Quicksilver (The Fae & Alchemy Series Book 1)

The war camp was a scar in the foothills on the other side of the Omnamerrin Mountains. It sat between Cahlish and the Sanasrothian border—twenty thousand tents, nestled in amongst boulders and low, scrubby, snow-covered brush. As I stepped out of the shadow gate, my stomach hurtling upward in my chest, I saw just how many tents there were, pale and dirty grey in color, stretching off into the distance, and my breath caught in my throat.

This was a war camp.

It had obviously been here so long that there were now permanent structures, too—two-story buildings made out of wood, scattered all throughout the encampment. On my life, the one closest to the muddy square where Fisher’s shadow gate had dumped us looked like a fucking tavern.

Everywhere, Fae warriors, both male and female, hurried about, heavily armed and wearing a variety of different kinds of armor. In the distance, a broad, wide ribbon of frozen water carved its way through the land, separating the camp from…from…

Graceless gods.

The land on the other side of the river was a blackened, charred wasteland. No snow covered the ground there. Pillars of smoke rose up to meet a grim, foreboding sky clad in a mantle of iron-grey clouds. There were no trees. No greenery. Only the black dirt, and the smoke, and in the distance the jagged outline of a black and terrible fortress situated on top of a looming hill.

“What in five hells happened there?” Carrion dumped his bag down at his feet, his mouth hanging open as he surveyed the scene before us. There was no mistaking his shock. It mirrored my own. I looked to my feet for Onyx, to pick him up and clutch him to my chest, but he wasn’t there, of course. It was a small comfort that he was safe back at Cahlish. Fisher had refused to let me bring him. He’d insisted the fox wouldn’t last more than five minutes in the camp, that his own warriors would snare him before any of us could blink, and that if I wanted to continue the fantasy that he made a good pet, I had to leave him behind in Archer’s care.

Something uneasy twisted behind the cage of my ribs as I squinted, trying to get a better look at the fortress on the hill. “What is that place?”

“That is Ammontraíeth,” Ren said, emerging from the shadow gate, leading his horse behind him. “The seat of the enemy.”

“Ammontraíeth?” Even the name felt like a perversion as I forced it out.

“Hell’s teeth.”

The voice came from behind, cold and hard. Kingfisher emerged from the shadow gate, Bill’s reins in his gloved hand. The massive black stallion snorted and blew. His flanks were slick with sweat, even though he’d only traveled from the stables to the camp through the gate. He clearly didn’t like the idea of being here any more than I did. As soon as the horse’s hind quarters were through the rippling wall of black smoke, the gate twisted in on itself and disintegrated into wisps of shadow that went chasing across the ground in every direction.

“Its walls are sheer, made of obsidian, slick as glass,” Kingfisher said. “Built from the bones of demons. The peaks and spires are as sharp as a razor’s edge.”

Hell’s teeth, indeed. I tucked my chin into the collar of the riding cloak Fisher had given me when we left the Winter Palace, fighting not to show my discomfort. The place had an ill air about it, even from this many miles away.

I jumped when a tall, wiry-looking creature with vines wrapped around its skinny arms and legs appeared from behind the tavern and purposefully strode toward us. Its skin was gnarled and knobbly like tree bark. Its eyes were a rich brown, dark as loamy earth. Instead of hair, a riot of vines and leaves sprouted from the top of its blockish head and trailed down its back. I was reasonably sure it was a male due to the pants and shirt it was wearing, though that wasn’t a solid foundation to base any assumption on considering I was wearing very similar attire.

“Good morning, Lord,” the creature said. His voice—definitely male—sounded like dry logs scraping together. “Glad to have you back so soon. The lodgings you requested have already been prepared. A small breakfast is waiting for you in your tent. More warriors have returned, back from their scouting missions. So few of your riders have seen you that only a handful are now inclined to trust the rumors flying around camp that you’ve returned. They’re currently meeting in the map tent, and are arguing—”

“It’s okay, Holgoth. Renfis will talk to them,” Fisher said, handing him the reins.

Holgoth shot Ren an uncertain glance, then turned back to Fisher. “Sire, it…would be best if your warriors saw you. It’s been so long since—”

“Ren will talk to them,” Fisher repeated, smiling softly. “He’s executed this war perfectly while I’ve been gone. I see no reason for a change in leadership. They’re his warriors, not mine.”

Ren looked down at his boots. He wasn’t happy. Nor was Holgoth, who didn’t seem to know quite what to do with himself. He dithered, passing Bill’s reins from one knotty hand to the other, then sighed and reached out for Ren’s horse’s reins, too. “As you wish, sire—”

“Fisher. Just Fisher is fine.”

Holgoth sadly shook his head. “No, sire. I apologize, but…no.”

Kingfisher made his excuses and drew up his hood, disappearing into the war camp. Holgoth took the horses and insisted on relieving us of our bags as well, reassuring us that he’d keep them safe and we would find our things in our tents later. After he was gone, Ren snarled something in a language I didn’t understand and stormed off in an easterly direction at a fast clip. “Are you two coming?” he shouted over his shoulder.

