Hollow Earth (Hallowed Realms Book 2) Read online

  Aed smiled. “That’s what I love about you, Taryn. You always speak your mind, even when what you’re thinking is less than ideal.”

  “Aye, and I’ve got a few more things I could be saying to ya if ya have a mind to hear ’em.”

  His eyebrow rose with a challenge in his eyes, but he said nothing. I took that as a sign he was not of a mind, but some things still needed to be said.

  “Havin’ so much time on my own has given me a chance to think about a good many things. One of them is you.”

  “Oh?” Now he turned his full attention on me.

  “Aye. How can I be trustin’ that ya won’t toss me aside when your ma or da throw a wobbly? We both know when it comes down to it, ya don’t love me. And I don’t love ya either. So all we ’ave between us is a shared hatred of your parents.”

  “And a love for our people.”

  “Aye.” I nodded. “And who’s to say that when the time comes and you’re pressed into a corner that ya won’t be choosin’ them over me?”

  To that, Aed had no answer. If he had, I might have punched him for lying to me. I turned away from him to look out of the window as I worked to bury my turmoil. Already the city of Padriag was starting to come into view. The lights were not so bright or as plentiful as Eimear’s, but it was still a large town. There would be hundreds of people lining the streets, waiting to catch a glimpse of us.

  If only the rains would begin to fall and save me from this next round of torture. I drew the curtain across the window as Aed shifted on his seat, crossing and then uncrossing his legs. Finally, he pushed off the cushion and came to sit next to me. His knee pressed against mine, but I didn’t move away.

  “You know I would never see you harmed, don’t you?”

  “Aye.” He’d proven his intentions at the very least. His follow-through was yet to be seen. For the moment, he benefited from this tour. But what would happen when his parents flat refused to let him marry me?

  “And that’s not going to change, Taryn. I swear it.”

  I wished I could believe him. I wanted to, with everything in me, but I knew his love for Eimear and our people were very strong. As it should be.

  “You know? I still remember the first time I saw you. It was at the docks after the lorcan attack. You looked so fierce. No one, in all my life, had ever dared speak to me the way you did that day.” He laughed, shaking his head. “We are both so passionate, stubborn, and far more thick-headed than we should be. This may not be the fate either of us would have chosen, but I have to believe we can still be good for each other. We just have to give it a chance.”

  “But is that what ya want? To settle for me?”

  “I would not say I’d be settling. You’re a good person, Taryn. Any man would be lucky to have you.” He offered me a rueful smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Besides, since when did a prince ever get what he wants?”

  It felt cruel to point out to him that his own father had stolen the throne and blackmailed to get his chosen wife, so I remained silent.

  “We can do this.” He reached out to take my hand. The rough calluses of his battle-worn hands felt familiar and comforting.

  “Aye.” I nodded in resignation. “I reckon we can.”

  Being Aed’s wife would come with its benefits. The king and queen would never be able to touch me. My family’s future would be secured. Once Aed assumed the throne, we could fight and push the lorcan back behind the Wall where they belonged. We could find a way to restore peace and balance to our land.

  Knowing that made suffering through this tour a little more bearable. I would continue to wear the stupid dresses and smile on cue. I could even make myself walk down the aisle and take Aed’s hand in marriage someday. But what I couldn’t do was find a way to let Devlin go. To turn my back on what might have been and pretend I was okay with it all.

  “And Devlin?” I asked.

  Aed lowered his gaze. “He is a part of you. I understand that and have no right to demand that his memory be taken away from you. But I do hope that someday you can see beyond him. I’m not such a bad guy.”

  I smiled. “No. I dare say you’re not. I might even take a likin’ to ya someday.”

  A hopeful smile lit his face. “Aye. I’d like that.”

  “Until then”—I cleared my throat to break the mood—“I’ll be needin’ your promise that ya won’t let me trip in these blasted shoes when I dismount from the carriage.”

