so too did the earth quake beneath their feet. Kael was shattering and he was powerless to stop it—and he didn’t try. He let himself shatter, let himself break apart into an infinitesimal number of jagged pieces that split along the fracture lines that had been spreading through him for as long as he’d lived, and as long as he’d belonged to Yalde.

And from those cracks and fracture lines, that blazing force exploded.

In Elowas, even the tiniest seed will grow into a mighty oak. The smallest spark will ignite a blazing wildfire.

At first, the light was blinding. Aisling shut her eyes instinctively against it, doing her best not to cower against Yalde. She could feel the emptiness of the void at her back, could tell by the way his hands pulled at her that he wished to take her into it. The blade the dark god held to her throat now was just a blade; broken bits of steel without any sort of fortifying magic at all. Rodney’s efforts, strong as they were, had been in vain. Yalde was stronger.

Kael would have agreed to Yalde’s bargain. Though he’d hesitated, she saw it in his eyes. Despite his promise, he’d have once more given his life for her, for all of them. So when Aisling moved, she didn’t have to think. There was no hesitation. The moment she felt the weight of the dagger in her hand, she knew there was nothing left in it—not Raif, nor Rodney, nor Kael. Aisling couldn’t feel any of herself in it, either. But in spite of that she hadn’t faltered. This time—for the first time—she graspedthe blade with confidence. Her mind had finally caught up; for once, it wasn’t urging caution. For once, the voice there sounded brave. She was no longer the frightened girl that had entered Elowas, nor was she as naïve as the one who had donned a pixie glamour to seduce the Unseelie King. She was the Red Woman, and she was powerful in her own right. If nothing else, the Red Woman would die protecting her White Bear. It was a sacrifice Aisling was prepared to make with pride.

But Yalde had countered her attack with ease, and Aisling couldn’t determine whether the fury that hardened Kael’s expression was meant for the god or for her. Likely, it was both.

The sudden brightness washed all color from the crossroads and the forest around them, bursting upwards and extending rapidly out in every direction. And at the center of it all: Kael. He had dropped to his knees, absolutely consumed by the inferno. Aisling couldn’t see him clearly for the brutal brilliance of the magic save for the outline of his trembling shoulders and his lowered head.

A bone in her wrist cracked when Yalde’s third hand shot out to catch her, the sound almost more sickening than the pain that followed. She was so thoroughly transfixed by what was unfolding before her that she felt it only for a moment.

She knew this magic. Sudryl’s stories had taught her its name, but even had Aisling not known what to call it, something in her recognized it. Something intrinsic, deep in her bones and her mind and her heart. It called, and her affinity answered.

Seren.

Aisling had felt it inside Kael as she’d drawn out his shadows, but it hadn’t been strong enough to know for sure. Then, still buried, it had seemed only an internal resistance—perhaps a manifestation of Kael’s own fortitude driving out Yalde’s savage magic. The smallest kernel of something brighter. Now, though—now, the kernel of light had grown into a wild, explosiveforce within him. It had for so long been caged in by shadow, dampened by the darkness he carried. Now, unabated and undeterred, it flowed forth almost just as violently in flames of pure, blazing white. There was no heat to them as they cascaded from him in great surges, yet still they seared as the boundless energy flared and the realm ignited.

---