Page 54 of Immortal Game

“Yes,” Daniil replied, before Shea had a chance. “We are.”

Shea shot him a glare.

“I see.” A flicker of anger kindled in Ciara’s eyes. Quickly enough, her expression smoothed over and grew haughty, almost bored. “What a shame you’re not mortal. The things I could make you do. Fortunately, I do not need compulsion to destroy you.”

She extended her right hand. One of the many rings she wore—this one on her thumb—began to glow. It intensified until the brilliance of it seared Shea’s eyes, then took shape into a blade of light. When Ciara closed her fingers around it, it dimmed and solidified into a spear far taller than she was. The head was all delicate, filigreed metal, the handle a dark wood inlaid with gold. A long length of glittering, white fabric was knotted close to the point, drifting behind her as if carried on an invisible current. Ciara hefted it, then lifted her foot so that she balanced on only one leg like a crane. A strange battle stance, Shea thought, but it seemed to cow her opponent.

“That is a weapon I haven’t seen in a long time,” not-Aideen said guardedly.

“Ah, good. You know it,” Ciara said pleasantly. “Then I do not need to warn you that it never misses its mark.”

Not-Aideen drew something from the folds of her cloak: a gnarled switch of rowan wood. It looked unassuming, but Ciara took a wary step backward. She stared at it as though it were a gun. The faerie woman smiled. “It seems you need no warning of what I am capable of, either.”

What happened next, Shea could not exactly describe. Perhaps it was the black curtain of night, broken only by flashes of Ciara’s spear and the faint auras both women emitted. Perhaps it was her feeble mortal mind refusing to accept such a display of magic. Whatever it was, she absorbed the battle only in impressions. The ring of metal and the tearing of fabric. Swirls of glittering, violet darkness and the heady smell of seawater. Weapons locked together and flung apart. Thesnapof the switch slicing through air. Every time not-Aideen swung it, things turned into other things: stones into serpents, serpents into shards of ice.

Ciara moved in a way Shea hadn’t thought her capable of. She pivoted and dodged like a practiced fighter, swinging the massive spear with such grace and ease, it seemed like an extension of her arm. Her loose hair and cloak trailed her like a comet’s tail, and her eyes were aglow with murderous intent. Shea could see it on her face. If she could tear this woman in two with her bare hands, she gladly would. For perhaps the first time, Ciara frightened Shea as much as she captivated her.

Mercifully, it ended quickly enough. Ciara threw the spear. It sailed through the air like a bird of prey and skewered the woman to a yew by the meat of her shoulder. She screamed, both pained and furious. Something dark and bilious burbledup from the back of her throat. It took Shea a moment to realize that it was acrow. It emerged, struggling and wet, from her flung-wide mouth. First the beak, then the sleek head with its ruby-red eyes, then its wings, until it wrenched itself free and took flight. Another followed soon after. Then another and another from each of her eye sockets. It was horrible to watch her body become an empty husk—piece by piece, it tore itself apart; each scrap of her became another bird. The murder took to the sky, cawing their thwarted outrage.

Beann ran after them, barking in frustration. Ciara did not call him off, but she pressed her mouth into a thin, dissatisfied line. She approached the spear, still embedded deep in the trunk of the yew. She pulled it out and inspected the bloodied spearhead. She wiped it off with the hem of her cloak, then gave an exaggerated shudder. Once she finished, the spear transformed itself back into a ring and wrapped itself securely around her right thumb.

“She shall not elude me forever, now that she owes me a debt,” she said with feeling. “This is my favorite cloak, and now, it is ruined.”

As Shea stared at it, the blood dried and flaked away, leaving the hem unblemished. A new stain, however, was blossoming over Ciara’s left shoulder at a more alarming rate. Shea pointed at it. Wanly, she said, “Uh… You’re bleeding.”

When Ciara touched where Shea had indicated, her fingers came away red. She gasped. Her face went deathly pale. “So this is mortality.”

Shea just barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes. The fae were not invulnerable to wounds, and a little cut like this was hardly enough to take someone like Ciara down. “You’re not—”

Before Shea could finish her sentence, Ciara’s eyes rolled to the whites. With shockingly little fanfare, she swooned. Shea barely caught her in time. For a few moments, she and Daniil stared down at her crumpled form.

“Well,” he said, in a tone of vague disgust, “I guess I’ll help you carry her to her room.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Although it took them the better part of an hour, the two of them managed to drag Ciara back to her room. Ciara, being unconscious, was no help at all. By the time they arrived, Shea’s entire body ached with exhaustion. They dumped Ciara onto her oversized bed. She hardly stirred. She flopped back onto the mattress, her red hair splaying around her like a corona. It looked as wild as the bonfire—and smelled like it, too.

Daniil crossed his arms as he cataloged the room. With supreme condescension, he said, “She really lives like this?”

“Somehow. I’ll wake her up and make sure she’s all right.”

He reached up to adjust his glasses and scowled when he realized they were gone. Instead, he raked his disheveled hair out of his face. “We should talk.”

“That’s ominous,” said Shea. “About what?”

He fixed her with an impatient look. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

He whisked out of Ciara’s room, pursued by the black sweep of his coattails. Shea sighed. Whatever he wanted, it couldn’t be anything good.

For now, she had to focus on the task of rousing Ciara from her dead faint. She’d never been much use at playing nurse. Aideen had never gotten sick, and the most Shea had ever done for Kara was throwing canned soup on the stovetop and a blister pack of DayQuil on her nightstand. Something told her they had no similar conveniences here in the Otherworld.

Rummaging through Ciara’s bathroom turned up a carafe of water, an empty cup, a jar helpfully labeledSALVE, and strips of clean linen. She took them all and returned to Ciara’s bedside. Her hands were still trembling, from exertion or fear or some combination of the two. As much as she hated to admit it, Ciarahadfrightened her. She’d never seen that side of her—ruthless, almost delighting in her own capacity for violence.

The things I could make you do.

Now, she looked toothless enough. Ciara still lay atop her rumpled sheets. Her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths, which was good, but the deathly pallor of her skin made all her freckles stand out in sharp contrast.

Shea had no idea what to do, so she only stood there, feeling increasingly inept. She probably needed to clean the wound, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to undress her. Really, this entire situation was above her pay grade. She filled the glass in her hand with a small amount of water, then unceremoniously poured it over Ciara’s head. Ciara shot up, spluttering and hissing like a doused cat.