Page 86 of The Shadowbound and the False God

Touching.Yalde’s saccharine voice leeched into Kael’s mind, bringing with it a feeling of icy dread nearly cold enough to contend with the lingering warmth of Aisling’s affinity. By the way her hand froze against him and the muscles in Raif’s arm twitched, he could tell they heard him, too.

“Can you stand?” Rodney murmured in Kael’s ear. He hadn’t realized the púca was holding just as much of his weight as Raif; an embarrassment he would face down at a later time.Kael nodded and pushed himself back off of Rodney’s shoulders. His vision flickered and dimmed, growing hazy around the periphery until he blinked it clear again. Raif, too, released Kael hesitantly, though he kept one arm extended, ready to catch him should he falter. His other hand twitched toward the hilt at his side. A reflex, Kael knew, but he stilled his commander with a subtle shake of his head. No steel would touch Yalde, save for the blade imbued with pieces of each of them.

The false god materialized slowly, coalescing out of the murky darkness of the forest and the blue-black space between the stars overhead, the night a liquid that formed itself into his phantasmal figure.

Kael’s resolve was shaken at the sight of him. He hadn’t been able to fully recall Yalde’s visage after fleeing the sylvan cathedral; the crude drawings of him on Antiata’s walls felt only vaguely familiar. A too-wide mockery of a smile split his narrow face and long, black-tipped fingers curled and uncurled at his sides, flaunting tapered talons. Yet it wasn’t Yalde’s monstrous features that so stirred Kael; no, it was that dark brocade blindfold tied over his eyes. It was the knowledge of what was missing beneath the fabric—and the feeling of being seen so clearly under Yalde’s eyeless gaze.

But even as the god’s appearance was unfamiliar, Kael would have recognized that voice anywhere. It seeped slowly from his lips like poisoned honey, languid and dripping as he taunted, “My, don’t you all look lovely next to one another? Especially my two lovebirds, together at last.”

Kael’s hand found Aisling’s. He didn’t take it, but ran his knuckles across hers.

“I did so hope we’d meet this way,” Yalde continued. “I quite like a final stand, and I find it particularly quaint that you’d attempt to turn my own magic against me—the last vestiges ofyour strength, wasted in a futile effort to bait me. A bold choice from one who has never possessed true control.”

“Bold enough,” Rodney shot back. “It worked, didn’t it? You’re here.”

Kael might have cursed him for the unsolicited challenge had he not been so utterly enraptured by the deity before them. Disturbed, and revolted—but enraptured all the same. He couldn’t look away if he wanted to.

He didn’t want to.

“I am indeed.” Yalde’s fingers toyed idly with the collar of his robe, teasing it open enough that they could see, just barely, the glow of the cosmos that swirled in the void hidden there. “My shadows called to me, and so I have come to answer.”

“Your shadows have called you to your death.” Kael found his voice, finally, and took a step forward. He held himself tall, though his every muscle screamed in protest.

“That, I sincerely doubt,” Yalde teased. “You cannot kill a god.”

“At the very least, we have trapped one. Look around you: the crossroads will not allow you to leave.” Kael braced himself for a teasing laugh, for Yalde to step out of place and drift away to demonstrate just how wrong they’d been. But the god remained still where he stood, rooted in place—whether for effect or because he was truly captive, Kael was unsure. The only reaction Yalde gave was a subtle tilt of his head as though considering the group, long cobalt hair sliding over one shoulder. His taunting smile never wavered; the unnatural shape of it made Kael’s skin crawl.

Instead of addressing the revelation, he turned his attention to Rodney. “You are the Weaver, yes? Your Red Woman once offered that you might Create for me whatever I desired. Would you still?”

Anticipating another poorly timed sarcastic response, Aisling spoke before Rodney could: “You refused that bargain.”

“Oh, but you have Created something, haven’t you?” Yalde crooned. “I can hear it singing so sweetly.”

Indeed, the blade still emanated a quiet hum that persisted even as Rodney had finished weaving in the last of Kael’s—ofYalde’s—shadows. Kael had thought it lost beneath the ambient sounds around them, but Yalde was too keen to miss the disturbance. And if his shadows truly called to their master, as he’d said, then he knew precisely what Rodney had Created. He knew precisely what they had planned.

Kael’s stomach twisted at the realization, though he fought to keep it from showing on his face. They’d been foolish, so foolish, to think they could defeat an omniscient deity in his own realm, with his own magic.

“A weapon, perhaps? I would very much like to see it.” Yalde’s wicked grin faded. “Show it to me.”

Rodney’s hand rose and his sleeve fell back to reveal the dagger he’d slid beneath it. His face twisted in horror as he watched his arm move independent of his own will.

Yalde inclined his head to the other side, appraising. “It is rather small, isn’t it? Surely,surelyyou did not think a weapon so slight could accomplish the impossible. Why, it’s hardly the length of my forearm.”

A third arm appeared from the opening in Yalde’s robe to illustrate his point. Kael nearly recoiled; Raif was unable to stop himself from doing so. Kael had never once imagined the Low One in any form but that which was illustrated on the canvas that hung in the Prelates’ chambers. Though not particularly appealing, that artist’s rendition still possessed a sort of dark and barbaric beauty. He had been drawn to that painting even as a child—that was the figure that visited him in his dreams, that he envisioned watching over him from the periphery of The Cut. This deity was so grotesque, and so wholly unlike anythinghis imagination could have conjured. A surge of loathing pulsed through him, quickly dampening all else.

Kael seized the blade from Rodney’s grasp and stepped forward, fighting to keep a firm grip on its hilt despite the way it vibrated violently against his palm. He raised the dagger as he moved, calculating with a warrior’s practiced precision the most lethal place to strike.

Yalde stared him down and that obscene grin spread across his face once more as he laughed. The jarring sound echoed off the trees around them, mingling with the dagger’s discordant hum. Its vibrations made the bones in Kael’s arm ache, while Yalde’s laughter grew louder and louder and louder still.

And then the blade cracked straight through and shattered like fragile glass.

Kael halted, releasing the hilt and letting the fragments of metal drop to the ground. A cold numbness spread through him as he watched waves of inky shadow flow from the metal, bleeding and expanding and curling their tendrils around Yalde,intoYalde, as the deity just laughed and laughed.

His robe fell open and those shadows surged, called into the glittering, swirling void beneath. Had Kael not felt Aisling still by his side, still sending her soothing warmth rippling through him, he might have followed. It was beautiful, Yalde’s darkness, and it called to Kael, too. The pull was strong—so very nearly stronger than he was. The magic he and Yalde shared had its roots so deeply burrowed into him, wrapped around his bones, his being, that Kael thought he had once been wholly made of it. That now, having let it go, he might crack apart just as had the dagger without it bonding him together.

“Another bargain, then: this one by my terms.” Yalde’s three hands were outstretched, playing with the shadows that greeted him as an old friend. They writhed against his skin, a loving caress. They had never been so kind to Kael.

“Name them.” Kael ignored the sounds of protest from the others.

---