“Where are you going?” Carrion yelled back.

“Where do you think? To the godscursed armory!”

The Darn began in the east as a spring, up in the Shallow Mountains, where the Gilaríen Fae and the Autumn Court presided. Everlayne had mentioned them in the library when she and Rusarius had been trying to educate me about the other courts’ quicksilver pools. I hadn’t been paying attention, of course. My mind had been fixed solely on how I was going to steal Fisher’s pendant, so I’d retained very little of the information they’d imparted about the other courts.

I listened a little closer as Ren talked about the river, though.

“At first, it’s just a small pool. As it travels down through the mountains, it gains momentum and gathers more water to it. There are plains a couple of hundred miles away where the Darn is over a league wide.” The general angled his sword over his head and charged, canines bared. It was a miracle that Carrion didn’t shit his pants where he stood. I had never witnessed anything as terrifying as a blooded Fae warrior attacking at full speed, and I was willing to bet Carrion hadn’t, either. To his credit, he managed to get his sword up just in time to block Ren’s downward strike, though that was about it. Ren flicked Carrion’s sword out of his hands and put him on his ass in the snow before he could blink a second time. I stifled a laugh as the male held out his hand, helping Carrion to his feet.

“You’ll be laughing on the other side of your face soon.” Carrion used one hand to dust the snow off his pants and the other to flip me off. “It’s almost your turn. My ass can’t take much more of this.”

“I bet that’s the first time you’ve said those words,” I called.

He stuck out his tongue like a petulant child. “I’m more of a giver than a receiver, actually.”

Ren clanged the end of Carrion’s sword with his own. “Focus. You’re dropping the blade the moment anything makes contact with it. Do that in a real fight, and you’ll be dead in three seconds.”

Carrion spat, breathing heavily. It was freezing cold. Fresh flakes of snow skirled in the air, eddying in circles, but Carrion had shed his cloak half an hour ago, and his shirt was marked with sweat. Once, my insides would have stumbled over the way I could make out his muscled chest through the damp material. But that was before.

Before Fisher.

“I think it’s safe to say that I wouldn’t last longer than three seconds regardless of where I put my sword,” he panted. “You’re a demon with that blade. Plus you’re twice my size!”

“Oh, please. He’s three times your size,” I said.

I was flipped off again.

“Your size could be your greatest advantage,” Ren advised. “You’re smaller than me, so you could be quicker—”

“Hah! Please don’t lie to me. You have Fae speed. I’m pretty light on my feet, but you…” Carrion shook his head in surrender.

Carrion was light on his feet. Despite my doubts, he was well-practiced with a sword and knew how to handle the weapon, but Ren made him look like an infant struggling to find its feet for the first time. It would never be a fair fight between them.

Ren disregarded Carrion’s complaining. “I’ve fought alongside humans who roared in the face of certain death, held their own in the charge, and emerged victorious from battle. They did their people proud. Will you give in so easily?” He batted the end of his sword against Carrion’s again in a goading, playful way. The sound of metal on metal rang out along the bank of the frozen river. “And shame their memories in the process? Hmm?”

“Well, fuck me. When you put it like that…”

Carrion attacked. It could only be called an attack because Carrion was the one to move first. Ren took nimble, casual steps back as Carrion advanced, but he conceded the ground to the man, all the while easily rebuffing his strikes, reading every one of his moves before he’d even made it and generally making Carrion look like an idiot without even trying.

“In Loyanbal, at the center of the plains, the temperature drops, and the Darn becomes a band of solid silver. That is where the water freezes first.” Ren parried Carrion’s sword away as if batting away an irritating fly. “Early in the season, the ice is over eight inches thick. Strong. Safe. Solid enough to support a rider and horse and permit them to cross.”

I watched Ren closely. The loose set of his shoulders. The way he twisted at his hips, not his shoulders. The real work was happening lower to the ground, though. It was impressive how he moved, stepping and transferring his weight, graceful and catlike, never crossing his feet. He had complete mastery over his body. He made fighting look as easy as breathing.

Clang!

Clang!

“Oof!” Carrion crossed his feet—he clearly hadn’t been watching Ren’s technique—then tried to retreat when Ren lunged at last, and the thief went down. He hit the ground so hard that I heard his teeth crack together from ten feet away. “In the dead of winter, the Darn becomes the only means of travel between the mountains and the sea,” Ren said, circling his prey. “The passes choke with snow and are blocked. Traders, pilgrims, and pirates alike all tread the creaking Darn in order to make a living.”

Carrion threw up his hands. “I surrender! I’m…fucking beat.” He fought to swallow. “Torture her now. I need to…catch my breath.”

Ren turned his attention to me, and my spine stiffened a touch. Not with fear, exactly. More…anticipation. I knew more than the basics of sword fighting. I’d held plenty of them. I’d made enough of them in secret while apprenticing with Elroy in his workshop. I knew how they were weighted. How they tipped in your hand when you swung them. I knew what the press of a cold steel hilt felt like resting on the top of a closed hand. But these Fae swords were different. The blades themselves were narrower. Longer. The cross guard was non-existent, as if a Fae warrior would never make a mistake so stupid as allowing their hands to slip forward down a sharpened edge.

