Shadowborn (10 page)

“Parthalan was not ‘my people’. If you have free rein in my thoughts, then you should know what that psycho-fuck tried to do to me last year.”

The world shook with thunder. It slammed against my ears. Yellow bolts of electricity crawled along the ceiling.

Everyone else I’d come with had hit the floor, palms pressed to their ears.

One glance at Alogason let me know how badly I’d offended him. I could have sworn he grew more imposing than a moment before, though I couldn’t pinpoint what had changed about him. I bowed again, unsure what else to do. “Forgive me. I forgot where I was.”

The fury melted away from Alogason’s eyes in an instant.

Liam stood, brushed off his jeans and reclaimed my hand.

“We sense many memories in you,” Alogason continued, “but you have shrouded them in shadow and despair, one so perilous and cold, we fear it will consume us if we wander so far into your wilderness.” Both elves moved forward and leaned out to hover over me. “We feel the late king’s darkness within you.”

Donovan choked as Liam’s hand tightened around mine. Apparently Gallagher hadn’t filled my father in.

A thread of guilt strung up my chest. I’d just gone off on Liam for lying to me. Wasn’t I guilty of the same?

“Parthalan used the ancestors to bind me to him with the intention of combining our fae Light to use as a weapon against the humans. Both Liam and I almost died trying to stop him. And yeah, after he died, he left something behind in me.”

Donovan stepped forward and stood next to me with an eyebrow raised. “Lila offered the Goddess her life to end Parthalan’s reign, but she wouldn’t take it. That alone should give you assurances that Lila is worthy of your assistance.”

“Yes, she has the great mother’s favor.” Laerni let her head fall in the other direction and narrowed her eyes at me. “This is evident in the fact that she lent this fae her earthly sight.”

“This still doesn’t answer why someone wants me dead,” I said. “It either has something to do with us helping the humans or me trying to reunite the fae Courts.”

“Can you think of no other creatures that would fear or hate you enough to send the deadliest assassins in the history of our supernatural races after you?”

Conscious of my father standing beside me and unable to keep my neck craned up to keep Alogason’s gaze, I dropped my head forward. “Possibly the Sluagh. The Goddess gave me command of them last year, and they were none too happy about it.”

“He’s alive, isn’t he? The former Unseelie king?” Alogason said it with nonchalance, the way someone would say they were running out for a pint of milk.

Donovan grabbed me and forced me to face him. He had the same frantic tightness around his eyes and mouth as he did the day we were last at the Black City when I almost kicked the bucket.

I shrugged him off and backed up, hoping he would read the apology from my eyes. “I’ll explain everything later.” I refocused on the male elf. “Are you saying that Parthalan is behind this? I get the feeling”—I rubbed my temple where thoughts of him awakened his energy—“he’s confused. Yesterday he spoke to me for the first time.”

Nix’s attention snapped to me from where he stood off to the right of the platform. Liam mirrored him from my left.

Right, I forgot to mention that little tidbit.
“He asked who I was. He doesn’t know where he is, or what happened before he died and rose as Sluagh. I don’t think he remembers why we’re … connected.”

Fingers pressed against his forehead, Donovan paced a fast circuit beside me, muttering something low and, if I had to guess by the steely tone, nasty.

“I think this is something bigger than Parthalan and even the Sluagh. I feel it in my bones. Something big is coming.” I avoided Liam’s narrowed eyes as he turned and glared at me. “Something that could mean the end of everything. For all of us.” It was the first time I’d put it into words for anyone outside of Nix and Gallagher.

“We do not know who is behind this assassination attempt or why this threat has befallen you, Lila Gray,” Laerni said, “but we wish the Shadowborn to be erased from existence for the sake of both our worlds. We have tried for almost two thousand years to eradicate them but have so far failed. With your gifts, we believe we have at last found the warrior to finish what we started. We will aid your fight against the Shadowborn.”

“Sweet.” I rubbed my hands together as a shred of hope speared me, though the stink of fear billowed out thicker from the pair, stealing it away. A glance around the room didn’t reveal what had scared them in that moment.

