Page 148 of A Thief Among Fae

He doesn’t look back. “Get her out of here.”

The skeletons swivel toward me. Three brace themselves against the chasm wall, then another three climb them and stand atop their shoulders. Three more climb them. One stares at me, jaw clacking as if it’s trying to speak. Another thrusts me toward the ever-growing pile. Gods, they’re making a ladder. They want me to climb them. Why did they obey Desmond when clearly Osian⁠—

No.

“They call him ‘the Prince of Death’ for a reason,” Rune had said.

The violet magic in Desmond’s veins.

His paranoia that we’re always being watched. His warnings about ghosts, that the dead are still haunting this plane—he can speak to them.

I know what he is now. And I know why he didn’t tell me.

The skeletons grow insistent. They shove me toward the ladder, but I wrench out of their grip. I have to stay. I have to know if I’m right.

Desmond seizes a whipping tendril. It blackens and shrivels into a lifeless husk.

He wrestles with another, then yells as he channels his Gift. I slacken in shock as the desiccation travels from the tendril to the beast’s core. It screams, the tendrils quivering in tandem. They smack at him, weaker with every strike, and Desmond stands his ground.

The air turns cold with that dark magic, a shiver across my skin. The screeches die to a pained whine, and each tendril withers until they fall still.

No spirit medium could do what he just did. There’s only one term for that kind of magic. Necrotic energy. If the legends are true, Desmond can glimpse between planes, kill with just a touch, and control the undead. That rare power, so lethal and dangerous, is why all necromancers in Avedor are put to death. And as little as I know of the Hollowlands, there has never been a single tale of a fae necromancer. Such a thing goes against everything the fae stand for.

He’s a walking master of death and hid it so I wouldn’t be terrified of him. And gods, just for a second, I am.

Desmond turns and looks at me with unhidden, raw vulnerability, as though every secret has been cleaved from his chest, and he’s afraid of what I’ll think. He races toward me. Hands that have the power to drain the life from my body cradle my head, too warm to be the touch of death.

“Climb,” he orders, and then he kisses me. It’s urgent, heated, and desperate, all tongue and teeth until he pulls away just as suddenly as he grabbed me.

“You should’ve trusted me,” I whisper.

He swallows. “And are you afraid?”

I’m warring between the urge to shove him back or pull him into another kiss. “Of course I am! I was almost devoured alive by a giant monster, and then you killed it with your bare hands!”

Desmond flinches. Despair carves into me through the bond. It consumes him from the sag of his shoulders to the sudden hollowness in his gaze, the look of someone who holds incomprehensible power and loathes it with all his being.

I feel my heart cave for him. Nothing has ever filled me with so much sorrow.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” I tell him. “I was afraid of dying. I’m not afraid of you.” Gently, I caress his jaw. He hesitates before leaning into my touch.

“I wouldn’t regret it, even if you were,” he says. “There’s no price I wouldn’t pay, no army I wouldn’t raise to protect you.” Then he pulls away, swallowing like a thousand words are on the tip of his tongue. He shakes his head, dismissing them, and points at the ladder. “Climb, Cynthia. Or I’ll tell them to carry you up.”

The skeletons clack their jaws, their empty skulls watching me.

For once, I obey without question—because gods help me, I still trust him. Yet a voice deep inside me warns that if I were smart, I’d climb up the other side of the chasm and run.

Chapter 42

Adozen draugr close in on Auri and Finnian. Auri’s arm weeps blood as she kicks a draugr. It stumbles back, and then hefts its battle axe for another strike.

Finnian’s chest heaves as two draugr corner him. He slashes, but the draugr deflect each strike. He cries out as one cuts into his gambeson, the padded fabric tearing. Panic bursts inside me.

“I’ve got the one on the right!” I fling my knife, striking the draugr’s rotted neck. Its jaw clacks as it stumbles, its eyes dimming.

Desmond climbs up from the ladder behind me. He lifts his chin. Every draugr staggers like a puppet whose strings have been pulled taut. Their spectral eyes widen, jaws unhinging in fear as they helplessly twitch, powerless against him.

Then Desmond throws his arms out. The draugr raise their blades to their own necks, chopping off their heads.