Ren did exactly that, though. He took the weapon Carrion had been practicing with by the blade and crossed the riverbank, holding it out, offering me the grip. “What do you say, Saeris? Want to try your hand at a little point and stab?”

No. I was going to say no. Definitely. One hundred percent. I was still convinced that I was going to decline, even as my hand closed around the leather-wrapped hilt. Fuck. I really didn’t have it in me to back down from a challenge…

Ren grinned broadly. “Atta girl.” He spun around and headed back to the clearing where he’d ‘fought’ Carrion, resting the blade of his own sword on his shoulder. “In the west, in Voriel, at the port city of Western Dow, the Darn flows out into the s—”

He turned and blocked. It happened so fast. One second, his back was to me. The next, he had dropped low, his shoulder level with my chest, and his sword was raised defensively above his head, edge to edge with mine.

I hadn’t actually been going to strike him. I’d turned the blade so that only the flat would have made contact with his shoulder. It had seemed like a smart-ass way to begin our lesson. Elroy had gotten me with the old, never lower your defenses, never turn your back on your enemy, more times than I could count. Fat lot it had done me, though. Turned out, Renfis’s guard was never down. That, or the general had eyes in the back of his head. He didn’t even blink. “On a clear day, you can see all the way to Tarran Ross Island from the cliffs of Western Dow.”

He came at me.

I saw a flash of silver as his sword moved.

And then I saw the snow-pregnant sky.

And then I saw the ground.

Then, I saw stars.

It was all over in a heartbeat.

Carrion’s loud whoop echoed along the riverbank. “That was funny. Now I see why you were laughing so hard.”

I’d have cursed him roundly for being such a prick, but he was right. I’d laughed at him plenty. It was only fair. And I couldn’t fucking breathe anyway.

Ren appeared in the patch of sky above my head. He frowned down at me. “You all right?”

“Ugh. Uh….yes?”

He laughed. “Want to go again?”

“Yes.” I mean, once you’d already had your legs taken out from underneath you, what was another ten or eleven face-first collisions with hard-packed snow? Even as I allowed him to help me to my feet, I made the decision there and then that I wouldn’t go down again, though.

I’d watched Renfis. I’d studied the way he moved, so I adapted my own fighting stance, and I learned quick. When he attacked again, I was ready. He rained down blows on me, the steel in his hands flashing like lightning, but I met each of his advances with an appropriate block. When he switched up his hold and wielded his sword like it was a club, I adjusted my stance again and made sure I threw back each of his assaults.

At first, I simply defended myself. An hour passed, the clouds growing ever darker, and Ren’s appraising feedback took on a challenging note. “What’s the matter, Saeris? You’ll never win a fight if you’re afraid to wet your steel with blood. Come on. Fight me.”

Oh, it was a fight he wanted?

If he wanted a fight, I’d give him one.

It was good, being able to move like this. To have a proper weapon in my hands. Ever since Harron had bound my hands behind my back and run me through, I’d felt vulnerable. Weak. Incapable. But now… I was myself again. The girl who’d taken down three of Madra’s guardians outside The Mirage. The girl many a Zilvaren thug had underestimated at their own peril. All of the rage and the fear that had been choking me since the Hall of Mirrors welled up inside of me and rose up the back of my throat.

I flew at Renfis, sword raised, and I screamed.

The general had faced down worse foes than me. I couldn’t imagine some of the horrors he’d gone toe-to-toe during his time fighting this war. But the skin around his eyes did tighten a touch as he parried my first series of strikes. He was having to concentrate, just a little. I was no fool. He could end this in a heartbeat if he wanted to. But my pride swelled when I managed to make Ren retreat a step. An actual step of retreat, earned not given. Carrion hadn’t managed that. I—

“You hurl yourself at the end of that sword like you want to die.”

I’d been readying another twisting blow, but the close proximity of the voice, right next to my ear, threw me off guard. The end of Ren’s sword circled my own, ripping the weapon out of my grip, and the sword went sailing through the air. It arced beautifully, landing point-first in the snow at Kingfisher’s feet.

The bastard clapped. “I see you’ve perfected the art of being disarmed.” He was still wearing his thick black cloak, though the hood was lowered now. We were far enough from the borders of the camp that no one would see him down here. The wolf’s head gorget flashed silver at this throat.

“I know it’s virtually impossible, but could you at least try to be nice?” Ren asked, squinting at Fisher through the fat snowflakes that started to fall with a purpose out of nowhere.

Fisher considered his request. Shrugged. “I could try.”

Of course he would show up right as I was about to get inside Ren’s guard. Of course he would ruin my focus. It was just my luck. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me rankled, though. Not this time. “Let me guess. You’ve come to show me personally just how useless I am with a sword? Come on, then.” I held my hand out, gesturing for him to come forward. “Be my guest.” I might not hold my own against the likes of him for very long, but I’d make sure I got at least one hit in before he thrashed me.

