Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace #1)(109)

Cas’s mouth parts like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t, not with Sabine’s knife at his throat. I take a harder look at him. He’s vaguely familiar. It doesn’t matter. I hate him. I don’t care that he’s done nothing wrong.

Odiva studies Sabine. Then, all at once, she releases her hold on the knife. Ailesse and I stumble backward and fall onto the bridge. I groan. My body can’t take another beating tonight. I reach over to help her to her feet, but she bats my hand away. Her eyes are latched on to the Gate. She pulls up by herself.

Merde. Not again.

“Ailesse, wait!” I stand as she drifts toward it. “We’re free now. You can’t listen to—!”

A bright burst of pain strikes me in the back. A strangled cry rips out of me.

Ailesse finally spins around. Her eyes flare in shock. “Bastien!”

My legs give out. My body slams onto the bridge.

Ailesse is at my side the next instant. She falls to her knees and feels my back with shaking hands. “No, no, no . . . Bastien . . .” Hazily, I see her beautiful face. Tears pour down her cheeks. She pulls her hands away. They’re covered in blood. My blood. She sobs harder. “Don’t go, Bastien. Stay with me.”

Nausea grips my stomach. I writhe and choke for air. I can’t think past the burning pain.

Ailesse reaches around me. I cry out as something sharp tears from my back. My vision rocks. Its hilt. Its unwieldy blade.

My father’s knife. Odiva stabbed me with it.





52


Ailesse


I DROP THE KNIFE, AND it clatters on the bridge. I gape as Bastien bleeds out faster. I shouldn’t have pulled out the blade. I lean over him and kiss his brow again and again. I smooth his hair, forgetting my bloody hands. Tears flood my vision. “You’re going to be fine,” I promise. He looks anything but fine. His skin is as pale as the limestone beneath him. Tremors lurch through his body.

He fights to speak. “Ailesse . . .” His eyes start to roll back.

“Bastien!” I hold his face. “Stay with me! Please!”

His muscles go limp. His eyes shut.

“No, no, no.” This can’t be happening. I kiss his lips. He doesn’t kiss me back. My head falls onto his chest, and I clutch him tighter. I can’t breathe. Broken sobs won’t let me. “How could you?” I shout at my mother.

She sweeps closer, glancing at Bastien with false pity. “Because this time I knew you would not die if I killed him.”

I’m so horrified I can’t speak.

“Sabine, bring Ailesse her true amouré.” My mother stands tall. “Ailesse has a rite of passage to complete.”

Sabine’s mouth falls open. She doesn’t move. I balk at my mother. How can she even suggest such a thing right now? Bastien is dead. Soon I’ll see his soul and have to say my final goodbye—because of her.

A wildfire of rage ignites in my veins. I grab the knife and jump to my feet. I race toward her, my pulse pounding in my ears.

My mother holds up her hand. “Ailesse, think—”

“I hate you!” I swing the knife. She leaps over me. “Nothing excuses what you’ve done!”

She ducks my next attack. “One day you will understand. It was better to break your heart.”

Her cruelty is revolting. “Because my heart means nothing to you?” I slash out again. She sidesteps me.

“Don’t be irrational. I told you, I love—”

“Love isn’t love if you never show it.” I lunge at her. She strikes my forearm. My hand whips back from the force, but I keep hold of my knife. I swing for her again.

“Stop!” She kicks my legs out from beneath me. I tumble to the ground and slide to the edge of the bridge. I barely catch myself from falling off.

“I did what I had to.” My mother sweeps a loose hair off her face. “You were never meant to feel my anger.”

I scoff. “Were you so upset I wasn’t good enough for you?”

“No, Ailesse.” Her tone grows impatient. “I was angry with the gods. You were a constant reminder of what they stole from me.”

Furious tears scald my cheeks. This is why she’s been indifferent to me all my life? Because she loved another man instead of my father? I’m on my feet before I know it, faster than my mother for once. When I slash my knife out again, it cuts a deep line across her arm.

She sucks in a harsh breath and reflexively slaps my face. Hard. Stars burst before my eyes. I bend over, reeling.

“Stop it! Both of you!” Sabine shouts. Dazed, I turn my eyes to her. She’s still on the ledge and holding Cas at knifepoint. “Ailesse, she’s our mother.”

I blink at her. What did she say? Dizziness racks my head. My ears are playing tricks on me.

“No!” Sabine cries a warning. Sharp pain lashes across the nape of my neck.

Acute weakness overcomes me. I stagger on my feet. My hand flies to my collarbone.

The pouch with my grace bones is gone.

“I am sorry.” My mother wraps the pouch’s cord around her hand, then steals my knife while I gape in shock—Bastien’s father’s knife. “I know of no other way to calm you. You are not yourself.”

I lunge to grab back my weapons, but my knees buckle. I crash to the ground. My muscles shake from the strain of all my fighting tonight.