Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace #1)(21)

I deflect his strikes. He deflects mine, forearm against forearm. I never extend my elbows. I counterattack swiftly. Bastien makes for an excellent teacher. His mistake. The predators in me are cunning students.

He treads the narrow parapet with ease. His powerful desire for revenge is a grace of its own.

Once I learn the rhythm of his movements, I take greater risks. I use more force when I slash for him. I shove him back when our arms connect. He might be brave, but he’s weak. I could snap his bones. Maybe I will.

Perspiration wets his brow. He grunts with each blow, each block, each counterattack. I’m tempted to push him to his limits and discover his breaking point. But I can’t. If Sabine is injured, there’s still a chance I can help her. Please, Elara, let her only be injured.

“Thank you for the dance, mon amouré,” I say.

“You call this dancing?” Bastien strikes for my face, then my leg, deftly switching his knife hands.

“Forgive me, were you fighting?” I dodge both attacks, ibex nimble. “I’d love to see you try, but I’m afraid we’re out of time.”

“Why? You can’t be tired already. Unless you lost all your endurance with one little bird bone.”

My nostrils flare. He has no idea what he’s up against. “I still have the combined stamina of a tiger shark and a great alpine ibex.”

“Strength you stole.”

“Strength I earned.”

“Not enough to beat me.”

My veins torch with blistering rage. Now you die, Bastien. “Watch me.”

With every measure of my ibex grace, I leap ten feet into the air and raise my blade with both hands. All the ferocity and muscle from my tiger shark gathers in my body. I focus on Bastien on the parapet below. He looks small. Easy to conquer.

He steps back into a defensive stance, his eyes wide and ready.

I plunge.

He swings his fist a moment before I strike. I can’t move fast enough. The tension inside me falls slack. He hits my arm and knocks my knife from my hand. It flings into the thinning mist and clatters onto the stones of the riverbed.

Shocked, I barely catch my fall on the ledge. My muscles cramp in protest. My surroundings dim. The energy shifts around me. My sixth sense is gone.

The shark tooth. Bastien’s accomplice has it.

“Sabine!” I cry again. My eyes burn. She’s the limp figure on the ground. She has to be.

I abandon all thoughts of my rite of passage. I won’t kill Bastien here and now. I’ll hunt him down later, even if it takes me a year. Then I’ll have his blood. “I’m coming, Sabine!” Be alive, be alive.

I move to jump from the parapet and onto the bridge, but Bastien grabs my arm. I gasp at his painful grip. I can’t break free. He isn’t such a weakling, after all.

“Let go of me,” I shout. I still have my ibex grace, which gives me strength in my legs. I kick him hard in the shin. He grimaces in pain, but doesn’t release me. “I need to help my friend. She’s innocent.”

“So you admit you’re not?” Bastien yanks me closer when I try to kick him again. He sets his knife at my throat. I swallow against its sharp edge. He can end my life at any moment.

This is all wrong. An amouré isn’t supposed to kill a Leurress. It’s never happened, not in all our long history.

I can’t believe it will happen to me.

Bastien’s breath is hot in my face. “None of you are innocent.”





9


Bastien


AILESSE DOESN’T CLOSE HER EYES as she anticipates death. She stares at me directly. Her body shakes as I hold her at knifepoint on the parapet, but she doesn’t blink. She’s afraid of this moment, but not what’s beyond it. Death. The afterlife. Everything I can’t imagine when I think of my father.

Don’t hesitate, Bastien.

“This is for Lucien Colbert.” My forearms flex. My heartbeat pounds through every space of my head. Ailesse’s umber eyes glisten.

“Bastien, stop her!” Jules’s shout echoes from the clearing mist of the riverbed. “It’s done!” Ailesse sucks in a sharp breath and staggers in my arms.

What does Jules mean? “I am!”

“Not her, the other one!”

Behind me, I hear the crunch of toppling rocks. I glance over my shoulder. A dark-haired girl in a green dress—the witness—climbs up the riverbank near the foot of the bridge. Blood streaks down her injured head.

“Sabine!” Ailesse’s voice clangs in my ears. She’s struggling to free herself—and almost succeeds while I’m distracted.

Sabine sees my knife at Ailesse’s neck. Her face twists with horror. “Let her go!” She bolts toward me.

I tense. She could have the strength of a bear, for all I know.

She races onto the bridge, but then her head sways to the side. She grips a post for support. Another rush of blood streams from her hairline.

“Sabine, stop!” Ailesse cries. “You can’t fight like this.”

“Neither can you.” Sabine’s stubborn voice wobbles.

“You’re not supposed to intervene.”

“I don’t care.”

“Please go!”

“I’m not leaving without you!”