  “On my honor, I will save you from yourself.” He crossed his arm over his chest in a cheeky oath. “Although, it might look good for the people if I’m forced to catch my swooning bride.

  I scowled and punched him in the shoulder. “I dunna swoon and ya know it.”

  “Of course not. Just like you don’t pine either. But a little fall could be used to our advantage.”

  “Get your bloody mind out of the gutter.” I laughed and shoved him back. “I won’t be givin’ ya none of that any time soon.”

  Aed held up his hands in defence. “I was only saying…”

  “Aye. I know what you were saying. Just ya be rememberin’ that I’m usually armed.”

  When he laughed, I realised how much I’d missed this. Over the past few weeks, I’d spent a great deal of time watching Aed when he didn’t know I was looking. I saw aspects of him as he dealt with affairs of the realm with a calm determination that reminded me he would be a good king. I was touched when I saw him stoop to play with a servant’s child in the courtyard or pick a flower for his elderly chambermaid. There was kindness and goodness buried beneath his devilish good looks.

  But this knowledge only left my heart troubled. Was it wrong for me to be attracted to Aed? The more I noticed him, the more I worried myself over it. Devlin was a man both strong and true. Someone without motivation to someday use me for his own ends. I couldn’t trust that Aed wouldn’t do that if his people’s needs demanded it. Devlin wanted me and nothing more.

  But he was a human. He didn’t belong in my world. Or me in his. My heart wanted Devlin, but my mind knew Aed was the logical choice.

  If I did not find a way to accept my place at Aed’s side, we would all be doomed.

  Chapter 2

  Devlin

  Something was wrong. Deep in the pit of my stomach, I knew something wasn’t right. It was the same feeling I had the day Alana passed away a few months ago. I had attributed that connection to our being twins, but now that she was gone, I couldn’t shake the fear that this sense of dread had more to do with Taryn. We hadn’t actually left on the best of terms. I blamed myself for that.

  It was me who picked a fight with Prince Aed when he came to bring Taryn back with him to Netherworld. I was naive enough to think that my skill in boxing would be enough to take down a reaper warrior. A group trained to take down those foul-looking lorcan. Lorcan. Reapers. Banshees. Her world was a whole new reality I hadn’t quite come to terms with. I vaguely understood the concept of the ‘veil’ she mentioned, which separated our two worlds. Hearing there was a whole other plane of existence that we never knew about, and comprehending the ramifications of the two worlds mixing, however, was something I wasn’t adjusted to. One thing I did know was that if Taryn was in Netherworld, and in danger, because of me...I had to do something about it.

  This was my fault. Taryn’s life was on the line because she was trying to protect me. She had dared to raise a blade to the prince, and the guards bore witness to it. Without realizing it, I had condemned her to be hung.

  “No. The prince said he’d find a way to save her,” I muttered to myself for the millionth time. Still, this sense of dread wouldn’t stop. “I’ve got to find the veil, Seamus. I have to know that she’s okay.”

  “I know, mate,” he said, looking up from his breakfast. “I want to get back to Tris as much as you want to find Taryn.” His eyes were on me, and I saw the intensity of the truth that lived there. Tris was Taryn’s banshee friend. Together, they had managed to smuggle Seamus into Netherworl
d. It was the only place that might heal the wounds inflicted on him by the lorcan. In that time, Tris and Seamus fell for each other. Hard.

  Of course, once found, he was promptly kicked out by Prince Aed. Ever since that night, the two of us had been searching for the veil. We’d spend every evening and any day off from work to search the woods for it. Searching for something hidden from the world was problematic while living under my ma’s and da’s noses. Seamus and I decided to rent the apartment above my da’s auto shop. It wasn’t really an apartment, more of a storage space we’d converted into a flat, but at least it was out of their watchful eye. We could come and go as we pleased.

  Our flat was open. There were no walls separating the attic space into different living spaces. We’d hung a few sheets on either end to give each other some level of privacy. We each had a bed of our own and an old couch that delineated a central living space. A hot plate served us well enough for cooking, and we used the shop’s locker room downstairs as our bathroom.

