Talen
Kellee’s claw-tipped hand shot out of the wreckage. Wrapping my fingers around his, I heaved him from beneath the debris. He coughed, brushed dust and dirt off, and took in our surroundings.
It looked nothing like the land I’d left behind when I’d descended into the knoll. The grass, the meadow, the trees—all gone. Flattened, churned up, and tossed aside, and just beyond the knoll opening lay the mountainous wreckage of Shinj, her back broken, her lights dark.
“Where’s Kesh?” I asked.
“Hopefully miles away. I put her on a horse and told her to run.” Kellee’s eyes shadowed as he absorbed the warcruiser wreckage.
“The Hunt would have killed you,” I explained, “and gone on to find Kesh and Sota. Shinj knew that. I told her to find Kesh, but she knew it wouldn’t have been enough. One or more of us would have died here. She sacrificed herself to save us.”
“She chose this?” he asked, claws receding and the red sparks in his eyes fizzling out, replaced by a subtler green. He wrestled with his thoughts, brows coming together. Perhaps he believed I’d ordered her to her end.
“She chose to save us, yes,” I replied. “She was free to make that choice.” I missed Shinj’s warmth, and with Kesh’s absence, I hadn’t felt so isolated since the prison. The solid ground with which I’d become accustomed these past few months had turned over beneath me. First, the Nightshade mantle had been cut from me, then Kesh’s bond, and now Shinj was gone.
I propped myself against a rock, churned out of the ground by Shinj’s impact, and took a few moments to smooth over my rattled thoughts.
“You all right?” Kellee asked.
I nodded, knowing my voice would betray how I was nowhere near as “all right” as I let on.
Sirius approached through the piles of churned earth, Eledan’s book clutched in his tek-hand. His guarded expression had gained a few cracks around its edges. Tiredness made his eyes glassy. He did his best to stand tall, but it didn’t last.
Anger crackled off Kellee, and he snarled. “Shinj was worth a thousand of you.”
“Kellee…” I sighed. “He tried to help.” It would be easy to blame him, but knolls were a force of Faerie. There was nothing more he could have done.
Sirius bristled. “I did not foresee this outcome.”
“None of us did.” I nodded toward the forest. “The Hunt could return. We should meet up with Kesh and keep moving.”
Kellee lingered, his breathing increasing. “The Hunt is going after Eledan,” he grumbled, scratching his jaw. “We can’t allow it to get to him.”
“Why?” I asked.
“His warfae marks aren’t just marks. They’re a key.” He waved off any imminent questions. “I know because he showed me.” He cleared the growl in his throat. “I didn’t remember until the Hunt started rooting around in my mind. He showed me in a dream while torturing me. Eledan’s marks form one key to the Hunt’s freedom.” He jerked his chin at the book under Sirius’s arm. “That’s what you’ll learn in there.” He swallowed and ruffled his hair, dislodging dirt. “Also, I think we’re all connected in more ways than just Kesh. When the Hunt was inside my head, I…” He paused to collect his thoughts. “Shit, I don’t even know how to explain it. You felt it, right? Our connection?” Sirius and I nodded. “We are the answer. All of us. Together.”
“Including Eledan?” I asked, needing confirmation.
“Maybe. The way things are going, probably.”
“I’ll find Kesh and Sota,” Sirius volunteered. “You both need to return to Eledan before the Hunt reaches him.”
Kellee growled at the idea of saving Eledan. It didn’t sit well with me either, but for someone who had been forgotten for so long, Eledan clearly had more to do with everything happening than we’d first believed.
Sirius whistled. A fire-touched horse emerged from inside the remaining tree cover, black skin quivering and its mane of flames licking the air. “Take her. She’ll get you to Eledan.”
The horse plodded toward Kellee and lowered its head for his hand.
“Without Shinj, our options for sanctuary are limited,” Sirius told me. “We’ll need to regroup somewhere.”
“Nowhere on Faerie is safe,” Kellee said, scratching the horse’s nose. It snorted its approval and nudged him in the shoulder. The horse was likely part unseelie and recognized the same in him.
Kellee was right. The Hunt would eventually find us. We needed another option. “Meet us back here with Kesh and Sota in twelve hours,” I told Sirius. “I’ll have a way for us to get clear of Faerie.” I neglected to tell him our temporary escape would be a tek shuttle from the Excalibur. He had enough on his mind without my adding a trip on a tek-leviathan to it.
Kellee swiftly mounted the horse and offered his hand. I settled behind him on the beast’s back.
“Ready, fae?” Kellee asked.
The mountain of Shinj’s broken carcass caught my eye. I sent my mental farewells to my friend, wishing things had ended differently.
Sirius lingered and observed the fallen ship. He sighed, and after a few moments, he added, “I can return her body to Faerie, if you believe the vessel would have preferred that?”
Scavengers would come. Eventually, Shinj would return to Mother Faerie, but Sirius was offering to save her that decay. “Thank you.”
He approached the nearest section of ship. His warm, spicy magic brushed against mine. Knotting vines laddered up the warcruiser’s enormous bulk. Moss and grass spread, smothering her dull gray skin with bright greens. In minutes, the warcruiser had been painted with Faerie’s living flora, and beneath, the earth—Faerie—would welcome her home.
Thousands of warcruisers had fallen in the first war. I’d hidden among their floating carcasses in the debris zone, where Kellee had found me searching for a spark of life to resurrect. Those ancient remains would never be returned to Faerie, but Shinj would, as it should be. She had earned her peace.
Sirius glanced over. I nodded my approval, afraid the lump in my throat would choke off any words.
“All right, hold on,” Kellee grumbled. I looped my arms around his waist. He kicked the horse into a canter and then a gallop, following old tracks through the undergrowth, startling wisps and pixies into the air.
Were Sirius’s intentions truly aligned with ours? Save Kesh or save Faerie? It was becoming increasingly clear we might achieve one but at the expense of the other. Like us, Sirius would need to choose his loyalty and soon.