Page 7 of The Shadowbound and the False God

She squeezed her eyes shut. Tears welled there, burned there, but refused to fall. A whole ocean of them, waiting, but as much as she tried to break down that wretched dam, they wouldn’tcome. So unable to cry, Aisling dug her fingers into the mud, chest heaving, and let out a vicious scream. It was so loud it hurt her ears and scorched her throat, but the sound just kept coming and coming out of her. Pouring into the lifeless thicket and spilling into the glade and spreading further, into the tree line beyond.

The release was as blissful as it was agonizing.

The thunder rumbled louder and louder as Aisling screamed, the lightning striking at a frantic pace. But the sky could have been falling around her and she wouldn’t have paid it any mind. She might have welcomed its collapse if she could have gone with it.

And then: silence. The absolute stillness that followed the last roar of thunder and the final flash of lightning was stifling—almost unbearably so. There was no breeze to rustle the stubborn clumps of ice and snow from sodden branches, no sound to break the quiet. Aisling could hear only her own thudding heartbeat, her own labored breaths. Her noisy, graceless footfall as she clambered out of the thicket and made to trudge back across the clearing on leaden feet. Just as the storm overhead, the one that had been raging inside her had ebbed, that fire in her chest eddying away into smoldering embers. More than anything, now, Aisling was tired.

It was a strange sort of calm that she felt fall over Brook Isle, as if the island was simultaneously sighing a breath of relief while bracing in anticipation for one more flash to light up the sky, or one more roll of thunder to shake the earth. Neither came, and yet the quiet tension remained. Idly, Aisling wondered whether she was imbuing that tension into the atmosphere herself.

It felt similar—too similar—to how it had felt in The Cut, just before the Silver Saints appeared in a blinding blast of energy. She’d worked so hard to avoid that night, but she hadn’t the energy to battle the memory anymore. As she walked, she let thehurt wash over her, fresh as it felt when she’d been left standing in the center of the ritual circle.

Kael, on his knees and gazing up at her. Kael, her hand beneath his, guiding the blade across his neck. The confession stuck in her chest that she’d been unable to give voice to:I love you. I’m yours. I love you.

When she whispered those words over his body, finally, she’d been the only one able to hear them.

Aisling wasn’t alone when she stumbled back into the trailer park.

A hunched figure lurked in the shadow of a double-wide and stepped forward as she passed. The home’s porch light flickered on, triggered by their movement, its fluorescent bulb humming loudly in the otherwise quiet night.

“Hello Aisling.”

She stopped dead. Something about the way Cole spoke her name—almost cooed it—set her teeth on edge and drew a chill to creep up her spine and run down the backs of her arms.

He didn’t wait for her to acknowledge him before speaking again. “All’s well with the trailer I assume?”

“Yes,” she responded tightly.

“And you still insist on keeping it, Aisling? On staying?” he asked.

Aisling. Aisling.

Cole had never once called her anything other than Miss Morrow.

As he blinked, before his eyelids closed, Aisling noticed a flicker of horizontal movement: a membrane swept across his eyes, darting from the inner to the outer corners. And when he smiled, she saw that his teeth were unnaturally small and pointed. They fit together like jagged jigsaw pieces.

This—whoever,whateverit was—wasn’t Cole. Not anymore. But whether it was wearing a glamour or wearing Cole himself, Aisling couldn’t tell. She didn’t care to find out, either.

The Veil will weaken further. The echoes will spread. And then things will begin to come through.The Shadowwood Mother’s voice in the back of her mind broke her out of the trance the faerie’s eyes had captured her in, and Aisling fell back a step. It didn’t say another word, but drifted back into the shadows. It beckoned her to follow, crooking the extra joint of one inhumanly long finger. Its leering, predatory grin only widened when Aisling visibly shuddered.

She didn’t want to let it out of her sight long enough for it to snatch her up while her back was turned, so she stepped carefully backward, one arm outstretched behind her until she could grasp onto Rodney’s porch railing. The faerie didn’t move, but watched her all the way, still smiling as she reached over her shoulder to pound on the door. Rodney caught her when she fell inside. She rebounded quickly, shoving the door shut and sliding the chain lock into place with shaking hands.

“Aisling, what—” Rodney looked at her, alarmed.

“It was Cole,” she said through chattering teeth. She hadn’t realized how cold she was; her clothes were soaked through and her legs were covered in hardened mud where she’d knelt in the thicket. “It was Cole, but it wasn’t. It was something else.”

Rodney wrapped a blanket around Aisling’s shoulders then moved her back into the kitchen. “Wait here,” he said sternly. As though sensing something in the tone of his voice, Briar placedhimself between Aisling and the door after Rodney stepped out and closed it behind himself.

Beneath the blanket, Aisling trembled. The trailer was warm, and her fingers were thawing, but the encounter outside had left her feeling frozen. She didn’t notice Lyre until he spoke.

“Have a pleasant walk?” he asked teasingly. He’d moved to the couch, taking her seat in the corner. Seeing him there, so incongruous with the scene around him, only further unsettled Aisling. His ink-black hair had fallen loose from where it was usually slicked back tight to his skull and his pale skin was sallow under the trailer lights. Still, his wolfish countenance never changed.

She thought of the footprint on the beach and the creature in the water and, for the third time that night, Aisling repeated, “I’ve done everything it asked of me. The war is over. Why are the echoes are still happening?”

“The Veil was very weak; it needs time to heal. Much like the Courts.” Lyre appraised her from head to toe, then added, “Much like yourself.”

Aisling shifted uncomfortably, sure his catlike eyes could peer straight through her skin and pick out all the broken bits inside her. His evaluation of those pieces was not one she wanted to hear. Before she could respond, Rodney stepped back into the trailer.

“I ran it off.” He patted Briar’s head, a dismissal from his protective post. Briar’s hackles lowered as he relaxed against Aisling’s hip.

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