They were the same.
Whywere they the same? What were the chances of me entering Cosanus, finding a cavern filled with sleeping fae, only to find an exact replica of the dagger Umma had gifted me at the very start of all this?
It couldn’t be a coincidence. There was something here, something more to this, something that somehow connected me and my dagger to the weapon around the fae’s neck.
This had to be the weapon we were looking for. I was certain of it. I only wondered why Kilian had sent me in here to find it, when I’d had its twin all along. But that was a question I’d have to ask when I saw him again.
I looked down at my watch. Forty minutes had passed.
“Caleb.”
He turned from where he stood, orblight in hand as he peered down at the contents of a long-forgotten serving platter.
“This is it. Come help me take it off.”
“Are you sure?”
Now wasn’t the time to explain to him why I had no doubts this was exactly what we were looking for. “See any other weapons around here?”
“No.” Caleb set the orblight on the table, his hands fluttering around the fae before giving me a lost look.
I huffed a sigh. “Hold out his armor so I can pull the chain free.”
Caleb grimaced as his hands brushed the fae’s tunic, eyes wide with fear and never leaving the male’s face. There was no clasp to the chain, so it had to be pulled over his head. This close, I could feel how cold and hard the fae’s skin was. Like the blood had congealed and solidified in his body, turning his skin to granite.
I tried grasping the chain, but it was as if the links were fused to the fae’s skin. Like it had gotten stuck there as he had solidified.
“What’s going on?” Caleb whispered.
I didn’t dare breathe, not this close. Not when I had smelled the death clinging to the fae. I tried again, but I couldn’t get a grip on the chain.
“Cut it free,” Caleb urged.
I angled my own blade to the fae’s skin, trying to dig the tip beneath it, terror coursing through me all the while. The silver scraped across flesh turned stone, but there was no way for it to slide beneath the chain unless I sawed through it. Even then, we didn’t have thetimefor me to make my way around the entire thing. Panic bubbled inside of me, cresting into a scream I was too afraid to let loose in the eerie cavern.
Sweat dotted my palms, and it took me a second to realize it wasn’t just because I was overheating with nerves. My dagger was slowly warming, searing my hand with heat. The blade turned orange where it met the fae’s skin and I wrenched it away. It fell to the ground with a thud, sand pluming in its wake. Caleb jerked backward, his boots knocking the chair behind him.
I didn’t understand what was happening, but Calendula did.
For the first time since I had known her, the shadow sprite swore. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the smallest finger on the fae’s right hand twitch.
There had to be magic imbued in the blade. Because the fae before me had begun to breathe. Ragged, gasping breaths sounded as he sucked in lungfuls of air.
As he breathed, the chain around his neck rustled. Without thinking, I reached for it again, pulling hard. It gave way easily this time, the magic seemingly unsticking it from the fae’s neck. I pulled it over his head even as his hands slowly reached for me, fingers stiff and unbending. He was sluggish and clumsy, awakening from his slumber, but I doubted it would last for long. I stepped back quickly, horror eating at my heart.
The fae blinked, onyx leeching into what were once stone-grey eyes. His wings rustled half-heartedly, stirring the dust on the floor. His skin was deathly pale, veins still hard and protruding.
I was frozen in place, my heart thumping against my ribcage like a war drum, so loud I was sure the fae could hear it. Caleb stood, also immobile, near the edge of the table, his sprite between the dinner plates. The fae turned his head toward me in a sickeningly slow arch that made the bones in his neck crack. His lips parted and the low sound he uttered was so primal and throaty that it stirred something in the deepest recesses of my soul.
The next few moments seemed to happen in slow motion. The fae rotated his wrist, congealed blood squelching as he clenched and unclenched his fingers. In one swift motion, he whipped his hand out, reaching for Caleb’s woodland sprite. He grasped the sprite with long fingers and black nails, drawing her toward him.
The fae’s mouth snapped open wide, and his teeth closed around the sprite’s head. There was only the shocking crack of bone and the wet smacking of his lips as the sprite’s head separated from her body, blood and strings of gore pulsing from where her neck used to be.
Caleb let out a shriek of pure terror. Some color had returned to the fae’s skin now, and there was a vibrance in his eyes as they snapped toward Caleb. The legs of the chair scraped back,and my heart dipped, stopped and restarted all at once when I realized that the fae was rising, bones clicking and snapping from years of disuse.
The neurons in my brain began firing all at once. I snatched my dagger from the ground, sheathing it quickly, and slipped the one I had taken from the fae around my own neck. It fell against my chest with a heavy thud and the fae swiveled his head toward me.
Fuck.