  Ma and Da were both more than happy to help us convert the storage space into a livable one. They knew the drinking problem Seamus’s da had and didn’t want him going back there. They also weren’t too keen on me finding myself a place somewhere so far away in Belfast. Moving in together was a way to keep us both close and safe.

  After Alana’s death, I don’t think Ma was ready to part with me, even if she did tell me over and over how she wished I’d not passed on the scholarship to university. She hadn’t quite grasped that my days of throwing pots were over. At least for now. I had no desire to lock myself away in my studio like I used to. My creativity had run dry. Truth be told, it had begun to vanish the second Alana got sick. Now, there didn’t seem to be much point. Not that I had time to throw pots. Not when finding the veil into Netherworld had become a priority.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t think Taryn could defend herself. Quite the opposite. Taryn was one of the fiercest women I’d ever met, but I knew little about how the rules worked in her world. All I knew was that the king had ultimate power and what he said was law. Aed’s word to help protect her didn’t fill me with confidence. I had to see with my own eyes that she was safe. That was why I needed to find the veil. I’d told myself I needed to make sure she was okay, and then I could move on with my life.

  I was realistic. I knew we could never really share any sort of life together. We lived in two different worlds. I was a simple human and she was a banshee. And yet, I couldn’t help wonder if there might be a way to make it work. I mean, I could see her when other humans couldn’t. There had to be a reason. Seamus and I were the only ones who could see them, and I could see Taryn before Seamus could. Tris had explained when Seamus got attacked by the lorcan, he became connected to the Netherworld because he had lorcan blood in him. That meant he could see banshees as well as me. Or at least some of them. It was all so confusing.

  “Hurry up and wolf that down. I want to get in a few minutes before work.”

  Seamus put his spoon down. “I don’t think I’m up for it today. My shoulder is throbbing again.” He rotated his arm a few times. At first, we thought he’d pulled something moving the couch upstairs, but the fact he’d been less energetic the last few days made me wonder.

  “Let me see it,” I said. I will admit that he looked like shit when he came back from Netherworld after his lorcan attack. His shoulder wasn’t as black as it had been and he was upright, but he was far from normal. Tris had sent back a few herbs, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with them. He hadn’t ever bounced back, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the poison was still in his bloodstream.

  “It’s fine. It’s just a pulled muscle,” he protested.

  I walked over to him and yanked the sleeve of his shirt up.

  “Hey, watch it!” he shouted, but he didn’t back away. The black marks on his arm, which mercifully my folks assumed were a tattoo, looked exactly the same. So far, nothing appeared to be changing with the shape of the marks, but there was no denying his energy level. He’d been dragging for the last few days.

  “Stay here. Get some rest. Ring me on my mobile if anything changes.”

  Seamus reluctantly agreed. I knew he didn’t like feeling useless, and he wanted to find Tris as much as I wanted to find Taryn. If he was getting sick again, it made the urgency of finding the veil even more vital.

  Therein lay the problem. We couldn’t find it.

  For the first month after Aed left with Tris, we searched in vain for the veil. I knew it had to live somewhere along the line of woods that ran behind my house and the cemetery. Taryn and Aed had both come from that same direction, but so far, the daily searches had come up empty.

  Then one day, I was walking home from dinner at my ma’s house when I saw her—a banshee decked out from head to toe in the same silver cloak Taryn wore. I’d dropped the leftovers I’d been sent home with and ran after her, shouting Taryn’s name. She didn’t respond to my shouts, so I had to rush to catch up with her. When I did, I grabbed her shoulder and spun her around.

  “Taryn!” I’d gasped, then. I had been so relieved to finally find her.

  However, the brown-eyed lass who stared back at me was not Taryn, nor was she happy I’d stopped her. In fact, she’d began to scream.

