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He swung back as fast, his palm slamming into the broken places on my arm in a clear attempt to get me to drop the blade. I held on.
“Does that move usually work when you are hunting my people? I’ve seen more skill in our training yards, it’s no wonder you are so bad at your task.” He wiped the blood from his face, leaving streaks of purple behind before he swung again, missing that time.
I growled at his words, aiming for his face again. And missing.
“Don’t like to hear the truth?” he laughed as he hit that arm again, white lights of pain flashing over my vision as he sped around me, hitting me once on the back before his arm wrapped around me, his fist hitting that arm until the blade dropped, until I screamed as he held me against him, his voice little more than a snarl in my ear.
“Here’s some more. You killed my people, so I will end you in all the ways that matter, and then I will find who created you, and who you created, who you love, and end them too.” The hostility in him was as cold as the threat that was now sending panic through me.
Jayse.
He would track down and kill Jayse; as he had killed Lily, as he had killed them all. I couldn't lose anyone else. But it was not only Jayse, I realized with a pain that flowered over my chest as though I had been stabbed. If he followed the scent of my blood he would also find Amari. He would end that little girl, and me before I even existed.
I needed to escape him, it would take him time to track me, and I needed that time to save Jayse, to wipe away the trail that would lead them to Amari and her mother. There was no way I could win this fight, not against this Fae, this Fae with more power than I had ever seen. I needed to get out of there. The time I was using to hold me in this place slowly running out, but I had just enough left that I could escape this. It could mean losing one of my blades, but if the fate of The Goddess played in my favor it wouldn’t be for long.
“I see why you will become her henchmen. You and the queen are the same, the same monsters.” I spat the words, but his eyes widened, his grip loosening enough that for a split second I contemplated attacking him again, to continue this fight. But I only had enough time left to do this once, it was now or never.
“What are you–” I only barely registered the pure confusion in his voice as I let my magic slip, let the control I had on time fall away and let what little was left of the time I had taken from Yersua sweep me away.
I looked up into the room where his two companions stood, both of them still looking at the door that appeared to have destroyed itself. The Fae was staring as though exasperated, but the man who was not Fae pulled his lips into a tight line as though he was trying not to say something. It was the same as the last time I had seen him on the wagon of Wave Walkers.
Recognition hit me with a force that sucked the air from my lungs. I knew where I knew that second man from. He was in the transport wagon, he was the one that had stared at me for so long. With the look he had given me before, he clearly had recognized me too, which also meant he knew where I lived and this threat that Vaelar was snarling in my ear was possible.
Before I could do or say anything the time I released swept over me, a sharp tug in my stomach pulling me back as everything went black. As what was left of the time ran through me, pulling me wherever it wanted me to go.
I could only hope it didn’t send me too far so I would still have time to save them both. To save me.
Lily’s laugh was the only thing in my ears as time pulled me under.
The smell of human rot and soot was the first thing I registered as the world began to form again, that and the numbing ache that covered every inch of my body. It felt as though my bones and muscles had been broken and removed, only to be put back in all the wrong places. No where was as bad as my arm however. The bone that Vaelar had snapped was now an agonizing pressure that stretched up to my shoulder and down my back.
Pushing myself up with my good arm, not that it hurt any less, I blinked in an effort to make my eyes adjust. I was still in the flophouse, I could tell that much by the smell, not that I could see enough to know much more than that. Was it before I had arrived, or after, and by how much time. Everything was dim, the light that had been seeping through the old planks when I had first entered replaced with a dull light of either dawn or dusk. It didn’t matter which as long as it was before and I had enough time to reach the Qit and get Jayse out of there. Perhaps even Amari and her mother, I had no promise of what this man was capable of, and with the man on the Qit there. They knew exactly where to go.
Body screaming, I pushed myself to stand, my legs shaking under the weight. Everything about the flop seemed the same. The same huddles of people mumbling and snoring, the same group in the corner taking whatever drug they had been able to get their hands on that day.
That was until I turned toward the staircase, toward the wood that was burned and charred.
That hadn’t been that way before, because I had been the one to do it. Even through the screaming pain in my body I raced toward the stairs, the wood creaking and swaying with each step. Everything was coated in black char, the door to the room I had found them in gone. In fact, everything in that room was burned or gone. Everything but a long curve of shining metal that had been placed on the table.
My blade.
The silver hilt looked to have been polished, even the golden blade was gleaming and clean as it sat there amongst the burned remains of the world.
I grabbed the blade, half expecting something to happen when I did, but there was only a scrap of parchment below it, a curled handwriting looping over the surface.
“Until we meet again. Be ready next time, I expect you to actually fight. King Vaelar.”
King.
But not any king, the King of the Fae.
No.
How was it possible that the King of the Fae had been the one to kill my sister, that had killed all of those Catalysts. It was as before, when the queen had offered a reward for Fae ears. It simply didn’t make sense. If they were to be her army, why would she want them dead? Right then, however, it didn’t matter.
I needed to get home. I needed to reach the Qit before they did.
Chapter 17
