I watch him with a bout of terror widening my eyes—he’s quick, lean and stealthy. More so than Cliff.

  And as he runs at my dark fae, an icy rope of fear unwinds throughout my body that perhaps Cliff and I might not make it out of this one. Maybe this is the one in which we die.

  But I don’t even get the chance to see their clash. All those fears slam back into me for myself.

  Out from the crowd, another fae has snuck up to the post. And he’s come for me.

  I feel the touch of a blade at my neck before I realise anyone has come up to me. Instantly, I freeze, my wide eyes restless, darting from side to side, searching for a hint of the dark fae who has me trapped between a warm solid chest and a sharp, cool knife.

  The one behind me shouts out something in his garbled tongue. I only know he is shouting at Cliff when I finally look ahead and see him covered in sprays of black blood, a long intestine draped over his shoulder and tar dripping from his sword. Guess he butchered the stealthy guard, too.

  He faces me, his darkening eyes fixed on the space above my shoulder.

  After a long, thick moment, he lowers his sword—then he drops it, letting it clatter to the dirt at his feet. The hilt knocks off the shredded face of the ninja-fae who dared stand against him.

  Blanketing over us is the heaviest silence I’ve ever felt before. On instinct, my stomach gurgles with tendrils of anxiety as we stew in the quiet moment before the storm comes.

  Surely it must come. We can’t stay in this stalemate forever.

  And we don’t.

  There’s movement ahead. A black blur. All eyes shift to it.

  I blink on it for a beat before I realise that it’s the flap of the looming black tent peeling open, and out-steps a tall, broad-shouldered dark fae with pale hair like a river of moonlight falling down his back. Clashing with his hair is the mark of who he is—of his status; a black metal crown.

  The general.

  He pauses at the tent mouth for a moment, glass-blue gaze only for Cliff, who has twisted around to face him. After a pause, the general speaks in the familiar barbed tongue that I’m no closer to understanding.

  But I don’t need to learn the language to know they are talking about what just happened up here by the post, and more importantly, me. I know because the general tears his gaze from Cliff and looks around him to me, crouched on the ground, a knife still biting at the thickness of my throat.

  With a loosened breath of relief, the knife glides away from my skin and the fae behind me stands.

  I crane my neck back to look up at his dark-mocha face and he spares me a feral sneer before he stalks off to rejoin the crowd.

  Cliff’s shoulders don’t relax though.

  He speaks to the general as he approaches us, and slowly he slides his boot back over the dirt to slip closer to me.

  Stopping at the table, the general cocks his head at something Cliff garbled out and his ice-blond eyebrows rise. He turns his chilly gaze on me.

  “You would fight to the death for her?”

  Cliff doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  My heart leaps up into my throat. I shouldn’t be feeling much more than fear right now, but butterflies erupt in my stomach and all I ache to do is reach out for Cliff, drag him to me, and cry into his chest.

  But all hope of that is shattered when the general says—

  “So do it.”

  My scream is lost in the war cry that rises up from somewhere in the crowd. A fae rushes out of the mass, sword drawn, and heads straight for Cliff. Then another from the far left with a whip in hand, and a third from the middle wielding a dagger the length of my forearm.

  Cliff scoops up his sword so fast that if I blinked, I would have missed it entirely. But he is prepared to fight to the death if needed, and then what happens to me? Nothing pretty.

  Besides, maybe I don’t want him to die—no, I definitely don’t want him to die, not at all. If it was up to me and I could live in a fantasy bubble, we would still be wandering the dark earth together with no other fae or survivors in sight.

  But as it is, three fae barrel towards him and, hard, Cliff boots back at me, shoving me away from the fight. I smack into the post, chains rattling.

  I can’t watch. I can’t do nothing either. So I do all that I can and that is nothing but scream and fight against my chains, trying to free myself.

  Blood sprays all over the place. A wad of it catches me on the cheek, like an inkblot. I cringe against the post, muscles jumping beneath my skin, and pinch my mouth shut.