9

Alogason and Laerni led us through a narrow doorway. If I’d been any wider through the shoulders, I wouldn’t have fit through without turning sideways. Twinkling, white lights danced above in the round chamber. Their unusual brightness sent a twinkle of pain into my eyes. I wondered if we’d moved to another tree, or if all the rooms existed within the giant one Nix and I had originally entered. The walls were made of red tree roots woven together, forming a tangled, knotwork sculpture strung with tapestries of some sort. A spider wove one as I gaped at it.

Roots grew out of the grassy floor in front of me. They slithered over one another until they formed the shape of a table. I jumped back. Everyone else remained transfixed.
Great
. I hated when my survival instincts kicked in when nobody else’s did.
Idiot
.

Moss sprouted on top of the root table. Small curved benches formed, arranged around the perimeter. Galati set a platter with goblets, carved from what appeared to be bone, on the grassy tablecloth. Dark blue liquid filled each one to the halfway point, surging from side to side as if the giant moons forced tidal movements.

“Please, join us for some refreshment and sharing.” Laerni’s long, slender fingers motioned to the table.

I sat while the others ogled the room and furniture like curious children. Donovan and Nix took either side of my bench. Liam and Gallagher sat on another. The two elves shared the last one.

Alogason folded his fingers together on the tabletop, his posture unusually straight. “The first of the Shadowborn came into our knowledge eighteen hundred years ago when we spent as much time in the human world as in Freymoor. We thought he was human at first but not an ordinary one. Humans cannot see us unless we choose to make it so—a rare occurrence for us. We have little interest in their kind, but this one, Alastair was his name, could see through any illusion we brought forth. His mind and physical chemistry did not match that of normal humans and could not be controlled by any means we possessed.”

“Alastair. That’s who Juliet said the message was from.” I recounted my visit to the little girl in the hospital, concealing the part about her being able to see through my glamour.

“He is their leader.” Laerni stroked her hands over her hair in what I took to be a nervous gesture. She leaned closer to me as if I’d sprouted a second nose, and she wanted to poke at it.

“Who first encountered this human?” Gallagher sat forward and sniffed at the goblet in front of him. He raised his eyebrows and took a sip. He gasped. “This is wonderful.”

It could have been ambrosia, I still wasn’t about to down some strange drink offered by creatures I knew nothing about.

“It was I who first encountered Alastair while collecting saplings to diversify our forest,” Laerni said.

Huh?
I drummed my fingers on my knees while I pondered that. “Holy shit. How old are you?”

Liam dropped his head forward. Nix tried to hide a laugh with a cough, and Donovan and Gallagher glared at me.

“What’d I do now?” When I turned to the elves, their giant eyes fixed on me, and their heads tilted to a curious slant. “Oh. Uh … forgive my language.”

“You are new to the otherworlds,” Alogason said. “We find no malice in your curiosity, no intent to insult us with your questions. You are duly forgiven. To answer your inquiry, we are true immortals. If our physical bodies should be damaged, we are born again. We come from a time and place beyond human comprehension. Perhaps once our mutual crisis has passed, we might enlighten you of our history.” Alogason’s raspberry red eyes swept between Liam and me.

Gallagher’s eyes brightened—a kid promised a romp through the forbidden toy store with a million dollars and a license to play.

I smiled at my aide. Nice to know something could shut him up. “Please, continue,” I said.

Laerni made a clicking sound in her throat. Four elves appeared between the roots of the walls and placed dishes full of round, purple fruit, something yellow that had red-tipped spikes poking out of its flesh, and little brown, wrinkly lumps that resembled soggy prunes.
Gross
.

“As we were saying, Alastair approached us in the forest,” Alogason continued. “We studied him until we realized he looked directly at us, then spoke in a language unfamiliar to our ears. All attempts to control him with metaphysical means failed, so we opened a doorway back to Freymoor and fled. The next time he approached us, he attacked one of our daughters who had wandered away from our group. We found her empty, a breathing, blinking shell with no spirit, unable to be reborn.”

A fat, silver tear trickled down Laerni’s cheek and dripped off her chin. I’d assumed he meant daughter in species terms, but I wondered if she had been their biological daughter.

I had an odd urge to hug the elf before I shook it off.

