Kings of the Wyld (The Band #1)

The southerner made no reply. Even Gabe had been rendered speechless, though Clay assumed his next words would be I told you so.

Something behind the daeva drew his attention: He saw Kit emerge from the fog on the far side of the bridge. His arms hung limp by his sides, and something—the rask chieftain, probably—had savaged his throat. He appeared lucid, however, and one look at Larkspur told him all he needed to know. The ghoul started up the bridge at a jog.

“So what now?” Clay asked, playing for time. “You’ll fly him to Agria all by yourself? That’s a long way, and dangerous.”

“You’ve seen my ship in the sky, Slowhand. My real ship,” she emphasized, “not that floating brothel you stole from Kallorek. Where is he, by the way? His wife said you brought him along. You didn’t leave him on board to burn, did you?”

Clay mulled over a few lengthy explanations, none of which resembled the truth. He settled on “No.”

The daeva’s smirk returned, tugging at something in his chest. She’d been suppressing her allure, he realized. Smothering it so she would seem like less of a threat. But now it burned, and it was all Clay could do not to offer himself up to the flame.

“My men will find me,” she said. “I’ll make sure of that. Now step back, Slowhand. I like you, but if you try and cross I will cut you down.”

Her threat drew a sour laugh from Gabriel. “You are un-fucking-believable, do you know that? You’ll cut him down? He saved your bloody life, Sabbatha.”

The daeva snarled, “Sabbatha’s—”

“Yeah, Sabbatha’s dead. I heard you the first time. It’s a pity, really, because this Larkspur character is a real bitch. I mean, honestly, how evil are you? After all we’ve been through, you’d really kill Clay? You’d drag Matrick all the way back to Lilith for a fucking payday? She’ll kill him!”

Kit was edging around Matrick’s prone body. Clay had no idea what the ghoul could do if he managed to reach Larkspur, but he hoped it would be enough to distract her, if only for a moment.

“He’s doomed already,” said Larkspur. “You all are. Because of you, Gabriel. Because you haven’t figured it out yet.”

“What’s that?” Gabe asked.

“That this isn’t a story,” she told him. Her eyes climbed the cloud-mantled mountains around them. “There is no happy ending. And you aren’t a hero. You’re just a deluded old mercenary who—”

Clay started running the moment Kit hit her from behind. Larkspur stumbled forward, nearly falling from the bridge, but she beat her wings once and managed to stay balanced. She drove the butt of her scythe into Kit’s chest, propelling him back, then launched an attack at Clay.

He dropped into a slide, arching backward on his knees with his arms flung wide as Umbra carved the air mere inches above his nose. Clay heard the vertebrae pop down the length of his spine, and all the pain in his back vanished in an instant. He sprang up to his feet, launched a savage punch with his shield arm that knocked the daeva onto her back. A step, and Clay was directly above her. Wraith was in his hand, so cold it seared the flesh of his palm, and he brought the hammer—

“Wait, please,” begged Larkspur.

There was no power in the words. No compulsion. Only fear. A woman’s desperate plea for mercy. And had the man above her been anyone but Clay Cooper it would not have been enough.

But it was.

He wavered, but Larkspur didn’t. The scythe tore an arc between them and Clay watched, uncomprehending, as his hand fell off.

His jaw dropped as though it were cast in lead. He was dimly aware of someone yelling his name. He blinked, trying to focus, and saw blood on the pale skin of Larkspur’s face, blood on the pure white snow, blood frothing from the stump of his arm with every slow beat of his heart.

His hand was gone. His hammer was gone. They slid over the edge and vanished from sight.

“Clay …” He saw Larkspur mouth the words, but it was Ginny’s voice he heard. She made to rise and he staggered away from her, except one foot slipped on the ice and the other stepped onto nothing at all.

Clay fell headlong into white cloud.

And so the Cold Road took its toll.





Chapter Forty-five

A Song for the Dreamer

The end of Clay’s childhood came suddenly, a wildfire that reduced the brittle forest of his youth to char. It began as such things always begin: with a seemingly innocuous spark.

Reaching across the table at breakfast Clay accidentally upset his father’s cup. Even so early in the morning it was filled with wine, which splashed into Leif’s lap. Clay had barely opened his mouth to apologize when the blow came, knocking him to the floor. There was a shrill keening in his ears and the taste of blood on his tongue. Tears boiled in his eyes, threatening to shame him.

“Don’t you ever lay a hand on him again,” his mother said. Her voice was quiet, but fierce. Clay had never heard her use that tone before. Even Leif looked stunned, but then he barked a harsh laugh and sneered.

“Or what?” he asked.

“Or I will leave you. I will take Clay with me and you will never see us again.”

His father’s ugly grin remained in place, but his eyes went slack. He said nothing, just got up and went out the door. He was gone all day, and when Clay went to bed that night he wondered if maybe his father had left instead. To his surprise, the thought of life without Leif was a pleasant one.

The sound of the door slamming jarred him awake. His father was home, and drunk. Clay could hear his ragged breath, the heavy tread of his bad leg as he tramped across the house. There was a hush, and Clay listened as his heart counted slow seconds in the dark.

Then it started.

Screams. The muted thud of pounding fists. Clay pulled his blanket up over his head, trying not to listen as the screams became sobs, as the sobs became muffled whimpers. He wanted to shout, to intervene on his mother’s behalf, but he couldn’t find his voice, let alone the courage to share the brunt of his father’s wrath. So instead he huddled in his bed, paralyzed by fear and berating himself for a coward.

“Leave me, will you?” he heard his father ask.

“Wait, please,” his mother begged. Words that would stop her son cold so many years later.

“Take my boy away?” Leif growled, and Clay realized that the voice in his head, the one that condemned him and cut him down, was not his own. It was his father’s.

There was a wet crunch—a sickening sound—followed by another awful silence. Straining his ears, Clay heard the sound of his father weeping quietly, and then another voice spoke in his head. It was unfamiliar, quietly ominous. It reminded Clay of a forest cloaked in the deep snows of winter. This voice, he knew at once, was his own. Or a part of him, anyway.

“Rise,” it said. And he rose.

When Leif finally stumbled, red-handed, through the bedroom door, his son was waiting for him. Clay had planted his feet and set his shoulders, just as he’d been taught. His grip on the axe was low, and he swung with all the strength he could muster.

Hit it like you hate it, Leif had told him, and that, Clay found, was the easiest thing about killing his father.

Come home to me, Clay Cooper.

He wasn’t dead, apparently. And even if he were, Clay knew, those words would bring him back. Over mountains, through swamp and field and forest, across an ocean if need be, to her. Because home, for Clay Cooper, was not within the boundary of any realm. It wasn’t Coverdale, or a house at the end of a long road. Home was where Ginny was, its boundaries defined by the circle of her arms. Hers was the hearth in which his soul burned, unquenchable. She was, quite simply, the only reason he was still alive.

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