  Beside me, the clash of swords and daggers is deafening. I hear the slicking sound of flesh being torn apart. Early snares of nausea climb up my throat with a familiar burn that shudders my bones.

  Black blood coats my face, the tarry murk from the fae that my one battles. The fae I care for, he’s going to die—and then so will I.

  I won’t say the one I love.

  Not even now, on my deathbed. Because that word seals everything I fear, and do I even know him well enough to feel that way? Better yet, is there any reason to how we feel?

  Of course these are the useless thoughts that plague my mind in my final moments. What I should be doing is simply being with him. I should open my eyes, turn to him and reach out for his hand as he takes his final breath.

  And when I hear the thump of the third body on the ground, that’s what I do. I open my eyes, blink away the tears, and twist in the chains to see the dying fae closest to me.

  It’s not Cliff.

  I blink again, my heart stopping for a beat, and look around the bodies on the dirt. None of them are my fae.

  Slowly, I turn my gaze on the heels of the boots facing away from me. I look up him, up along the black-soaked trousers, the smears of black blood on his caramel-toned back, to the curls of black hair cropped at the nape of his neck.

  My fae. My saviour. My Cliff.

  He defeated all three of them.

  But…now what?

  The general stands with his arms folded over his chest. He considers Cliff with narrowed eyes and a thoughtful twinkle to his iceberg eyes.

  Finally, he says in plain English, “You know the consequences for what you have done.”

  Cliff nods firmly.

  “If it were anyone else,” the general says slowly, his mind churning, “I would deliver the punishment myself.”

  Again, Cliff just nods in answer.

  And it sinks in for me. He’s being granted clemency for his royal blood, his status though disgraced has saved him—for now.

  “You are banished, Cliff of the Noble House of Lords.” the general takes a step forward. “You will lay down your weapon and leave immediately. Your crimes will be confessed upon return to our realm.” He pauses, then adds in a lowered tone, “You will have a day’s time ahead of us.”

  He has a head start…

  But what about me?

  As though reading my mind, the general throws a fleeting, disinterested look at me and says, “You may take your kuri.”

  Dropping his sword, Cliff turns on me in an instant and reaches for the chains. Fishing out a thin needle-knife from his belt, he breaks the lock and pulls me free. His arm loops around my middle, holding me to him as he stands.

  I slump against him, my face finding its way into his chest where it stays as the tears warp my face.

  Faintly, I’m aware of him scooping me up and carrying me somewhere—somewhere out of the camp, away from the army … banished from the very people he so desperately wanted to find all this time.

  But I got my wish—

  Now, it’s just the two of us again.

  48

  At least a mile out of camp, Cliff finally pauses to set me down on a bench. The rush of wet grass and the rustle of trees makes me think we can only be in a park, but without a torch or any light on us, it’s impossible for me to make out my surroundings.

  Cliff grunts something quiet as he shifts to sit beside me. I wiggle around, leaning my back against the arm of the bench, tucking my legs up to my chest.

  In the dark, I can only sense him, not see him. But the heaviness of his exhale tells me that something isn’t right.

  “Are you all right?” I whisper after a quiet moment.

  He just fought his own people for me. He just declared that he would fight to the death for me. And yet, I know him well enough to be aware of rocky moments between us. Right now is probably not the time for him to want to share his feelings—especially not with me, someone he might even blame for what has just happened.

  But then, it turns out I’m completely wrong about his sigh—

  “I am injured,” he tells me, and I go cold all over, icicles running throughout my aching body.

  I shift in the dark, reaching out my hands for him. My palms flatten against warm, smooth skin; his arm, I realise with a gentle squeeze.

  “Where are you hurt?” I whisper. Something about the density of the darkness has me feeling as though everything should be soft or silent.

  A jolt spears through me as his hand rests on mine. For a beat, he holds my fingers in a loose grip that I think is meant to tell me something, then he glides my hand along his skin to his chest, just beneath his left pec. A smear of blood wets my skin as I feel the narrow edges of a cut.

