Page 50 of The Shadowbound and the False God

Yalde hummed in approval. “The Seelie Fae have long held a much greater penchant for humans than the Unseelie, though not only for their own amusement. Before there were courts, sects of old used to worship me in a rather...distinct way. Not all, of course, and it was discouraged by many. But for some, the practice endured. When the courts were formed, it was a small number of Seelie Fae that kept it alive. Of course, there are no Seelie Fae here with us tonight, but the concept is much the same no matter who commits the act. Kael?”

Kael twisted in his chair to look up at Yalde. The dark god’s smile widened and he drew a talon down the scarred side of his face. Aisling ground her teeth so hard she was sure her jaw would crack under the pressure.

“You must recall how your Aisling, your beautiful Red Woman, was so devoted to bringing peace that she was willing to spill your blood in its pursuit. And so easily, too, with hardly any protest at all. Truly a moving display. Now, I’d like you to demonstrateyourdevotion tome.”

“No,” Aisling whispered the word before she could stop herself, tears already blurring her vision as her heart stuttered.

Yalde leaned down so his cheek was pressed to the crown of Kael’s head. He looked at Aisling this time when he commanded sweetly, “Kael, you will sacrifice the Red Woman to me.”

Kael was on his feet at her side before she could react and when he seized Aisling’s arm, his grip was an unyielding vise.

“Prepare her, won’t you? I want everything to beperfect,” Yalde insisted.

Kael hauled Aisling out of her chair and, stunned into compliance, she let him pull her towards a gap in the wall of trees. They shifted and wove into a smaller room, a chapel off the larger cathedral. It was quiet there as Kael released her and lit a candle on a waist-high ledge of intertwined branches. He turned to her once more and placed his hands on her waist. In one smooth motion, he lifted Aisling and sat her on the ledge. Her mind was blank with panic as he roughly tore open her sweater and shirt from hem to neckline. Aisling’s every nerve was aflame in his proximity, though his fingers were like ice against her bare skin.

Yalde followed to watch the pair from the doorway, his expression even more wicked in the flickering candlelight. He held out several thin sticks to Kael. “Ensure the runes are legible, please.”

Kael pressed a palm flat to Aisling’s chest and wordlessly eased her to lean back against the wall of trees. He kept his hand there, pinning her to their rough trunks, as he dipped the end of one of the sticks into the candle’s flame until it began to catch.

“Kael,” Aisling said, the word a strangled sob. “Kael, please.”

Kael raised the stick to his lips and blew out the flame. When he made the first mark just below her bra line before letting the charred tip cool, Aisling winced and sucked in her stomach.

“Kael,”she tried again, begging now. “Look at me.” But he was singularly focused on the tiny, intricate runes he was drawingacross her skin. Even if he had done as she asked, she wasn’t sure his shadow-filled eyes would have recognized her at all.

Yalde disappeared from the doorway, drifting off to begin his own preparations once he was satisfied with Kael’s penmanship. He worked slowly, methodically, his face so close to Aisling’s body that she could feel his breath feather across her stomach. It was as cold as his hands.

She could hear Yalde moving around in the space adjacent. Brief flashes of light flared and dimmed in the gaps between the trees as he lit candles all around the cathedral. He was distracted.

They were alone.

Aisling drew in a shaky breath beneath the weight of Kael’s palm and looked down at the top of his head as he worked. His silver-white hair took on a golden cast in the candlelight; the wreath of shadows encircling it like a crown cut a harsh contrast against the pale shade.

This was her chance—her only chance, and likely her last.

“Kael Elethyr Ardhen,” she whispered, then paused. Now that she was here, she wasn’t sure what to say. What order to give.Run? Fight?Nothing seemed quite right, so instead she just said quietly, “Come back to me.”

So Kael Elethyr Ardhen came back.

Kael Elethyr Ardhen, come back to me.

Those words. Her voice. Her voice speaking his name. Her voice commanding him back to her.

Like a curtain being drawn aside, the haze that clouded his mind, his vision, was lifted. Kael froze where the blackened tip of a stick hovered above Aisling’s bare stomach. His own hand held it, and his other held her still. Her skin was covered in charcoal markings, tiny runes he didn’t recognize. She was warm beneath his palm.

“You are not real,” he growled. It was a mimic, a cruel mockery. Just as it had been each and every other time.

“I am,” the vision whispered softly. Soothingly. A shard of ice shot straight through his heart.

“You are not here.” He wished her away, wished she would disappear again and leave him be. This wasn’t Aisling; there was no Aisling. Not here.

“I am, Kael.” She spoke a bit louder this time, more insistently. Her voice broke on his name.

She couldn’t be.“You can’t be.”

“Look at me.”

“I won’t.” Kael shuddered. The tremor wracked his body before he was able to brace himself against it and his grip on the stick tightened until it snapped in half between his fingers. Those visions had hollowed out a vacuous space in his chest that grew deeper each time he had to watch her die. Each time he had to watch his own hand, his shadows, his dagger, descend on her. He hissed through gritted teeth, “I have seen every version of you here, and every version of how I’d kill you. I cannot face another. I will not look again.”

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