A Battle of Blood and Stone (Chronicles of the Stone Veil 4)

“Anything else wrong, a thaisce?” he asks.

“Ah-hashka?” I ask, phonetically sounding out a word I don’t know the meaning of and I’m sure could never spell. “You called me that the night the incubus almost got me outside of the bar.”

He nods with a smile. “Spelled a-t-h-a-i-s-c-e. It means my treasure in Gaelic. It’s something I called you when you were Eireanne and I was Banan.”

“It’s beautiful,” I reply softly, touched by the nickname he’s carried all these centuries. “Did I have a nickname for you?”

“An amadáin,” he replies with a grin.

“That sounds nice.”

“It means fool or idiot.” Chuckling, he gave a slow shake of his head. “When you were mad at me, that’s what you called me.”

“Ah-madoh-in,” I test the word out, repeating his pronunciation. “I like it.”

Carrick laughs, and I can’t help it. I do, too.

But then he sobers because while we find moments of levity, we have pressing things that need our attention.

“Are you okay going to Faere with Zaid?” he asks. “Because it’s not sitting well with me about you staying at Arwen’s.”

“The castle is a hard no for me,” I say with brutal honesty. “But I’m perfectly comfortable at Arwen’s. We’ll be safely secluded, and we can bend distance if danger approaches.”

“It truly is the safest place for you as Kymaris cannot get in, and she’s my only worry at this point. Maddox will be there soon, and I won’t be long after.”

“Then we run,” I whisper, the thought so unappealing. I hate looking over my shoulder.

“Or we stay with Nimeyah.”

I shoot him a look that says I hate that option.

Laughing, Carrick leans over to brush his mouth against mine. “All right… we’ll find somewhere else to go. Maybe we’ll see if Titus can set us up in Semper Terra.”

“My hero,” I murmur against his lips with a smile.

“Always.”

CHAPTER 25

Finley

The Seattle morning dawns bright and without a cloud in sight, which normally puts more pep in my step because it causes feelings of hope and cheer. This as opposed to one of our cloudy days, with or without rain, which can be depressing, to say the least.

Despite the post-dawn, shining ball hanging low in the sky, I’m not pulling any optimism from it.

Because today, we all split apart and go our own ways for the foreseeable future.

I had not realized how much comfort I took from us all being together at the condo. Yes, it had become like a family and we were all getting along so well and even having fun during meals and playing games after. It was always enough so that the doom and danger lurked in the far recesses of our minds.

Now things are getting real.

Our family is being broken apart.

We’ve suffered the betrayal of Boral, or perhaps his torturous death, but the fact is we lost him. Lucien is gone, and who knows if or when he’ll be back. I’m terrified we’re going to lose more.

We’re all trying valiantly to keep things upbeat in our conversation as we finish the amazing breakfast Zaid cooked. Made-to-order eggs, bacon, croissants, and fresh fruit. Zaid was making sure we stocked up on energy for our morning journeys.

Maddox is taking Rainey and Myles into hiding, then joining us in Faere. I asked him specifically not to tell me where since I didn’t want to be put into the torturous position of being forced to reveal where they were. I’d rather die and take it to the grave.

Carrick would be going with us to Faere, then off to kill Kymaris’ ritual Dark Fae.

After that, Carrick, Maddox, Zaid, and I would be in charge of protecting the Blood Stone, and we still haven’t decided how to do it. Carrick says the best option is to stay with Nimeyah as it’s warded heavily against Dark Fae. If Kymaris made it into Faere somehow, we’d have Nimeyah and her family’s incredible powers to help us defend it.

Assuming they’d agree to help us. I’m confident Pyke and Deandra would, but I can’t see Nimeyah committing and it seems her husband does whatever she wants.

Maddox suggested we hop—not just among AltVeritas, but around the Earth realm, too. He felt it unlikely Kymaris could track us.

I wanted to go back to the condo and make our stand there, but purely for selfish reasons. It was my comfort zone, but truly, it wasn’t good for humankind if we forced Kymaris to bring the battle there.

At this point, Kymaris probably doesn’t care about keeping things under wraps. She could reveal herself to the world, and the human population would have no clue how to deal with her. She would love the challenge of attacking this building and the human carnage it would wreak. And even if she revealed herself, her Dark Fae, and her daemons to the world, no human force would be equipped to take her down in time to stop the ritual at the new moon. She could simply attack the condo, lay it and everyone in it to waste, and then hop to another realm until it was time for the ritual.