Trail of Lightning

Chapter 36

I race across the mesa, my legs churning, my feet flying. No clan power aids me, just terror, heartbreak, and the panic that I may be too late. My mind keeps replaying Ma’ii’s cruel confessions, but I don’t have time to process what he told me. To know how I’m supposed to feel. Some part of me knows I must be in shock, and I use that shred of reason to lock away the shrieking horrors of what Ma’ii has done to me for another day. Right now I have to help Kai.

“Stick to the plan,” I whisper to myself. “Nothing has changed. Stick to the plan.” The naayéé’ ats’os are a sliver of hope in what feels like a bad dream.

I run headlong into a nightmare.

The ground is littered with bodies. Blackened and burned corpses of monsters, all too human-looking in ashy silhouette. And then there are the dead humans themselves, a handful of blue fatigues distinctive against the charred remains of the creatures. Thirsty Boys. I push on, closer to the edge of the canyon where the truck sits. I can see them now, the handful of my allies still on their feet. Relief at first, that they are alive. And then, dread.

Clive kneels in front of Neizghání, the tip of Neizghání’s lightning sword poised at Clive’s throat. The Goodacre twin lists drunkenly, blood running freely from a huge gash in his head. Rissa’s trying desperately to drag her brother out of Neizghání’s reach. Kai stands beside the twins. The irises of his eyes bled out to a solid wall of quicksilver, the brown completely gone. His hands held out in front of him, fingers splayed as if straining to hold back an invisible tide. The air around him hums, heavy and fey. Dangerous.

One wrong word, one wrong move, and we die.

“Neizghání!”

His eyes flicker up to me, pools of the blackest night. The Thirsty Boys around us grip their guns and slide fingers closer to triggers.

I wade into the fray, hands raised. “Talk to me,” I say. I can feel the weight of stepping into the line of fire, of Kai’s elemental power building up, but I keep my eyes on Neizghání alone.

“The red-haired one attacked me,” he says. “I would not have harmed him. I came only when I smelled the monsters.”

“Then leave. The monsters are dead. Leave these people alone.”

He smiles, and even now, it feels like the first rays of light on a cold winter’s morning. “Ah, now that I cannot do.”

Someone in the Thirsty Boys ranks coughs, and we all jump, expecting a hail of gunfire that thankfully never comes.

I exhale, try to control K’aahanáanii’ that’s screaming that I’m in danger and I need to kill. Someone. Anyone. Everyone.

I struggle to keep my voice steady. “Did you know Ma’ii was making the monsters?” I say, loud enough for everyone to hear. “I know you had nothing to do with it.”

His frown is a cloud passing over the sun. “Of course I had nothing to do with it.”

“I didn’t know. Ma’ii left clues. Lightning strikes. He made it look like it could be you.”

His brow furrows deeper. “The trickster has caused great suffering with his foolishness,” he acknowledges. “I will deal with him.”

“I already have.”

He looks surprised, but then his grin widens. “Chíníbaá.”

“So you know these people are not your enemies, Neizghání. Let them go.”

He pauses like he’s thinking. “Not that one.” He points his sword at Kai. The earth tips beneath me, threatens to tumble me over. I should have known, should have seen that Neizghání would consider Kai a threat. A rival. But there’s no way I’m handing him over to the Monsterslayer’s mercies.

“You can’t have him,” I say.

He laughs, melodious like spring thunder. “And who will stop me?”

“I will.”

His eyes travel up and down my body to rest on my left side. “How is the gift I gave you?”

My hand involuntarily goes to the lightning brand below my ribs, and then I immediately let it drop in the wake of his knowing smile.

“So that you would not forget me,” he says. “And so I can always find you.” He takes two steps forward. I fight the urge to move back, but hold my ground. If I exhale, our bodies will touch. I hold my breath. He leans in, conspiratorially, his hair swinging forward to brush my skin.

“I see he has already corrupted you.”

I stumble back, his words like a body blow. Does he know about the nights we spent together in Grace’s bed, the kiss we shared only yesterday?

He purses his lips, watching my face, but I can’t read what he’s thinking. “He is clever, Chíníbaá, and I will not hold your gullibility against you. But you must know that he—”

I shake my head. Back farther away. I can’t take another revelation, another betrayal. It will break me whole. “Don’t . . .”