  “It is not deep,” he tells me, easing my worries instantly. “This one is.”

  Drawing me closer to him, I almost spill over his lap as he guides my hand to his other arm, up to his shoulder. There, the cut is much deeper. The blood is thicker, a stream instead of a trickle, and it makes my belly churn with dread.

  “Here,” I mutter and pull my bloody hand away.

  Fumbling with the hem of my top, I try to tear a healthy strip off but my hands are shaking. I don’t know why—the adrenaline is long left behind us now, and yet my fingers tremble like twigs in the breeze.

  Cliff brushes my hands out of the way before he tears off a strip himself. I lean forward so that he can rip it all the way around.

  In the blackness, I sense his movements; coiling the strip to be just right, stretching out his arm, biting down on the fabric to keep balance as he binds it himself. He doesn’t ask for help. He’s a warrior, he knows what he’s doing.

  I slump against the spine of the bench. “We have nothing with us,” I realise aloud. All we had to bind his cut was a strip of my top. Beyond that, we are empty-handed.

  All the satchels left behind—

  “Oh!” I jerk forward and scramble my hands around my shoulder.

  I feel the strap of my bag, then travel my hands down. The bag is light at my right hip and I yank it onto my lap.

  Cliff is a silent statue beside me as I rummage through my bag. To move around the book, I fish my fingers deep inside and graze over all the things stuffed in there.

  Then I find it. My lighter.

  Before I can light it, Cliff’s hand rests on mine and stops me.

  “You need the light, I do not,” he tells me. “I see just fine. Save it for your smoking. We have a long walk ahead of us.”

  I slump, defeat slackening my shoulders and face. Thought for a moment that I was being a tad useful. But of course, being a dark fae why would he need a lighter to guide his way? It was a stupid thought.

  His hand slips away from mine.

  “We must keep ahead of the unit,” he adds darkly, and those familiar tendrils of fear writhe inside of my gut like a pit of snakes. He must gesture in the dark, because he adds, “There are houses through there—we can gather supplies.”

  I nod, my gaze restless in the blackness.

  “Whatever,” I mumble. “As long as we get moving. The further away from that post, the better I’ll feel.”

  He says nothing as he stands beside me, but his hand disturbs the air in front of me. I reach out for it, letting his fingers clamp around mine, and he helps me up.

  Without his sword and only his weapons belt, without our satchels and only my bag of cigarettes, a book, pads and a lighter, we walk through the park in the dark, completely exposed to any survivors or other dark fae who might come across us. I suspect that’s why Cliff’s pace is brisk beside me, and I have to skip sometimes to keep up.

  Hand tight on mine, he drags me off the path and onto the grass, headed towards those buildings he spotted. Wish I could see in the dark. Would make my whole survival existence a hell of a lot easier.

  Silence follows us through the park, only shattered when the grass disappears beneath my shoes and is instead replaced by rough shards of rock. I pause, catching my balance.

  Cliff murmurs beside me, “Rubble. Much of this place has been taken already.”

  “Taken”, I echo. Is that what they call it? “Don’t you mean destroyed?”

  “Taken,” he repeats firmly. “For the land,” he adds. “We have taken back the rights of this land for the earth.”

  I don’t have the energy to argue so all I say is, “The last thing I want to do is argue about what your kind are doing here and what you think you are doing. I want to eat. I want to change out of these shoes if I’m going to be walking across more rubble. And I want to be the hell away from your people.”

  His hand tightens on mine. “Then keep up.”

  He moves fast through the rubble.

  I scurry alongside him like some Bambi on ice. Ironically, I’m rather spectacular on ice. Not that it matters. I’ll never skate again, whether I survive all of this or not.

  After a long while, suspicions about his eyesight are confirmed, because beneath my shoes, the rubble starts to flatten to road, and we are far from the park—so he must be able to see pretty damn good in the blackness.

