Free The Sharpest Blade by Sandy Williams Page B

filled me half a second ago instantly chills.
    And just like that, I’ve lost Aren. He moves away, and I swear even Sosch lets out a sad sigh.

SEVEN

    “D ID EVERYTHING GO okay?” Aren asks, turning his back on me. I focus on Naito, too, almost thankful for the distraction.
Almost.
I’d be more thankful if he and Kyol had waited at least a few more minutes before fissuring here.
    “No losses,” Naito answers, but his face is dark when his gaze locks on Lee, who’s still asleep. Naito walks to the couch, then smacks his brother on the head. “Wake up.”
    Lee’s body jerks, but he doesn’t open his eyes.
    Naito grabs a fistful of his bloodstained shirt and yanks him off the cushions. Lee moves again, this time more alert than before, but I don’t think he realizes where he is or what’s going on until Naito slams him against the wall. I wince when I hear something metallic jiggle in my neighbor’s apartment.
    “Is Caelar working with the false-blood?” Naito demands, inches from Lee’s face.
    “What?” Lee grabs at Naito’s hands.
    “Is Caelar working with the false-blood!”
    “I don’t know,” Lee says, trying to shove his brother away. Naito has my complete attention now, too. If he’s implying what I think he is, this could be majorly bad news.
    “Why was he in Bardur?” He slams Lee against the wall again.
    “I don’t fucking know!” Lee yells. This time, he twists out of Naito’s grasp.
    “Hey!” I step between them before this fight gets louder. “If one of my neighbors calls the cops, I’m screwed.” I nod toward Lee. “He says he hasn’t talked to the remnants.”
    “And you suddenly believe everything he says?” Naito demands.
    “Of course not,” I say, but Naito still looks like he’s about to kill his brother. I completely understand the sentiment, but I seriously do not need a dead body in here.
    “What happened in Bardur?” Aren asks. He’s leaning against my breakfast table now, looking relaxed and unruffled. Someone could tell him an army just fissured behind him, and he’d shrug it off and come up with a crazy plan to counter the hiccup.
    “Nimael was there,” Naito says, some of the tension finally draining from his muscles. “So was Caelar. They were meeting in a silver-protected warehouse in the middle of the city.”
    “Who’s Nimael?” I ask.
    “We think he’s the false-blood’s second-in-command,” Aren tells me. I meet his eyes, uneasiness churning in my stomach. A month ago, Lena was worried about Caelar finding a Descendant who could rival her bloodline. If he presented an alternative ruler to the high nobles, they might have considered that fae over her. But Caelar never found someone willing to rule, and he lost so many fae in his last-ditch effort to retake the palace that he and the remnants aren’t as much of a threat now as they were before.
    But if he joins forces with a false-blood . . .
    I glance at Kyol. He knows Caelar well. They were colleagues back when the king was alive, and Kyol respects him. He’s always said Caelar wouldn’t support a false-blood. Does he still believe that? Neither the life-bond nor Kyol’s expression gives any indication of how he feels.
    I turn back to Aren. “You think Nimael is the second-in-command or you know he is?”
    Sosch hops up onto the breakfast table.
    “If he’s not his second,” Aren says, sliding his hand over the
kimki
’s back, “he’s close to it. He’ll be able to give us information on the false-blood.” He looks at Naito. “I take it you weren’t able to capture him?”
    Naito shakes his head. “He double fissured. I didn’t pinpoint his location accurately enough.”
    The last part is said with more than a hint of aggravation in his voice. It’s directed at himself, I think, but I can’t help feeling responsible on some level. If I’d been there, chances are, Lena’s fae would have caught Nimael before he was able to open a second fissure and escape. The maps I