Kingfisher smirked ruinously. “You’re not ready for me, human. I don’t come with a training mode.”

“Are the captains gathered?” Ren asked, striding toward Fisher. “Is it time to speak with them?”

Fisher nodded. “Just waiting on one or two stragglers.”

“Then I’ll need to head back to my tent and change. I’ll meet you there.”

Fisher caught Ren’s arm as he passed. “I don’t think I’ll be needed.”

For the first time since meeting him, I watched Renfis bristle with anger. “You’re more than needed. You’re required. We’re done with this, brother. If you bear me any love or respect at all, you’ll come to the meeting.”

Fisher’s expression formed a defiant no at first, but then he met Ren’s eyes, huffed with annoyance, and let him go. “All right. Fine. I’ll be there. But take the boy with you for now, will you? I need to speak with the Alchemist.”

Was ‘Alchemist’ an upgrade from ‘Osha’? Didn’t sound like it. Not when it was said with the same heaping dose of disdain. I hurried after Fisher, who moved with frustrating speed through the camp, his head ducked to avoid the curious eyes of the Fae warriors who watched him flit past their cookfires with interest. After a while, I realized that it wasn’t actually Fisher they were interested in. It was me.

“Human?”

“A human.”

“It’s a human…”

I kept forgetting that I was an oddity here. Word had traveled quickly around the Winter Palace that a human had arrived after my kind had been absent from Fae lands for so long. The shine had worn off pretty quickly there. It hadn’t taken long for the members of the Yvelian court to forget all about me. Here, I was a novelty that hadn’t been seen in centuries. Some of the warriors had clearly never laid eyes on a human woman before in their entire lives. The pressure of their eyes made me want to find a dark hole to crawl into, but I didn’t have that luxury here, so I jogged after Fisher instead.

“Where the hell are you taking me?”

“To my quarters,” he said, the words clipped.

His quarters? I was going to raise holy hell if he tried to bind me there again. “Gods, will you slow the fuck down? My legs are a lot shorter than yours.”

Fisher grumbled something, but he did slow down a little. I waited for him to lead me into one of the wooden structures at the center of the camp. We passed a mercantile and what looked like a food store, along with a number of other mysterious buildings, and then there were no more solid structures left. Only the sea of tents.

A large tent, then. Had to be. Fisher would need a sizable space to house his fucking ego, after all. But there were no tents with grand awnings or entrances festooned with shimmering fabrics. They were all the same size, and one was just as dirty and weather-bleached as the next.

Eventually, Kingfisher ceased his charge through the churned-up mud—thanks to the hundreds of boots stomping through the walkways, the snow couldn’t stick here—and grabbed a tent flap, stepping to one side as he held it open. “Go in. Please.” He winced when he said please; manners were evidently painful to Fisher.

I entered the tent willingly thanks to that word, though. Inside, a small fire burned in a grate that wasn’t vented in the slightest. There was no smoke. It was going to take a long time for me to adjust to the common, everyday use of magic. It was quite impressive, though, as was the size of Fisher’s quarters. In some ways, I had been right. Fisher had secured himself a comfortable base for himself. You just wouldn’t have known it from the outside. The tent’s interior formed on a large space, at least ten times bigger than it should have been given the tent’s dimensions. A huge king-sized bed sat at the back of the tent, nowhere near as grand as his bed back at Cahlish but still far more impressive than the small field cot I assumed was waiting for me somewhere in this muddy hell hole. There was a tall bookshelf next to the fire, heaped with a messy stack of books. There were books everywhere, in fact, stacked on the rug—yes, the rug—by the foot of the bed, teetering in a pile on the floor beside the overstuffed couch. There was even one propped-open at a page, lying on the washstand by the entrance to the tent.

“Doing some research?” I couldn’t imagine that he was the type to settle down with a work of fiction.

Fisher surveyed the collection of tomes that covered every available surface and grunted. “You could say that.”

“Something important?”

“Very important to me,” he clipped out. From the hard edge in his voice, he wasn’t going to say anything further on the matter.

I let it drop.

In the very center of the tent was a wooden table big enough to seat four people, on which sat a basket of bread rolls and two bowls of steaming hot soup.

I stared at the table—at the soup and the two settings—and asked in a flat tone, “What’s this?”

Fisher heaved out a weary breath, unfastening his cloak. He threw it onto the bed, then sat heavily down in a chair at the table, rubbing at his temple. “It’s just a meal,” he said. “Let’s eat it and try not to draw blood this time, shall we? Please?”

There was that word again.

Fighting him was my baseline. All I knew. But he looked so tired, his mood genuinely bleak, that I didn’t have the heart to kick up a fuss. I joined him and started to eat in silence.

Fisher stopped rubbing his temple. He watched me, following my every movement. The quicksilver in his right eye spun around his pupil like it was caught in a hurricane. When I was more than halfway through the soup, he picked up his own spoon and began to eat, too. “I watched you for a while back there. You fight well,” he murmured.

