Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace #1)(20)

I wasn’t there. It wasn’t me! Weak words I won’t say. “It wasn’t a coincidence. He was chosen by the gods.”

“Oh, yes?” He strides closer. “Tell me what sort of gods you worship that would tear a man from his family and allow him to be sacrificed by a woman he’s never known?”

The jibe strikes my heart and the sanctity of amourés. Without that mandate from the gods, the Leurress might as well be murderers. Blasphemy. I refuse to believe— “You know nothing!”

“I know more about your black soul—and those of your cult—than I care to.”

Bastien leaps at me, and I barely dodge his knife. I lost the edge of my speed when I lost my wing bone. He grins. His eyes say I’m easy. I’m Sabine’s salamander, no sharp teeth or claws. He’s wrong. I curl my lip. Raise my knife arm. I’ve scaled icy mountains and slaughtered a great ibex. I’ve plunged into the sea and conquered a tiger shark. Bastien is nothing. Only a boy with two knives. A boy who is meant to die, anyway.

I strike out. He blocks my blow with his knife. His other blade arcs for my side. I grab his wrist—my tiger shark speed is plenty fast when I focus—and kick him hard in the chest. He flies backward ten feet and rolls to the ground.

His eyes flash wide. I exhale with satisfaction. “Jules!” he calls. “She’s still powerful!”

“I know!” A female voice. Winded. She’s below the bridge, fighting Sabine.

“Did your friend steal my wing bone?” I prowl toward Bastien. He crab-walks backward. “I’ll kill her after I kill you . . . and whoever else you brought with you, perched in those trees off the road.” Now that I’m attuned to my sixth sense, I know a third person is out there. Energy buzzes from the direction of the forest canopy, a half mile away, and it’s too strong to be a bird.

Bastien stiffens and steals a glance that way. “You’ll never get the chance.”

He sweeps out his arm and tries to trip me. I jump, but his arm lashes at me again. He’s unnervingly fast for someone with no graces. He’s been training for this.

He flips upright into a crouch and keeps attacking low, near the ground. I stumble backward and hop from one foot to the other. My feet tangle in the excess length of my dress and hinder my ibex agility. Curse Isla.

My back hits the parapet of the bridge. Bastien has me cornered, and he knows it. I fling my blade at his chest, but he twists his body, and the knife glances off his shoulder. A sheath must be hidden under his cloak. My bone knife skitters across the bridge and lands in the shadows.

I try to run for my weapon, but Bastien’s boot traps the train of my dress. With a hard yank, I rip the hem away. He swipes his blade again, and I leap backward with my ibex grace and land on top of the parapet. The ledge is narrow, less than a foot wide, but I’m balanced and in my element. I’m also an easy target.

To my surprise, Bastien doesn’t throw his knives. Instead, in one fast and fluid movement, he hoists himself onto the parapet and stands to face me, six feet away. I lift a brow and return his brazen smile. He’s drawing out his moment of attack. Amusing. As if he could intimidate me.

“The gods chose you well,” I concede, noting how dauntlessly he disregards the forty-foot drop to the riverbed below. But he can’t be a true match to my skill. I’ve trained, too—to battle souls of the dead, no less. For that I don’t need a knife. “I will enjoy your death.”

He scoffs and kicks the bone flute I set on the ledge of the parapet. I stifle a gasp as it plummets into the fog of the riverbed. If it breaks— If I lose it— “Oops,” Bastien smirks.

He charges at me while I’m still in shock. I quickly jump back and arch into a handspring. I tumble again and again in fast circles. He’s keeping up. I sense his nearness with my shark grace. When I come upright again, his knives are at my throat and heart. I grab the hilts and hold them still. Veins strain at his temples as he struggles to drive in his blades.

“The gods didn’t choose me.” Bastien gasps under the iron pressure of my grip. “I hunted you here.”

“You couldn’t have set one foot on this bridge unless the gods sanctioned it. Your life is mine.”

With a sharp twist, I wrench the knife from his left hand. It’s the finer blade of the two. He shuffles back and guards his other knife. Interesting that he favors it. “Any time now, Jules!” he yells.

She doesn’t respond. No one does. “Sabine!” I call. Nothing but the howling wind answers back.

The fog scatters just enough that I catch a glimpse of a figure below, prostrate on the riverbed.

My heart kicks. Is she alive? My sixth sense vibrates dully, but that could be the energy of the other girl down there.

“If Sabine is dead”—my gaze cuts to Bastien—“you will die slowly. I won’t bury you with your bones; I’ll wear them. I’ll take them from your body before you draw your last breath.” No Leurress has ever touched the bones of her amouré, but I don’t care. The rite will begin with me.

Bastien’s jaw muscle tightens. “And if Jules is dead, I’ll decapitate you.”

“I won’t give you the chance.” I hold his knife the way he does, like a shield, the hilt never far from my face and constantly moving. I’m quickly learning his defenses, his attacks. I lunge for him, and we begin a new dance, this one more deadly, more passionate, more inflamed.