He pauses, watching me. “Then ask him. Ask him yourself. Ask him why he is here. Why he insisted on becoming your partner.” He spits that last word with contempt.

“I don’t—”

“Ask him!”

I turn toward Kai. He’s released whatever power he was holding, but the air around is still heavy and charged, his eyes still silver-edged. He’s pale, sweaty, his perfect hair smeared back from his perfect face. “It’s not like that, Maggie.”

I swallow, suddenly terrified. That tremor in his voice, the panicked look in his eyes.

Neizghání’s telling the truth.

“Not like what, Kai?” My voice so weak, so scared, I barely recognize myself.

Neizghání laughs. “Tell her. The Cat recognized you for what you were as soon as she saw you. Heard you speak your taking words. Tell her of your clan powers.”

“What’s he talking about, Kai? Medicine People?” And then I realize he’s never told me what his other clan power was. I assumed it had to do with the weather. But now I don’t know. I don’t know.

“My intentions may have been self-serving at the beginning,” Kai says, his voice careful. The same way he spoke to me outside of Tah’s when I faced down Longarm. Like I’m dangerous. “But the time we spent together. That wasn’t fake, Mags. We are friends. Real friends. I would do anything. I didn’t intend—”

“Didn’t intend? Didn’t intend what?”

He hesitates.

“Tell me,” I say, my voice rising. “Tell me!”

“Mags . . .”

“Don’t call me that,” I snap. I’m shaking as a cold dread seeps into my bones and threatens to shatter me into pieces. Because I think I know. That face. The charm. All so preternatural under the lights of the Shalimar with the medicine on my eyes. It was in front of me the whole time, and I couldn’t see it. But I need to hear it from his lips. I need him to confess. “What’s your other clan power, Kai? Not Medicine People. And it’s not Weather Ways. What are you ‘Born for’?”

He doesn’t try to lie. “Bit’ąą’nii. Talks-in-Blanket.”

“And that means?”

“I can talk people out of hurting me. The Urioste boys, remember?”

The beating back in the Burque for sleeping with the Spanish land-grant girl.

“I remember.”

He exhales. Closes his eyes briefly like he’s steadying himself against a storm. “And I can talk people into . . . helping me.”

I fight a tidal wave of nausea that doubles me over. It all makes sense. The way he was able to convince Longarm to let him leave that first day. The same with Hastiin. And Grace.

And me.

“A silver tongue,” I whisper, echoing Grace’s words.

“A way with words,” he corrects me softly. “That’s all.”

I look across the mesa, to the world beyond. But there’s nowhere I can go. No escape from the truth. “Did you use your power on me?” I ask quietly.

“Maggie,” he says, and there’s so much sorrow in his voice that it stops my heart. “You have to understand. My dreams. I couldn’t make sense of them at first. Being hunted by the Monsterslayer. I mean, how could . . . what would the Monsterslayer want with me?” His eyes flicker back to Neizghání, still standing behind me. “But the dreams don’t lie. I knew a monsterslayer was going to come for me.”

I was expecting him to confess to manipulating me into kissing him. Letting him stay with me. But this . . . And then I remember Kai’s dreams. How he worried, asking me to wake him if he started talking. How he tried to drink them away more than once. And his face today when I asked how he had slept.

“What are you saying?” I ask.

“I just didn’t know if the monsterslayer who’d come for me would be him. Or . . . you. And then you show up at my cheii’s hogan, and once I realized who you were—well, that couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? I had to make sure you liked me.” That night at my trailer. His offer of casual sex.

“So you . . . ?”

“Partners. Friends.”

A slow horror dawns on me. “Was this Tah’s idea?”

“No!” he says. “He didn’t know. I hadn’t told him about my dreams. He’d just worry. I didn’t even know who the monsterslayer was until Tah was talking about you one day and then you showed up with the monster head and I put two and two together. And what I had to do was clear.”

“Because sometimes you defeat your enemies by making them your friends.”

The words he said to me, explaining why he was so nice to Coyote that first night. But he wasn’t just talking about Coyote. He was talking about me. He sat there and told me what he was going to do, and it took me until now to understand. Funny. I’d warned him about Coyote, about recognizing the trickster for what he was, but here was Kai telling me that he was just as bad, just as manipulative, and I was too blind to see it.

“I need to know something, Kai. I need you to tell me the truth.”

“I know. I will. I’m trying.”