A compliment? From Fisher? Rather than filling me with pride, annoyance seethed beneath the surface of my skin. “And I bet you’re so shocked. A female human, holding her own against a Fae warrior. That must have grated something fierce.”

He gave me an arch look. “No. I wasn’t shocked. You can tell by the way a person moves if they’ve had training. I knew from the first moment I saw you on your feet that you could fight. But don’t get ahead of yourself, Osha. Ren was going easy on you.”

“You don’t think I could have taken him?” Even I knew I couldn’t have. Of course I did. But it still was fun to bait Fisher into thinking I was serious.

But Fisher didn’t take the bait. “He wouldn’t be the general of this army if you could have.” He nodded toward me as I swallowed down a mouthful of soup. “So you are compliant sometimes,” he said softly.

I paused, another spoonful of soup halfway between my mouth and the bowl. “Amazing, isn’t it? People prefer to acquiesce to a request rather than being forced to follow a command. Who’d have known.”

He slid his own spoon into his mouth, eyes quick and sharp, the muscles in his neck working as he swallowed. I could make out the tattoos on the back of his hands now, all too well. Both of them were Fae runes. The intricate, interlocking lines of them shifted and moved across the surface of his skin, the pattern changing and evolving even as I watched. I looked away. “Why do you even want me to be compliant?” I asked. “Cowing people, having power over them…is that what you want? Like Belikon? Is that what drives you?”

His expression shuttered at the mention of his stepfather. He quickly recovered, but his jaw took on a hard set as he plucked a bread roll from the basket. “Power isn’t something I’ve ever thirsted after, Little Osha,” he said quietly. “And I am nothing like the king.”

“I didn’t think so. So why are you so determined to control everything that I do? Are humans just…just slaves here? Is that it?”

He laughed mirthlessly, shaking his head. “Humans have never been slaves here. At least not to the Yvelians. When we were blighted with our blood curse thousands of years ago, you were definitely dinner. But never slaves.”

The blood curse. The one he’d spoken of before, back in the halls of the Winter Palace. He’d said the sharp canines the Fae still possessed were a remnant of that curse. Were their children born with them, though? Or had Kingfisher been alive then? Had he suffered under the curse and then been freed from it? Every Fae I’d seen had elongated teeth, so I doubted that was the case. It was more likely that they were part of their genetics now.

Fisher locked eyes with me. “I want you to obey me because I brought you here. That makes me responsible for you. And I need you alive so that you can work on those rings for us. Without them, we’ll be trapped in this stalemate with the Sanasroth forever, neither side winning nor losing. I’ll never be able to reclaim my family’s lands. So, yes. I will force you to obey me if I need to. And I won’t feel conflicted about it. The stakes are too high.”

“Have you paused to consider that I might want to stay alive? That I’d do whatever it was you wanted me to do if you just explained why it was important to my well-being?”

He regarded me, hair curling into his face, half obscuring his eyes. A rush of something hot and not entirely unpleasant burned right behind my breastbone. It wasn’t just how he looked. There was something else there, too. Something that made my body come alive. His scent, and the way I knew that he’d entered a room before I saw him, and the melancholy tug at the root of my soul whenever he wasn’t in a room, and—

Fisher tore his gaze from mine, looking down at his bowl. “My way is a lot faster,” he whispered. “You can’t be risked. Those rings can’t be risked. All of this hangs in the balance.”

I slammed down my spoon. “You’re incorrigible!”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Yes, you fucking do!”

“All right. I do. What’s your point?”

“I want to help you, Fisher! I’ll do it gladly. I might not understand your people or even believe that everyone in this realm deserves saving, but that’s not my judgment call to make, is it? For some reason, I have this weird ability that can help protect Yvelia from being ravaged by a tide of corrupted, bloodthirsty monsters. I’ve seen what they’re capable of. I know how horrifying they are, and I wouldn’t wish them upon anyone! Can’t you just trust that I—”

Black shadows spilled from Fisher’s fingers. Smoke roiled up the table legs and swept across the tabletop like morning mist rolling across a field. It swallowed our food, the wicker basket, everything. With a crash, the table flipped, toppling to the floor, and then Fisher was on his feet, lifting me out of my chair, lifting me from the ground…crossing the tent. My back slammed up against something solid and hard—a bookcase?—but it wasn’t the shock of the pain that ripped the air from my lungs. It was Fisher’s mouth.

His lips crashed down onto mine. For a brief moment, I didn’t react. I’d slipped into a daydream. This was a fantasy. It wasn’t…it wasn’t real.

