“For a human, you don’t know how to stay dead, do you?” Her smile slices through me like a blade. “I should have cut out your heart and eaten it. Like I did with your mother’s.”
I’m struck by memories of everything Sorcha has ever done. The night she killed my mother. The pain of her driving a sword into my chest. The jarring, ugly scrape of metal through the sinew, muscle, and bone of my body to strike right through my heart. And Kiaran looking up at me through it all. She took from him the one choice he had made for himself: not to be King.
My thoughts must be so clear; Sorcha only laughs harder, an arrogant, mocking laugh that says: I don’t feel for you. I don’t care about you. I am remorseless.
“You were right,” I tell Kiaran tightly. “She does deserve this.”
Sorcha’s rough chuckle is self-satisfied. “Oh, don’t tell me,” she says. “You saw me hanging here and you felt sorry for me. How sweet.”
“A momentary lapse in memory, judgment, and sanity that won’t happen again.”
“She’s such a mouthy little human, Kadamach. And here I thought you preferred your pets silent.”
“They were never silent,” Kiaran replies casually. “You couldn’t hear them over the constant noise coming from your wide-open trap.”
“Maybe not silent, then,” she says with a sweet smile. “But always on their knees.”
I take a sharp step toward her, but Kiaran stops me with a restraining hand on my shoulder. He’s back to calm, practical Kiaran. I’m grateful for that, at least. Especially now that we’re in the worst possible situation.
Kiaran leans in, turning his head so Sorcha can’t hear him or read his lips. “She’s trying to get a rise out of you. Sorcha doesn’t respond well to pity.”
“What would you suggest?”
He puts a finger under my chin so I’m forced to meet his eyes. I can’t help but wince. Those beautiful lilac irises are never going to be the way they once were. Never as clear. They’re a reminder that the Unseelie inside him is always there, barely contained. “Don’t let her see your weaknesses. Find out what she wants.”
I tighten my jaw and glance over at Sorcha to find her watching us with unabashed interest. “How soft you’ve become, Kadamach. Talking to your pet as if she were an equal. She ought to be crawling at your feet like the worthless animal she is.” Her gaze rakes me over. “Unless she’s one step above a pet. Which would make her your whore.”
Kiaran’s hand grips mine in a silent message: Don’t dignify that with a response.
I squeeze his hand and release it to take a step toward her. Sorcha raises her chin, as if waiting for a blow that won’t come. “You make the mistake of defining me by his ownership,” I say softly. “You don’t seem to understand that he’s mine every bit as much as I’m his.”
Sorcha drops her arrogant smile just long enough for me to see something vulnerable in her expression. Something that longs for him.
As if she realizes what she almost showed me, she clenches her jaw. “Is there a reason you’re here, Falconer? Unless you’ve come to triumph over my misery. Let me assure you: I would rather be tortured here for a thousand years than listen to you for another moment.”
“The Book of Remembrance,” I say, voice tight. “Tell me how to find it without the usual cynical commentary. Now.”
Sorcha goes still, as if she’s surprised by the question. If I hadn’t been watching for her response, I might not have noticed the fleeting emotion in her eyes. Even so, it’s gone so quickly I wonder if I imagined it.
Her armor of smug indifference is firmly back in place. “Oh. That,” she says, in the same casual tone one might use to say, Oh that old thing. “I understand it was lost a long time ago.” Her slow smile is no doubt deliberately meant to anger me. “But I might be persuaded to help you find it. For the right price, of course.”
I will tear you apart limb from limb and make you help me.
Maybe when the Cailleach revived my bones and gave me her power, a small piece of her lived on inside me. Or maybe she made me less human and more fae. That’s the only explanation I have for what I do next: I grasp Sorcha by the throat and squeeze until I know she can’t breathe.
Behind me, I sense Kiaran step closer. “Kam—”
“Don’t,” I say sharply, without looking away from Sorcha. “We’re running out of time and options, and I’m losing my patience. You said to find out what she wants. So let me do this.”
It’s my turn to smile smugly. It’s my turn to have the power.
It’s my turn.
“Do what?” I can hear the uncertainty in his voice.
This time, when my power leaves its cage and the darkness takes me over, I let it consume me. I let it wash away my emotions, my concerns, my worries. I let it take my compassion, too. If compassion is for humans, brutality is for fae.
And I’m both.
My eyes meet Sorcha’s. “Nothing she hasn’t already done to me.”
CHAPTER 21
I KNOW SORCHA senses my power thickening in the air, sharp as electricity. It gives off the heady stench of iron and ozone.
She’s afraid of me. I see it in her eyes; I can taste it. Good.
When I touch my fingers to her temple, she struggles, as if she knows what I’m about to do. Her throat convulses in my grip as she chokes for breath, pricking at something human in me. Something that forces me to remember Derrick’s harsh words to me in the forest.
The friend I knew had someone break into her mind, day after day, for months. If you were her, you would never have done that to anyone.
I can’t be that Aileana anymore. I can’t be her and find the Book. I can’t favor my humanity when my realm is crumbling to dust and so many lives hang in the balance. Compassion won’t help me right now—Sorcha doesn’t give a damn about pity. She’d use it against me.
A part of me still doubts. Do this, and there’s no going back. You’ll be the dark creature Derrick saw in the woods, and this time you have no excuses. Your memories are intact. Do this, and you’re no better than her. No better than Lonnrach.
Sorcha looks at me and I see how much she hates me. I make my decision. So be it.
I tear into her mind like a sword ripping through flesh. She’s so surprised that she puts up no resistance. I catch the first glimmers of color in her thoughts, similar to Derrick’s. Only hers are all red-rimmed with sharp black edges, thorny branches of ivy that cover her memories in a protective shield.
Sorcha recovers from her initial shock and her mind slams into mine. She shoves at me with so much force I see stars beneath my lids. I grit my teeth. Her power is an onslaught of teeth and claws bucking against me.
You’ll have to kill me first, she’s thinking. You’ll have to kill Kadamach.
The assault of her power is tremendous—but it’s no match for mine. I surge through, catching a glimpse of the memories beyond the thorns. I can see the outer fringes of them—images that flicker by so quickly I can’t keep up.
She puts up another fight, frantic now. Desperate. Don’t.