  “A human saw me,” she’d shrieked, “a human saw me!” She’d run towards another woman, who turned to look back at me. I’d sensed then that this newfound information would not bode well for Taryn if it got back to Netherworld that there were humans who could see banshees. I’d thought quickly and started shouting Taryn’s name in the air beside me like a crazy person.

  “Don’t be daft, Isla. It’s just a mad human. They can’t see us. How many times do I have to tell ya that?” She then had taken the shaking girl under her arm and dragged her away from me until they had rounded the corner.

  While I didn’t want to get Taryn in trouble, I also flipped out that I could now see more of them. Why could I see other banshees? Had I always been able to? No. That would be impossible. There was no way I would have missed banshees when they dressed like that. So why could I see them all of a sudden? The more important question was, if I could see all banshees now, did that mean I could follow them back to the veil?

  For days I followed banshees towards the woods. And every single time, I lost them almost as soon as we entered the trees. It was maddening.

  After another failed day looking for the veil, I went back to the flat to check on Seamus. He was asleep on the couch. His colour was off. The water I’d left him when I left remained untouched, so I opted to make him some broth. The fool was going to dehydrate himself.

  “Mmmhhh,” Seamus groaned. I must have woken him up with the microwave.

  I poured the broth into a mug and brought it over to Seamus, who sat up from the couch when I approached.

  “How is the shoulder looking?” I asked, handing him the broth.

  Seamus pulled up his sleeve, showing off the black claw marks that ran from the top of his shoulder to mid-bicep.

  “So far not too bad,” he said.

  “Wait, that’s new,” I said, inspecting the small vein-like lines flowing out of the claw marks.

  Seamus frowned. “That was there before.”

  “No, mate, it wasn’t.” I walked over to my desk and grabbed a Sharpie. I uncapped it and walked back to him, drawing a large red line where the end of the spider-webbed line was.

  “Why did you draw on me?” Seamus asked.

  “We need to watch if it spreads.” Though the thin lines had barely passed the original claw marks, I suspected any movement was a bad sign. Tris had worried that he hadn’t healed right when Aed forced him back to Moneyglass. What if the poison was spreading again? The medicine we had on this side of the veil wouldn’t be able to help him. He needed Tris. He needed the herbs from Netherworld.

  The clock was ticking for Seamus. I had to find that veil. I tried to go over what we knew about Netherworld again, trying to figure out
what we’d missed.

  “Okay, so tell me one more time,” I asked, sitting on the end of the couch. “What happened when you got to Netherworld? Exactly how did you get there?”

  Seamus shook his head, likely annoyed to be asked this same question.

  “We’ve gone over this, mate. I don’t know how. I was passed out after that thing came at me. I woke up to Tris’s face standing over me.” He smiled at the memory. “I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.” Seamus looked up at me. “She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. I told her as much, too. She told me to rest, but I could tell I’d taken her off guard.” His eyes looked far away. We were both longing for women we couldn’t reach, so I could sympathize.

  “Fine, but what about while you were there? Was there anything that would help us find how to get back?”

  He shook his head. “I was so out of it when I was in Netherworld. I had these insane fevers that made me real loopy. Nothing seemed to bring my temp down. Tris actually had to strip me down to my knickers.” Seamus grinned. “Come to think of it, I don’t know stripping me down was necessary. I like to think Tris liked sneaking a peek at me undressed whenever she could.” A blush filled his cheeks. Seamus never blushed.

  “You’ve never been so taken with a bird before,” I said, smiling at him.

  “Tris is different, Devlin. I’ve never met anyone like her before. She was so kind and gentle with me. She didn’t give up fighting for my life. Not once. She risked her life to save mine. If she was found harboring a human, they would have killed her, Devlin.” Seamus looked over at me. “I know you’re scared for Taryn and what the king might have done to her, but I’m scared about Tris, too. What if they find out about my being there?”

  “Aye.” It was a legitimate fear. “But you said she kept you well hidden, though.”

  Seamus winced as he sat up. “I don’t know how secretive it was. I mean, I was still inside her house. She’d tucked me into her ma’s healing room,” he said.