But the second his tongue moved past my lips, past my teeth, and I tasted him, and I felt the blast of his breath against my face, I knew better. It was real. Shockingly so…and I wanted it more than I wanted air. Casting off my shock, I wrapped my legs around his waist, hooking my feet at the ankles behind his back. I threaded my fingers into his hair, and I kissed him back like my life depended on it. He held me in place, pinning me against whatever was behind me, which freed his hands to move to my waist. They didn’t stay there long. I let out a sharp moan as Fisher’s hands found my breasts. He kneaded the swell of my flesh, pinching one of my nipples through my shirt, and a wave of need crested between my legs. I became hyper-aware of him. Of all the places where our bodies were connecting. I was touching him. Touching him everywhere. He was hard-packed muscle and hot, demanding breath, and the scent of fresh, cool mountain wind, and mint, and the forest at night, and—

“Gods! Fisher!”

His mouth was at my neck. My skin exploded into goosebumps as he kissed and laved at the sensitive skin there, the wet, scorching heat of his tongue running up the column of my throat surprising me so badly that I moaned out loud.

“Fuck.” He snarled the guttural curse into the crook of my neck, at the same time driving his hips upward so that I felt…oh, gods. His cock was trapped between our bodies, and he was so fucking hard. With my legs locked around his waist, he was lined up perfectly against me. The pressure he applied when he rocked his hips upward sent my brain scattering in a thousand different directions.

Oh…

Fucking…

I needed…

“Fisher!” I cried out his name.

He let out a wordless, animalistic growl in response that sent a thrill of anticipation chasing all the way down my spine. Waves of heat crashed over me, settling in my stomach. I was swept away by it on a burning tide. I had no clue when I’d started grinding myself against his cock. Only that he tensed every time I did it, his fingers digging into my skin, his mouth becoming more insistent at my neck.

“Fuck! Fisher, I want…I want you…” I panted.

And, as if I’d just dowsed him with a bucket of cold water, Fisher tore his mouth from my skin and pulled back. A split second later, my feet were back on solid ground, and Fisher was on the other side of the tent, dragging his hands through his hair. I felt his absence like a physical blow.

Oh, fuck.

A million thoughts slammed into me at once.

That was a terrible idea.

I should not have let him do that.

I should not have kissed him back.

I shouldn’t have rubbed myself against his cock like that.

I shouldn’t have moaned.

I definitely shouldn’t have told him that I wanted him.

For the love of all the gods in all the heavens, why had I said that?

I was going to throw up.

Fisher pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, groaning. He looked up, looked at me, and my stomach dropped. “Fisher—”

He crossed the tent so fast. Cupping my face in his hands, he kissed me again. Hard. Fast. His lips were on mine again, though they didn’t part. It only lasted a second, but it caused complete and utter fucking chaos inside my head. “Fisher—”

He shook his head emphatically, his eyes begging me not to speak. Quickly, he took hold of my hand and placed it onto his chest, right in the center.

Thum, thum, thum, thum, thum, thum….

His heart was racing, the space between beats barely negligible. Nothing like the slow, steady beat he’d shown me back in the forge at the palace. I tried to pull my hand away, startled by the thundering rhythm, but Fisher held me there tight.

He didn’t say a word. He held my gaze, unblinking, and for once, the quicksilver that marked his eye was still. There was no arrogance in his features. No bravado. No smug smirk. The look he was giving me was deadly serious. Like it meant something. He swallowed, his chest rising and falling too fast, and then he nodded.

“I can’t trust anything,” he whispered breathlessly. And that was when he let me go. When I needed him not to. Right when I needed him to stay and explain what the last one hundred and twenty seconds meant. He gathered up his cloak, swung it around his shoulders, and headed out into the waning light.

Fisher hadn’t asked me to stay in his tent. He hadn’t compelled me to wait there, either, and so I did what any sane woman would do: I bolted. The light was fading fast as I ran through the war camp. Everywhere I looked, Fae warriors clad in armor were streaming toward the center of the camp. All of them were armed. Only half of them bothered to look twice at me. A frenetic, agitated energy filled the air. The smell of smoke and cooking meat assaulted my senses, but nothing could replace the scent of mint and midnight forest in my nose.

He’d kissed me.

He’d done a hell of a lot more than that, actually. I could still feel his hands on my waist. My nipple still throbbed with the ache he had put there. My pulse became a frantic tattoo as I slipped through the crowd, trying to find…

Gods, where was I even going? I had no clue. I just had to get away from Fisher’s tent. Inadvertently, I allowed myself to be swept along in the tide of warriors. It had stopped snowing at some point, and now the sky was a purple bruise, the clouds angry and foreboding as I ran. Eventually, I couldn’t run any further. The mountains speared up ahead, punching toward the sky, and to the south, the Darn wrapped around the camp, trapping me within its boundary. I was forced to follow the warriors down to the large tent in the clearing ahead, where a massive fire roared and leaped up to meet the dusk.

It was luck that I found Ren. The crowd of warriors parted for him as he made his way among them, headed for the tent, and by some miracle, I was left standing in the general’s path. His dark eyes were stormy, but they softened when they landed on me. “Saeris? Where’s Fisher?” he asked, placing a hand on my shoulder, urging me alongside him as he walked.

“I’m not sure.” It was the truth.