“That first night, at my trailer, when you tried to get me to sleep with you. Was that a means to an end? Were you telling a lonely messed-up girl what you thought she wanted to hear? A story, like you told Longarm. So that when Neizghání came to kill you, you would have already seduced me. So I’d be willing to fight Neizghání for you instead?”

He winces, like he’s the one who’s hurt. “No, Mags, it wasn’t like that.” He hesitates. “Well, maybe at first. But not after. After you saved me from Longarm. After I saw how brave you were. How much you loved my grandfather. And when you were so convinced that all you were was some kind of killing machine, and it was breaking you apart inside. And I could see you were so much more. A leader. A hero.”

Neizghání makes a disapproving sound behind me, but I ignore him.

“And that kiss, Kai. What was that?”

His face flushes and his eyes lock onto mine. “That was real.”

I blink, trying to clear the unwanted tears. My stomach aches and I wrap my arms around myself to hold it all in. “It would have been better if it was a lie.”

“Maggie, no. Don’t.” His voice is kind, gentle. The same voice that called to me while I was dying in the arena. I cling to that thought. Kai fought for me. He healed me. That was real. That was real. Our kiss was real.

But so was his deception.

“Did you heal me to save me? Or was it so I would survive and fight Neizghání for you?”

“I healed you because I . . . I couldn’t lose you.”

I turn from him, unsteady. Lean over with my hands braced against my knees and try to breathe. Tell myself that if I’ve been hustled, well, then it’s my fault. Because isn’t that what I said about Ma’ii? Kai was just better at it.

I take a deep breath. Face Kai again, and, God, it hurts. All I want to do is rewind the clock, back to Grace’s library. But that moment has passed, and we’re never getting it back.

“Why are you telling me all this? Why not use Bit’ąą’nii now, when you need it most? Can’t you just talk me into fighting Neizghání for you?”

He nods, slow and careful. “I could. But I don’t want to lie to you. I don’t want to trick you.”

A low rumble of laughter behind me. “Once a liar, always a liar. Chíníbaá, he admits himself that he cannot be trusted. He has used you, done his best to turn you against me. Kill him for his betrayal and let us be done here.”

“Go away.”

“Do not feel embarrassed that he used you. You are but a five-fingered and your kind cannot—”

“I said go away!” I can feel Neizghání tense, so I add a “Please.” I turn to Neizghání, and he’s staring at me, eyes questioning. “I just . . . I just need to think.”

At first I think he’ll refuse, but after a moment he stalks away.

I crouch down, touch my hands to the earth to steady myself. I need a plan. A better plan. Not Ma’ii’s, not Neizghání’s, not even Kai’s . . . And the thought is there. Awful. Monstrous. But perfect. I stand up. Kai straightens too, like a man facing a firing squad.

“What happens in the dreams, Kai?” I ask. “When the monsterslayer comes for you?”

He flinches. “I die.”

“And then what?”

He shakes his head, uncertain what I mean.

“And then what?” I repeat, my voice urgent. Because I have an idea. A stupidly painful idea. But if it works . . .

I watch understanding break across his face.

And then dread.

He swallows, the tendons in his neck tightening, and I can see his mind racing, looking for another way out. Any way out.

He lowers his eyes as he comes to the same conclusion that I have. When he opens them again and looks back at me, they are a solemn brown, the silver completely gone.

And I know.

I pull the Glock free from its holster. Glance over my shoulder at Neizghání. He’s watching me, curious. But not interfering, and far enough away that if I lean close to Kai, Neizghání can’t hear me. “You were right about me, Kai,” I whisper, low and urgent. “About me being more than a killer. And I think . . . I think I want to try that.” My gaze shifts down to the brand by my heart. “He’ll never let me. He’ll never let you.”

“If I survive, but I lose you to him, I’ll be dead anyway.”

I tap the hoops in the bag at my belt to remind him of our plan. “You don’t think I can win? I think I’m insulted.”

I smile, but there’s no humor in my voice. “Have a little faith.”

Kai’s face is ghosted and feverish. He looks at me a long minute. A tremor rolls through his body. Finally, he holds his hands out to his sides, a gesture of surrender. “I have faith.”

I take three steps back. Raise my gun. K’aahanáanii is silent, offering me nothing that makes this easier. And there is nothing easy about this. But my hand is steady and my aim is true.

“Then it’s time to die, Rabbit,” I whisper.

And just like that, I put a bullet through his heart.