The Shadow Reader
Page 77

“Ahead and to the right,” he finishes, his voice strained.
Ignoring the ache in my chest, I bite my lip and nod, confirming that the two fae aren’t illusions. They creep forward without moving the underbrush. We stay frozen as they silently stalk by, passing between us and Aren and Nalst, who crouch twenty feet to our right. Kelia and Naito are on the other side of them, and the rest of the rebels assigned to this Sidhe Tol are spread out behind us and on the opposite side of the stream, less than a quarter mile ahead.
A sharp crack of thunder vibrates through the forest. The thick canopy protects us from the rain for a few short seconds before the downpour penetrates it. The air cools, but I’m quickly soaked through and even more miserable than before. I want this over with. If Radath hasn’t sent more than a few fae to protect this Sidhe Tol, it shouldn’t be difficult to get a sizable number of rebels into the Silver Palace.
A patch of brown and green detaches from a tree. I wait for a bolt of blue lightning to indicate the moving bush is a rebel, but something big and black and barrel-like slips out of the foliage. Not a rebel. A vigilante. He stuffs a can inside something that looks like a launcher, then aims at the two Court fae.
The canister thumps from the barrel and then explodes.
I throw myself on top of Kyol to shelter him from the fallout. The black cloud doesn’t hang in the air long; the rain washes the dust into the earth.
Kyol grips my shoulders. “McKenzie!”
“The silver.” I run my hand over his hair, sloshing off darkened rainwater. Most of it’s on me. He should be able to fissure.
“You don’t protect me,” he grates out, rolling me to my side. I cry out when something stabs into my right hip.
Kyol curses under his breath and jerks the piece of metal free. Then he fissures away, leaving me gasping for breath. Christ, it hurts. And all at once, more pain registers—from another piece of metal in the back of my left arm. It’s deep, cutting into the muscle. The vigilantes stuffed shrapnel as well as silver into the coffee cans this time.
I don’t have a chance to pull it out before Kyol reappears, blood dripping from his sword. He grabs a fistful of my shirt and drags me to a thick tree as gunfire and fissures rip through the air. Bark and splinters burst from the trunk above my head. Kyol fissures again and again at my side, keeping up an almost constant shield against the attack. He can’t maintain this pace, though. He’ll burn out.
“Jorreb!” Kyol shouts during one of the few instances he’s visible in this world. A second later, Aren takes out the vigilantes firing on us, ending the assault.
But it continues elsewhere. Everywhere. I fling rainwater out of my eyes and scan the forest. It’s almost impossible to see anyone unless they’re moving. Kyol spotted the two Court fae before I did. Maybe I’m missing others, others he can’t see because they’re hidden by illusion.
But no. All the fissures—every single one of them—are camo-clad rebels. Where the fuck are the rest of the Court fae? The plan’s gone to hell. We’re not supposed to be the ones fighting the vigilantes.
Kyol’s breathing hard at my side. I grab his wrist when he starts to rise, silently plead for him to remain. He pulls me to his chest. His arms are warm but they’re trembling. He fissured too much too quickly.
He squeezes me tight. “There’s no reason for you to be here if the Court fae aren’t.”
“How far to the Sidhe Tol? Maybe they’re there.”
Bullets strafe the ground to the left, and the air erupts with earth and wet leaves.
Kyol presses me into the tree trunk. “No. They’ll stay away from the silver plating.”
“Maybe they removed—”
“They’re in the trees!”
Kyol and I aren’t the only ones who hear Naito’s bellow. The second I spot a Court fae perching on a thick limb, he’s riddled with holes. A flash of light and he disappears. Dead. His soul-shadow dissipates into the rain-drenched canopy.
The vigilantes bombard the treetops, and the foliage erupts with fissures. Fissures and shadows. Only a few of the latter are white. The rest are all black.
“What do you see?” Kyol asks.
“They’re out of the trees,” I report, scanning the scene around us. The Court fae are everywhere now, fissuring in and out to dodge the vigilantes’ attacks. Kyol will see the fissures, so I search for fae who aren’t disappearing. They’re the ones most likely to be hidden by illusion.
“Female archer by the moss-covered tree.”
He follows my gaze. “Visible.”
Another rebel will take her out.
“Straight ahead. A swordsman coming up the hill.”
“Visible.”
“Two swordsmen walking past the exploded coffee can.”
“I see three. Describe them.”
“The one on the left is male, crouching down now. The one on the right—”
“Is his sword bloody?”
“Yes.”
Kyol vanishes in a flash of light. He reappears behind the two fae, dispatches the first before they know he’s there, meets the spinning attack of the second and counters. Three swings later, that one enters the ether, leaving behind nothing but his fading soul-shadow.
Kyol fissures back to my side. I describe the scene again. Then again and again, sprinting from one tree to the next at Kyol’s command. There’s something synchronous about the way we work together. He knows where I’m looking, understands the details that capture my attention like that rotting limb a fae not visible to Kyol steps over, or the area of ground I describe as a giant’s footprint. He stays close when I whisper locations to him, touching my shoulder, my arm, placing an encouraging hand on the small of my back. To show he’s there for me. He’ll take care of me, keep me safe.
His warmth is comforting and the horror of what’s going on around us isn’t as sharp as it will be later in my nightmares. It’s as if I’m watching it from a distance. This is a scene from a movie, nothing more.
Nothing more until something hits me. I’m slammed to the ground a second after Kyol fissures away again. Pain explodes through my left shoulder blade and radiates across my back.
I gasp as I roll to my right side.
Something moves in front of me. A man. A vigilante. Vaguely familiar eyes widen in surprise. Not Naito’s eyes. His father’s eyes. They narrow, undoubtedly realizing I’m not one of his people, then his mouth thins into a resolute line. A pistol rises out of his camouflaged netting. It aims at my chest.
“Dad!”
The vigilante whips his head toward Naito’s voice.
I roll away as Kyol fissures between us, swinging his blade at Nakano.
The gun goes off. Something wet splashes across my face.
“Kyol!” I cry out, terrified he’s been shot. A second later, I see a severed arm clutching a pistol and hear Nakano’s scream.
“Dad!” Naito skids to his knees beside his father.
“McKenzie!” Kyol’s hands are on me.
Before I can say anything, Aren fissures to my other side. “Are you hurt?”
I shake my head. There’s too much going on. Too many gunshots and fissuring fae. And there’s an arm on the ground in front of me and a man bleeding and cursing and trying to push away his son, his son, who—even though he hates him—is trying to save his father’s life.