A tense, knowing look formed on his face as he took me in, his nostrils flaring, and he smelled… Ah, shit. “Are you okay?” he asked carefully.

“Yes! Yes, of course. He hasn’t…” My cheeks flared red hot. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Of course not. I know him. Fisher would never…” He tiptoed around what he wanted to say, ushering me inside the tent. Delicately, he said, “I can smell you as well as him, Saeris. I wasn’t worried that he’d hurt you. I was asking if you were okay. There’s a difference.”

I pushed back against a second round of embarrassment, refusing to give it power. Was this what I had to look forward to? Every single member of the Fae giving me sideways glances every time I was the least bit turned on? Urgh! “I’m fine,” I said, speaking with more confidence this time. “I promise, I’m totally fine. I just had no idea where anyone was, that’s all.”

Stifling heat greeted us inside the war tent. Or the war room, I should say. Magic hadn’t made the space larger inside here. It had turned it into an actual room, with stone walls hung with tapestries and paintings of battles, and a proper fireplace, and a stone floor. The ceilings were twenty feet high. Bookcases, small side tables, and every other available surface were covered with candles, the light thrown off by their flames dancing up the walls. At least twenty warriors were gathered here, waiting for Ren. They all turned and dipped their heads in deference to him when they saw that he’d arrived.

Carrion was here, too, sprawled out on a chair, sitting by the fire. A small plate rested on his stomach; the fucker was eating a fat slice of cake, unfazed by the tension hanging thick in the air.

“Go and sit with Swift,” Ren murmured to me. “As close to the fire as you can bear. The heat will burn off the, ah…” He grimaced. “Well, you get the picture.”

Oh, I got it all right. The heat would burn off all of the pheromones that I was covered in because I had come this close to fucking Kingfisher. Gods alive.

I kicked Carrion’s boots, grunting at him to move, when I reached the fire. The suggestive way he grinned at me made me think he could smell what I’d been up to as well, but that wasn’t possible. Our human noses weren’t that sensitive.

“I can’t believe you’re eating cake,” I groused, dragging a footstool dangerously close to the fire.

“It isn’t cake. It’s quiche,” Carrion said around a full mouth.

“What’s quiche?”

“Dunno. It’s made out of eggs and some other stuff. It’s delicious. Here.” He held out the slab of food. “Want some?”

I wasn’t hungry. I felt pretty sick, actually, but I needed something to do with my hands. Taking the quiche, I bit into it, not really tasting it, and then handed it back.

“Some serious shit’s about to go down in here,” Carrion remarked, taking another bite for himself.

So he wasn’t completely oblivious to the weird energy in here, then. “You don’t say.”

“That one’s been baying for blood.” He gestured non-too-subtly to a female warrior standing by the large table in the center of the room, who was talking animatedly to three males. Her hair was a stark blonde, almost white, her eyes a vivid shade of lilac. She was beautiful in a way that hurt to look at. “I can’t tell what they’re whispering about, but one by one, they’ve all been to talk to her. Some of them have been arguing with her. She punched that one,” Carrion said, nodding to a male with long black war braids and snarling wolf head sigil stamped into his leather chest protector. “I get the feeling this is all because of Fisher, though. Uh, Saeris?”

The male with the dark war braids noticed me looking at him. Rather than glower at me, he cocked his head at an angle and gave me a small, friendly smile.

Carrion flicked the top of my ear.

“Ow! What the fuck? What’s wrong with you? That hurt!” I pressed my fingers to the shell of my ear.

“Why is your neck bleeding?” he said slowly, enunciating every word slowly.

“What?”

Reaching out, he swiped his hand over my skin. I ducked out of his reach, but it was too late; when he showed me his fingertips, they were streaked red.

“Just a scratch.” Carrion shrugged. “You must have caught yourself on something. Here.” He passed back the quiche.

I accepted it and took a bite, my mind spiraling out of control. Why the fuck was my neck bleeding?

As if conjured by my racing thoughts, a figure in a black cloak entered the tent, the cowl of his hood drawn up to hide his features. His presence made my heart pound, though. Fisher’s eyes found me immediately. He watched me dumbly pass the quiche back to Carrion, his expression unreadable. A series of gasps went up on the other side of the war room, when, one by one, the Fae all saw who had arrived.

“So it is true, then,” the blonde warrior announced. “You are alive.”

“Of course he’s alive, Danya,” Ren said in a weary tone. “We never thought he was dead. Come on. Let’s start this off on the right foot. Fisher, lose the cloak already. You’re not fooling anyone.”

Fisher’s head hung as he removed the cloak. His hair was wet. Dripping wet. So were his clothes. Rivulets of water ran down his cheeks. A small puddle was beginning to form at his feet. He leaned back against the wall, chin raised, folding his arms across his chest.

“What about it, Fish? Been out for an early evening swim?” There was a playful note to Danya’s voice, but I wasn’t the only one who detected the venom there, too. Carrion raised his eyebrows at me like one of the old gossips who liked to while away their afternoons standing outside the House of Kala. He took a chunk out of the quiche and passed it to me.

