Read Online The Shattered Dark by Sandy Williams - Free Book Online Page B

fae who could follow the maps had more…er, more contact with
     humans.” Kavok doesn’t meet my eyes.
    “Sex?”
    He lifts a shoulder, says almost apologetically, “It’s implied.”
    Everyone
who has the ability to fissure can make it to the locations I sketch, and since most
     of those fae would rather not touch a human at all, sex definitely doesn’t have anything
     to do with it.
    “That’s all I’ve discovered,” Kavok says. “I found the reference a few weeks ago,
     but you were…Well, you were…”
    “Things were different then,” I say, hiding a smile. It’s almost cute, how easily
     flustered he is. “I’m looking for Naito.”
    He seems grateful for the change of subject. “Of course. He’s there.”
    He points to an alcove that splits off from the main room.
    After he takes a seat at his desk, I walk toward the alcove he indicated, and there,
     sitting at a table heaped with papers, books, and a few boxes, sits Naito.
    He doesn’t notice me. He’s staring at whatever is in frontof him. His left hand is clenched in his black hair, helping to hold his head up,
     and his forehead is creased. He’s wearing the same jeans and white T-shirt I saw him
     in a few days ago, and his shoulders are rounded and slumped. Oddly, though, he looks
     better than he did before. I can’t quite put my finger on why. Maybe it’s the lack
     of anger in his expression. Maybe it’s the amount of concentration, of focus, in the
     way his eyes move back and forth, reading, I presume. Or maybe it’s just the fact
     that he’s not demanding someone fissure him back to Earth so he can murder his father.
    “Hey,” I say when I reach his table.
    “Hey,” he responds without looking up. I wait a moment then, when he still doesn’t
     glance away from what he’s reading, I pull out the chair across from him and sit.
    My gaze sweeps across the table.
    “You can read this?” Everything is written in a jumble of symbols and marks. I can
     speak Fae fairly well now, but even if I had years to study, I don’t think I’d ever
     be able to make sense of their written language.
    “Kelia is teaching me,” Naito says.
    I bite my lower lip, unable to ignore the fact that he’s still talking about her in
     the present tense. “Naito—”
    “I understand enough to get by,” he says. His tone is firm, now, and his eyes have
     hardened.
    Everyone’s been tiptoeing around Naito these past two weeks. I don’t want to make
     him hurt any more than he already does, but I think it’s time someone convinces him
     that he’ll never see Kelia again. She’s well and truly gone.
    I ignore the way my throat burns when I swallow, then say, “Kelia would want—”
    “To be with me,” he interrupts again. There’s steel in his voice. It’s as if he’s
     daring me to claim otherwise. Before I can do just that, he turns the book in front
     of him around so that it’s right side up for me.
    “Banek’tan,”
he says, pointing to a jumble of tiny lines.
    The word sounds familiar—I’m pretty sure it’s a type of magic—but I say, “I can’t
     read that.”
    He raises his eyes to meet mine. “It means ‘one who retrieves the departed.’ A
banek’tan
can bring Kelia back.”
    Really?
    I stare down at the book as an almost giddy feeling takes over me. A
banek’tan
could undo so much. With one’s help, Naito and Kelia can be together again. They
     can have their happy ending, and we could bring back the innocent fae who were caught
     up in this war: the merchants who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, the families
     who were burned inside their homes in Brykeld, the swordsmen on both sides of the
     war who were only following orders.
    We could bring back the fae I inadvertently killed in Belecha.
    We could resurrect Sethan.
    But just as quickly as those hopes appear, they vanish. What the hell am I thinking?
     If that magic existed, Lena would have already tried to bring her brother back from
     the ether.