“We contacted the woodland elves and our cousins, the water nymphs, and we all agreed he threatened our existence. We believe he somehow became stranded in this world from another plane of existence or perhaps another planet entirely.”

“Aliens?” Liam straightened in his chair, a twinge of interest in his tone.

“Perhaps,” Alogason said. “Though aren’t we all?” For the first time, a hint of amusement tilted one corner of his mouth. “Otherwise, he could be a demon from one of the dark realms or another form of life that mutated from a human host. We are not certain, only that he was unlike any we had seen before or again.”

“So how do we kill it?” Liam asked. Worry lines creased the corners of his eyes.

“Yeah.” I turned to the elves, jamming my thumb toward my supposed boyfriend. “What he said.”

“Here is where the problem began.” Alogason’s hands worried together. “We have already slain the creature we knew as Alastair. We believe he took our daughter in retaliation.”

“What?” Nix and I said in unison.

Gallagher choked on his drink.

Donovan clasped his hands on the table. “So it’s undead, then. Do you think it’s immortal?”

“It is not undead, but as for whether or not it is immortal remains to be seen. We believe, possibly in ignorance, that our destruction of its human body released the creature to its true form. An earth-bound soul who thinks and can travel through any darkness with only one desire—to hunt for thrill and companionship.”

“Perfect,” I grumbled. “Please, tell me he doesn’t want me as a mate, too.” After going through the disastrous courtship process with Parthalan, I didn’t want to do it again.

“As a hard-won soul for his collection of reapers, possibly,” Laerni said. “Anything more would require feeling for others, of which he has none. I know because his mind is a dark machine bent on his own personal pleasures.”

I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. “Then I guess the million dollar questions are: how do we find the shadow, formerly known as Alastair, and who hired him?”

“You needn’t look very hard to find the evil who now hunts you, Lila Gray.” Alogason’s fiery eyes scrutinized my face as if assessing something beyond my skin. “Alastair will find you, if only you let him.”

“No.” Liam’s frown darkened his face into something sinister. “No way.”

Brow scrunched, I stared at him. “No, what?”

“We’re not using you as bait.” He wouldn’t look at me.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I sat back in my chair. “Nobody’s asking you.”

“I am the Unseelie king.” He cleared his throat and went back to focusing on the goblet in front of him. “You had better be asking me.”

“You’ve defeated your own argument.” Nix flashed his usual cocky grin. “Unseelie have no authority over the Seelie.”

“Now is not the time for this.” The fierceness in Gallagher’s glare sent us all into silence. “How will we know if it’s Alastair who goes after Lila and not one of his minions?”

“This is our one advantage.” Alogason placed his hand over top of Laerni’s on the table, who stared at it like a life line. “To our knowledge, only Alastair can harvest souls to be Shadowborn, limiting the speed at which he can create an army and hunt Lila. Though his creatures can still detain her and summon him through the underworld to claim his prize.”

“Okay,” I said, my fingers drumming harder along with my pulse. “Let’s pretend I’ve lured this shadow guy somewhere. What then? How do we kill it?”

“There is no we, Lila Gray,” Laerni said. “Knowing how this creature operates, any who accompany you in a final confrontation will most likely fall—their souls trapped forever to do Alastair’s bidding with no free will to stop his atrocities. This, we believe, is the human’s basis for the realm they call Hell.”

I scratched fingers through my hair. “Back up a second. Why do you think I can take this guy out if he’s such a bad ass? You’re supposed to know and see all, how can I take him out if you can’t?”

The two elves glanced at one another, more evidence of their fear glowing in their eyes. Alogason turned back to me. “There is one who has foreseen your coming, though the outcome of your battle with the Shadowborn is not clear.”

Another damned prophesy? I leaned toward him, waiting for him to elaborate, but his giant eyes kept staring. “Who has foreseen it, Alogason?”

Laernie dropped her head to the side, resting against his shoulder, and his arm slipped around her. Still, he said nothing.

“It doesn’t matter.” Liam shot up and pointed a finger at me. “You’re not doing this.”

“Stop with the macho bullshit.” I planted my feet and shifted forward. “Have you been listening? This thing is stealing human souls to build an army just to kill me and whoever else it pleases along the way. If I can stop Alastair, then I don’t have a choice.”