Across the room, Kingfisher watched him do it, the muscles in his jaw working. He let his head hang again, huffing. “Something like that,” he said quietly.

“Come on, then.” Danya held her arms wide. “We’re all here, Fisher. Let’s hear it. Let’s hear the amazing fucking reason why you left us high and dry for the past century years. And why you’ve decided to slink back to us now with your tail between your legs, mm?”

“I’m not slinking anywhere.” Fisher sounded bored.

“Bullshit,” Danya spat. “You were here in camp all last week! The week before that, too!”

“Danya—”

“No! No, Fisher. You were here, and you didn’t breathe a fucking word of it to any of us. How many times have every single one of us in this room stood at your side and bled with you? We were supposed to be a family, and you just fucking abandoned us.”

Fisher said nothing. It was Ren who stepped in to defend him. “That isn’t what happened, and you know it.”

“Hah! Please! All I know is that I stood on the battlements at Gillethrye, watching an entire city full of Yvelian families burn to death while Malcolm’s horde sacked the city, and he suddenly disappeared into thin air!”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” Ren’s face was a mask of fury. I wouldn’t have thought him capable of such anger.

“You’re right! I don’t! Someone should enlighten me before I put my sword through this treacherous bastard’s throat!”

“Careful, Danya.” Not Ren this time. The male with the black war braids who’d smiled at me earlier moved around the table to stand next to Fisher. “I might let you land a hit on me for fun, but you’re out of your fucking mind if you think I’ll let you open up the commander’s throat.”

“It’s all right, Lorreth,” Fisher said softly.

“He’s not our commander!” Danya yelled, pointing furiously at Fisher. “He sacrificed that title when he abandoned us!”

“Stand down, Danya,” Ren snarled, baring his teeth. Gods alive, this was going to end in bloodshed. I broke off a piece of the quiche’s crust and put it into my mouth. At any other time, the food probably would have melted in my mouth, but right now, it tasted like ash.

Kingfisher’s eyes darted to me. He flinched.

“For fuck’s sake, tell them what happened,” Ren said, rounding on Fisher. “They’ll understand as soon as—”

“No.” The word rang out along the war room. Kingfisher pushed away from the wall, standing up to his full height. His eyes were full of regret as he surveyed the faces of the Fae who stood before him. “I’m sorry, I truly am. I didn’t want to leave any of you back at Gillethrye. I wish I could tell you why I had to go, but I can’t. All I can say is that I had no other choice.”

A tear slid down Danya’s cheek. Her voice cracked as she took a step forward and said, “It was Belikon, wasn’t it? He forced you to go. I understand why we had to torch the city, but—”

“I can’t tell you,” Fisher said. His mask shattered. Torment shone from his eyes. “I wish I could, but I can’t. I returned as soon as I could. Believe me.”

She stared at him, her beautiful violet eyes brimming with more unshed tears. She did want to believe him, I thought. Wanted his words to be enough. But they weren’t. She ripped her sword from its sheath at her hip and bared her teeth. “Traitor!” she screamed. She moved in a streak of shining gold, her body blurring as she flew at him.

I watched it happen: the pain on her face, and the point of her sword aimed at Fisher’s throat, and the way his shoulders sagged, as if he’d made his peace with whatever came next and was ready for it. I had no intention of standing. My hand raised of its own accord. The shout of panic tore out of my mouth without any doing on my part. “STOP!”

Danya’s body rocked sideways. She slammed into the table, her hip colliding with the wood. But that wasn’t what drew twenty pairs of stunned eyes toward me. It was her sword, splintering into a thousand shards, the quivering steel needles shooting through the air and hitting the wall above Ren’s head so hard that they drove an inch into the pitted stonework.

Carrion toppled sideways, bracing against the side of the hearth, his mouth hanging slack. “Holy fuck,” he gasped.

Everyone else mirrored his surprise. Only Fisher remained calm. He considered me very seriously, a small frown drawing his dark brows together.

Danya righted herself, slowly pivoting toward me—the first time she’d actually paid me any heed since I’d entered with Renfis. She looked like her head was going to explode. “We have a fucking Alchemist?”

“She’s mine,” Fisher said.

Before anyone could react to that, a thunderous BOOM! shook the ground beneath our feet.

“ICE BREAKERS! ICE BREAKERS! ICE BREAKERS!” The cry came from outside.

“What’s happening?” I whispered.

All hell broke loose. The war room detonated into a flurry of activity as the Fae warriors, Ren included, all sprinted for the exit, their weapons suddenly drawn. Fisher remained immobile for a split second longer than the rest, his eyes still homing in on me, that strange frown marring his brow, but then he was moving, too. He disappeared in a shiver of glittering black sand.

The black-haired male called Lorreth was the very last to leave the tent. “Stay here,” he ordered. “Do not leave this place. I mean it.”

“But what the fuck’s going on?” Carrion demanded.

“Sanasroth. The enemy’s at the riverbank. The ice must be broken so that the dead cannot cross.”