  Cliff is quiet as he steers me away from the path we were on, and he stops abruptly a millisecond before my toes slam into a bottom step. His hand slips up to my forearm to steady me for a beat before he guides me up the three steps in the dark then, in a blink, he’s booting down the door.

  Despite him leading me inside, I stretch out my other hand and feel my way down a narrow corridor. Cliff almost pulls my arm out of my socket as he turns right, lugging me around with him. Another boot, another door crashes, and I suspect we are in a townhouse split into flats.

  Guided by his grip and soft bootsteps, we venture further into the flat. Before we go any deeper, though, he pauses to close over the door, then firms his hold on me as though I’m about ready to take flight or someone might steal him away from me.

  With his better eyesight, Cliff manoeuvres me around furniture until I can walk freely and the faint smell of bleach mixed with dust suggests that I might be in a kitchen. That’s confirmed when he finally lets go of my arm and, after a few clicking sounds, lights the gas stove.

  The flames are weak, even at their tallest.

  I lean against the porcelain sink as Cliff starts rummaging through the cupboards. For a moment, I think he’s starting to gather supplies, then he comes out with a pack of little tea candles.

  Silently, he lights two on the stove and hands them off to me.

  Without looking at me, he says, “Empty yourself.”

  My face twists as I eye his shadowy profile.

  “That didn’t sound gross at all,” I murmur, pushing from the sink.

  I wander out of the kitchen without a look back at him and find the bathroom around the far corner of the lounge, tucked behind the only bedroom in the flat.

  Setting the candles on the sink’s edge, I shimmy down my jeans and park myself on the loo. My business starts with wetting toilet paper to freshen myself up and pulling off the jeans and knickers. I’ll find a change clothes of somewhere in the house before we leave. Something a bit warmer, a bit better suited to all the rubble we’ll be trekking through.

  Before I’m finished with the loo, Cliff comes in and sets up camp at the sink. He peels off the fabric of my top that’s bound around his arm, then cleans his wound with the tap water. In the faint candlelight, it looks grim.

  As I wipe, I wonder aloud, “Don’t you have any black powder?”

  “We left it all behind.”

  As the toilet flushes, I study his wound; the black stained edges, the faint sliver of white bone deep inside, torn flesh.

  “Is it bad?” I ask.

  “It is manageable.” That’s all he says before he’s tying the strip around his bicep again.

  “Ok, well I’m going to look for some shoes,” I tell him, drawing closer to the door. I’ve snagged the candles from the sink, leaving him in darkness.

  Still, he shadows me through the hall to the lone bedroom.

  Inside, he just watches from the doorway as I change into jeans, a plain blue top, a creamy and lumpy jumper, and a pair of Timberland boots (that I hope are better for rubble than the thin-soled plimsolls I’ve been wearing).

  Cliff snatches a duffel bag before we leave the bedroom for the kitchen, and since he didn’t so much as glance at the bed I know we don’t have time to stop and rest yet.

  We have to keep going.

  So we do.

  In the kitchen, we stock up on food and water bottles and some human medicines that I imagine are more for my benefit than his. He also steals a fluffy blanket from the couch and a pillow that only just fits into the duffel bag.

  Then we’re back out there, walking through untouched streets, and instantly I’m glad for the jumper shielding me from the icy bite of the breeze.

  “Where are we?” I ask him. I mean, I know we are in England, but whereabouts is the unknown.

  “Outside of York.”

  I stutter beside him, “York?”

  “That is what I said.”

  My mind tries to link the pieces together. “But … how long was I … asleep for?” You know, ‘asleep’, AKA on the brink of death from suicide.

  He gets my meaning. “Some days.”

  “How did we get here so fast, then? Isn’t your army supposed to stop and burn everything it finds?”

  “We have our own designated areas,” he tells me. “And my army was more focused on lands further away than here. They will stop for three towns in this land, but that is all. So we are short on time.”

  Well, shit. His just had to be the army near the end of their duties. Now, they’re pretty much on the way back to their world, job done. That doesn’t buy us much time at all.