Nadi felt tears prick at her eyes and blinked them back furiously.
“This is where your clan settled, originally?” Raziel’s voice was hushed, and when she glanced at him, she saw something like wonder on his face. “Fascinating.”
“The Iltanis were always traders and sea-borne fae.” Kalo had stopped hischanchaat the tunnel’s mouth, waiting for them to catch up. His expression was carefully neutral. “In a way, Nadi was always born to be their leader.”
Taking a breath, she held it, and let it out in a long, weary groan. “This is going to be terrible.”
“Yes. It is,” Kalo agreed. “We are going to probably die the moment they see us and before your vampire can even get a word out edgewise.”
“What an inspiring speech,” Raziel observed. “I am so very moved.”
“Shut up,” Kalo spat.
Nadi looked out at the dockyards—at the ships and the bridges and the figures moving in the distance. At what remained of her people, her clan, her birthright.
She took a deep breath.
Fuck it. No time like the present to die, she supposed. “Let’s go.”
Together, they dismounted theirchancha,and tied them off. They would have to descend into the dockyard cavern and whatever awaited them below on foot.
To meet what remained of her family…
What could go wrong?
TEN
It turns out the answer was “a lot.”
A lot could go wrong.
Very quickly.
Very, very fucking quickly.
At first, their approach to the dockyards went unnoticed. The humans who were moving crates either onto or off the boats tied to the pylons didn’t see the three figures approaching from the darkness.
Two fae and a vampire. Kalo walked in front, which was probably wise. It wasn’t like Nadi knew where she was going. And Raziel sure as shit didn’t.
Their steps echoed on the wood planks as they made their way through the haze.
It was an older human man, who by the way he carried himself seemed to be in charge of whatever was happening, that was the first to register their existence. “Kalo, wasn’t expecting you, what with all the chaos going on up top, what’re you—” The older man stopped talking abruptly as he saw who was walking behind Kalo.
Or more correctly,what.
There were probably only two people who matched Nadi and Raziel’s descriptions. Several others nearby turned when the older man stopped talking.
The first man reached for his gun. So did most of the others.
Kalo lifted his hands. “Rob, there’s no reason to?—”
“It’s fuckin’them,you brought them right to us!Fuck!”Rob shouted, aiming his pistol right for Nadi’s head.
“My patience has run thin,” Raziel muttered under his breath, his frame going rigid at her side. “Stop.”
The one word snapped through the air. And just like that, every human in the vicinity…simply stopped. Froze where they were standing, guns pointed in their direction, or in mid-movement, or carrying the crates they had been unloading.
A shudder ran down Nadi’s spine. Partially from the sensation of his power flowing through the air. And partly from seeing it in action. No matter how many times she’d witnessed it, it still left her with a mix of awe and horror.
