Page 89 of The Shadowbound and the False God

Aisling kept her eyes fixed ahead on the distant threshold where the ebony horizon disappeared into the sky. Every breath tasted of ash and reeked of stale, spent magic, thick and cloying against the back of her throat. Beside her, Kael pushed forward in silence, his shoulders tight and steps uneven.

Somewhere behind them, the ground let out a low groaning sound. A new fissure broke open and the sand began to spill into it. Its flow tore at their feet like a receding tide, and it felt to Aisling like they were trapped inside a draining hourglass.

“There!” Sudryl called. “Just ahead!”

Fenian veered to the left and moved with renewed speed in the direction of some unseen thing that Sudryl drove him toward. Aisling squinted, but she was hardly able to discern the sand from the night. Whatever Sudryl was pointing to was well outside the spectrum of Aisling’s vision.

Fenian stopped first, and the rest of them followed suit. Rodney skidded in the sand, nearly pulling Aisling down with him. Sudryl dismounted gracefully and stepped forward. Her hands were raised, fingers spread wide as she held them in front of her. The howling wind picked up once more, thrashing against them and stinging their skin with flecks of sand. Aisling tugged her sweater up to cover her nose and mouth.

Sudryl was unmoved by the gale, her stance solid and her focus unbreakable. Before her, the air shifted and whirled and began to glow. It was that same liquid silver light that shone beneath the stone arch of the moon gate, the same magic that had allowed them to enter Elowas.

Sudryl was opening the door.

“Come with us,” Raif said to Fenian.

The centaur shook his head, allowing himself a brief, sad smile. “I no longer exist where you’re going, my friend.”

Raif raised his fist to his heart and bowed to Fenian at the waist. Aisling turned to Sudryl then as the faerie lowered her hands and stepped back from the door. The alseid had the power to escape Elowas all along, and yet had stayed to doggedly tend her bygone gods.

“Sudryl?” Aisling realized she had never learned whether the faerie was aneiydh or whole, but she asked the question all the same.

In answer, Sudryl took Fenian’s hand and let him lift her again onto his back.

“I belong with the grove; I will not leave them to wither and die alone. Orist needs me.”

Aisling wanted to protest, but her throat was too thick with tears. Instead, she mimicked Raif’s gesture, bowing to the pair. Rodney followed suit, then Kael. Sudryl shooed them on, but her gaze was affectionate as she raised her hand to her heart, as well.

And with the god realm crumbling at their backs, the four returned to the Wild.

It was dusk when the group stepped through the door, but even the sun’s low, dying rays forced them all to shield their eyes against the brightness. Back amongst the towering, ancient pines of the Wild, Aisling felt as though she could breathe—truly breathe—for the first time in a very, very long time. She filled her lungs again and again with the fresh forest air, tasting the soil and the trees and the dampness of climbing moss.

The clearing before the moon gate was thicker with vegetation now than it had been when they’d left. The tiny brook that bisected it was buried beneath ferns and undergrowth. Without Kael’s regular visits to that secret place, the forest had reclaimed it for itself. The thin layer of snow and ice was gone, too. It was still cold, but tiny green sprouts poked through the wet dirt in places, some already budding.

It was spring.

Winter had passed in the time they’d spent in Elowas—what had felt like days. Like an eternity. Here in the Wild, mere months.

Before she could descend the broken stone steps, Kael had pulled Aisling roughly into his arms. He held her tight against him and buried his face in her hair, drawing in a deep breath, taking in her scent just as she had the forest’s. She relaxed into his hold, but regretted it instantly when a burst of pain shot through her wrist. Kael grasped her by the shoulders and pulled back to look down at her. His expression was stern.

“How could you have attempted something so reckless?”

“Because you would have taken his bargain,” she accused.

Kael sighed heavily, his grip on her loosening. “I would have. You were right not to trust me.”

“I’m tired of letting you sacrifice, Kael. It was my turn.” Aisling turned her head and kissed his knuckles, first of his right hand, then his left. He smoothed his thumbs over her shoulders.

“You are a fool, Aisling Morrow, but I am grateful for you,” he acquiesced.

Aisling looked up at him with a half-smile. “Some might even say you love me?”

Kael chuckled and pulled her in once more, gently this time. “They would be correct.”

After their brief pause at the moon gate, watching the silver light fade away to nothing, the group trudged in silence to the Undercastle. It was just beginning to wake, the sounds of hobs scurrying from chamber to chamber a comfort to Aisling: that backwards Undercastle she’d tunneled her way out of had been deathly silent.

This was real. She was back; this was real.

It was only in that comfort that she allowed herself to begin processing what had happened at the crossroads. Kael’s loss, and what had been unearthed within him because of it. A kernel of Seren, hidden long ago in his ancestral line, passed on and on down until it had been buried in him. There were portions missing, parts of his history that Aisling couldn’t quite piecetogether. But she was certain of this, certain of the power Kael now wielded, and certain of its significance.

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