Page 118 of The King is Dead
I frowned. “What do you mean?! Bring my sister here! I want to see her!”
Turo was still slightly pale and moving stiffly, but the fire had left his eyes. “Yilan, until we have our hands on the infiltrators—and we know we have all of them—we must keep all of you separate… including you and th-the King,” he said, stumbling on it but recovering quickly.
“What?! No! We have been separated far too much already. Absolutely not—”
“It’s a security precaution,” Turo said firmly. “Only until we are certain we’ve cleared the Palace of any malignant forces. If we keep you together, they have only one target. Spreading you out means forcing them to split their people and efforts as well. We know they can’t have many bodies here—they’d be too easy to find. So we have the advantage of numbers. If we keep you each protected individually, we’re far more likely to catch them out.”
“I said, no!”
“Yilan, he’s right,” Melek sighed from behind me. He’d hovered at my shoulder since this began, and he wasn’t moving now. But helooked down at me, his forehead pinched. “If it were my responsibility, I’d make the same call,” he murmured, staring at me with pleading in his eyes.
“We have waited!” I hissed. “We’ve been separated. They finally know, andnowyou want to split up?”
“Of course not,” he growled. “I’m going to do everything I can to find whoever’s come and figure this out. But keeping you safe while I do that, and keeping Istral and Gall safe too… he’s right. Separating the targets makes any spies job harder, and ours easier. It’s nothing but sense.”
I gaped at him—then turned to find Turo doing the same.
When he caught me examining him, he closed his mouth and cleared his throat. “Yes, I… I agree,” he said. “I hope it won’t be for long. Perhaps only hours. But… yes.”
They went back and forth then, Melek offering insight into how the Nephilim could use their wings to conceal themselves more effectively than one might think, given their size. He and Turo discussed the passages of the Palace and gardens, how they might have gotten entry in the first place, and where our trackers were focusing attention.
“…still don’t understand how they made it through the Shadows of Shade, but once we capture them, we will make it a priority to find that out. I cannot dispel the feeling that we may have a traitor in our midst, a Shadekin who gave them passage,” Turo growled.
That thought made my blood run cold. It couldn’t be true… could it?
From our borders, the Shadows of Shade looked like nothing more than fog. A mist that shrouded the mountain range separating our land, Theynor, from Zaryndar and Tuskarria. But travelers who braved that never-lifting fog soon learned that the Shadows were…alive.
Whatever power God had bestowed upon the Shadekin that allowed us to walk the shadows and be hidden from watching eyes, also inhabited the Shadows of Shade. Anyone possessing Shadekin blood could walk through the Shadows like fog—harmless, though damp. But others… others would find the Shadows had teeth, and that fog could coalesce into very real, very substantial threats.
The power had no conscience, and no compassion. It measured a threat to the Shadekin and dispatched it. The history of our people did not record a time when the Shadows had not existed to protectour Kingdom. That barrier had stood between us and the world since the dawn of Creation.
The Shadows of Shade were virtually impenetrable. Very few outsiders had ever made it through without Shadekin assistance, and I’d never heard of a large group traversing it safely.
As Turo explained all of this to Melek, I nodded, but my mind was on the here and now.
Surely our infiltrators must be a handful or less?
In the few historical accounts of a safe crossing without Shadekin guides there had never been more than three or four in the group. Sadly, the accounts only speculated onhowthe safe crossing had been achieved. There were no clear answers.
“…Until we know how they made it through, Yilan cannot be left unguarded,” Melek said firmly.
Turo nodded. “I will take her guard myself—it will keep me nearby to inform as well.”
I saw Melek tense and I instinctively jumped in, desperate to keep the two at peace. “I will agree to being separated from my mate for tonight,” I said reluctantly. “But we can’t be wasting time running messages back and forth all day tomorrow. At dawn, bring the Advisors back here and we’ll return as well. Together we can all learn of any progress that has been made and make decisions until the attackers are found.”
Turo frowned. “It’s so important that we keep a chain of command intact in the event that either of you are hurt—or worse—”
“And need I remind you that until Melek is crowned,Iam the sole ruler of these people.” I raised my hands to stop Turo’s protest. “I am listening to you, and I won’t fight this strategy when we’re resting. But I’m instructing you: When morning arrives, we’re returning here. Bring all the guards you please, set patrols in the corridors, I don’t care. But I’m not spending the next few days cloistered alone and taking an hour to share a simple update and receive a response. No, Turo. We are workingtogetheruntil this is done. Give Melek the royal suite. I can be guarded somewhere else in the Palace. But, come morning, we’re back here.”
I glared at Turo, then Melek, who both bristled, but reluctantly agreed.
And after we’d arranged our plans in the event that our infiltrators were discovered overnight, I was led by Turo and a full dozen guards to one of the towers we used in preparation formissions, where there were no windows for Nephilim to approach in flight, and no connecting corridors to hide sneaky assassins.
As we left the chamber, I couldn’t help but stare over my shoulder at Melek, who stood surrounded by his guards, but watching after me.
It felt a little desperate to walk away from him after all this, but I swallowed it back, sent a rush of love through the bond, then turned my attention to the night ahead, and my plans.
Because everyone seemed to have forgotten something very, very important: There were no more gifted shadow walkers among our people than me. And I knew the Nephilim better than any of our trackers.
