The Shattered Dark

Page 65

Finally, I slip the key inside the lock and turn it.
The shackles fall from my wrists.
I’m going to need the biggest head start I can get, so I don’t waste any time. I crawl to the gap Sosch entered through and start digging. It’s not as easy as I want it to be. I end up going back for the shackles to use them to gouge into the ground. That helps, but it still feels tediously slow.
“You could help,” I whisper to Sosch when he makes an appearance to sniff at my work. His whiskers twitch as if he thinks he could do a better job, but he just curls up into a ball, resting his head on his front paws.
I don’t know how long it takes to make the hole big enough to slip through. It feels like hours, but it’s still night when I start wiggling under the wall. I barely fit. The wood scrapes against my skin, catches on the waistband of my jeans. For a good two minutes, I’m almost certain I’m going to get stuck. I’ve never been overly self-conscious or critical of my body, but I’m praying for smaller hips and a few less pounds when I finally—finally!—tear my way free.
And I do mean tear. My right hip is red and angry, the skin frayed and bleeding. I pull my jeans up, my shirt down, then rise to a low crouch, ignoring it while I survey my surroundings.
There’s a reason why I’ve been freezing my ass off—the remnants are camped on the side of a mountain. For a moment, I’m disoriented, thinking maybe we’re still back in Boulder, but the lightning on my skin and the lightness to the atmosphere proves otherwise.
Behind me, Sosch squeaks.
I turn around quickly, picking him up to keep him from making any more noise. Tents are set up around this shack, five within my line of sight. I assume there are more on the opposite side of my little prison. I’m sure remnants are guarding its door, too, or at least watching it.
I look into the wooded area that leads farther up the mountain. I am so not dressed for that hike. My jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt won’t provide enough protection from the elements, and my hands are already numb from digging in the cold soil. I want to go down, but up will take me away from the remnants.
Sosch sluggishly climbs from my arms to my shoulders. I let him stay there, then I finger-comb my hair so that it’s covering most of my face. After tugging my sleeves down over my hands, I have most of my skin hidden. I don’t waste any more time; I silently jog to the woods.
Honestly, I shouldn’t call it a woods. It’s more like a few scattered trees that decided to brave the increasingly rocky soil. They don’t offer much protection from the wind or from any eyes that might look this way, whatever this way is. The Realm has four mountain ranges. This could be any one of them, but…
But Paige and Lee are in the camp. There has to be a gate near here. Of course, a gate won’t help me unless I find a fae I can trust to take me through it. I wish there was some way to know where I am, where I’m going, but there’s not right now. All I can do is put as much distance as possible between me and the camp. When the sun rises, maybe I’ll be able to orient myself.
Hours later, the sky brightens. I’m not going up the mountain anymore because I can’t. The incline is too steep to attempt without a rope. As it is, there’s a very real possibility of breaking my neck. I set Sosch on the ground because I’m worried about him falling or making me lose my balance. I’m weak, partly from not eating or drinking and partly because I’m just so damn worn-out.
Sosch chirps and scurries over the rocky ground. I let him lead the way because he’s choosing a path I can actually follow. I feel bad, though, that he’s stuck with me. Normally, he wouldn’t be. Fae open fissures so often, he’s almost always able to scurry into the In-Between and hop out wherever he wants. Guess being stranded is a downside of getting attached to a human.
I press on and try not to think because I don’t want to face the truth: I don’t know if there’s any chance in hell that I can make it to civilization. The sun hasn’t burned off the fog below yet.
It doesn’t until midday. I’m staring at the dissipating clouds, trying to decide if I’m hallucinating or if there really is a city down there, when Sosch and I come across a stream. He’s already there, lapping at the water, when I fall to my knees beside him.
Minutes later, I have to force myself to stop drinking—I’ll make myself sick if I continue—then I turn back to the city below. It’s huge, filling up the plateau between the base of the mountain and a large body of water…
Really?
I’m not hallucinating, but this isn’t just any city.
“It’s Corrist!” My voice is hoarse, weak, but I grab Sosch and hug him to my chest. He squeals, then scurries out of my arms. Once he’s firmly back on the ground, he looks up at me with the kimki equivalent of a glare.
“Be happy,” I tell him. “We’re not going to die.”
I’m surprised as hell that the remnants are camped so close to the Silver Palace. Lena sent rebels to search up here, but they found nothing. Either the remnants had their camp hidden by illusion, or they just recently moved into these mountains. Right now, I don’t care which is true. The morning fog made the valley below seem deceptively far away, but now that it’s cleared, I can see that we’re not as high in the mountains as I thought. Sosch and I might even make it to the city by dark.
Reinvigorated, I lead the way back to civilization.
TWENTY-FIVE
WE DON’T MAKE it by dark. We don’t even make it by morning. Sosch abandons me around noon, and it’s at least another hour before I reach the plateau that lies between the base of the mountains and Corrist’s silver wall. The stream Sosch found joined another stream, then another and another until it fed into this river, the one that hosts Corrist’s gate.
I’m too tired to worry about a rebel archer shooting me as I make my way to the wall. The air down here is warmer, but I’m still numb. My feet are moving only because I haven’t let myself rest. If I stopped even for a minute, I don’t think I would have had the strength to keep going.
A fae calls out from the wall when I’m within a hundred feet of it. My mind is just as numb as the rest of me because I can’t seem to make sense of his words. It’s not until an arrow stabs into the ground at my feet that I force myself to stand still, to think.
“I’m McKenzie.” It takes three tries to get those words out.
No one answers. Not for several long minutes. I don’t call out again or move from my current location. The fired arrow is evidence the fae don’t trust what they see.
Finally, the portcullis begins to rise. Chaos lusters strike across the arms of the human who ducks under it.
“Naito!” I’m smiling and moving forward despite the fae drawing their swords behind him. He made it out of Boulder. I’ve been worrying about so many things, I didn’t realize I was worried about him, too.
“She’s not an illusion,” he says, as I throw my arms around his shoulders. He staggers, probably because I’m not doing a great job of keeping myself upright.
He keeps his arms holding mine when he steps back and surveys me, head to toe. “What happened? Aren said he saw you fall, and he’s…He’s not doing well.”
My heart thumps against my chest, aching and anxious, but relieved as well. Aren is alive. “Where is he?”