Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace #1)(72)

My nostrils flare. I swing my knife out. The soul shrieks as I slice into it. I quickly jab to my left, then slash in front and behind me, anticipating a group attack. But my blade only grazes one of them. Two others slam into me and knock me to the ground. Pain erupts from the back of my head. I’ve hit my bruise again.

I kick and thrash, blindly fighting with my knife, but too many souls converge on me. More are coming. Their growing roars rise above the thundering sky.

“Ailesse!”

Bastien.

A jolt of adrenaline rushes through my body. I’m not alone.

I wrest my right arm free and drive my blade into what feels like ribs. With a shrill scream, one of the souls slumps off of me. Rain pummels my face. I sputter and gasp, but keep attacking the others. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Bastien seize an abandoned cart and run it toward me like a battering ram.

“Get off her!” he shouts.

Most of the souls let me go. I roll out of the way just as the cart barrels through the rest of them.

Bastien is immediately at my side. He hauls me up and grabs my hand. We race down the street and away from the chapel.

Invisible hands claw at us. Bastien veers for the sun-symbol flag of Dovré. Its pole extends from a bracket on a building. He yanks it out and swings it behind us, using its pointed iron tip like a spearhead. It thuds as it strikes a few unseen opponents. “I told you that you were a beacon to them,” he says to me.

I pick up a loose cobblestone and lob it through the air. It stops halfway in its arc and strikes one of the souls. “Did you find Jules?” I ask. There’s no point in wasting more breath by telling Bastien he was right.

“No.” Rain streaks off his flexed jaw muscles. He swings the pole again. “I’ll try again tomorrow.”

My stomach rolls. “What do we do now?” The dead are swarming us, backing us up against the wall of the building.

Bastien rapidly assesses our surroundings. “Follow me.” He races into a slit between buildings, an alley so narrow I didn’t notice it before.

I chase after him, my knees shaking as my weakness threatens to overwhelm me. My shoulders bang and scrape against the alley walls. The dead rage behind me, but at least here they can only pursue us single file.

The rain falls in angry sheets as we emerge into a courtyard and dash through it to a stable. Bastien kicks open the gate, breaking the lock, and passes me the flagpole. I whirl around and stab at the air. I hit a soul. The heavy rain bounces off of the contours of an invisible body.

A moment later, Bastien bursts out of the stable on a large gray horse and reaches for me. Anxiety and anticipation trip through my veins. I’ve never ridden a horse before. I spear another oncoming soul, then grab Bastien’s hand.

He hoists me up behind him on the saddle and straightaway gallops out of the courtyard and onto a wider road.

“Come back, thief!” someone yells from an open window.

I find myself laughing. I can’t help it. Despite my fatigue and the vicious cries of the dead, the thrill of actually riding an animal and feeling its strength pound beneath me is exhilarating.

Dovré rushes past me in flashes of lightning as the storm rages on. Bastien weaves aimlessly through street after street, trying to outrun the dead. I glimpse arched fa?ades and domed towers and humbler dwellings with thatched roofs. The rebelliousness of being in this forbidden city sends another shiver of elation through me. I don’t even care how furious this would make my mother. I wrap my arms tighter around Bastien’s chest.

He steers the horse into another alley and slows the stallion to a walk before he stealthily slips around another corner. The rickety spires of the chapel that we started from rise above the cluster of rooftops in front of us. Bastien swiftly dismounts the horse, and then pulls me down with him. “From here we go on foot,” he says. “Quietly.” He yanks off his dripping cloak, wraps it around my shoulders, and draws up the hood. “Do your best to stay out of sight.”

I stare into his sea-blue eyes and the raindrops collecting in his lashes. Maybe it’s my bruised head, but my knees go a little wobbly. “Where are we going?”

“Back to my hideout under Chapelle du Pauvre.”

“The catacombs? Again?” All my euphoria vanishes, and my chest caves inward.

“I’m sorry, Ailesse.” His brows pull together. “I don’t know anywhere else that you’ll be safe.”

I look away from him and slowly run my hand over the stallion’s neck. I could leap up on this strong horse and ride away from here, back to Chateau Creux. But the horde of the dead would only follow me and endanger my famille. The Leurress can’t attempt to ferry them for another month, not until the next new moon. Can I last that much longer in the darkness?

“We’re not giving up, all right?” Bastien tentatively touches my shoulder. “I’ll keep searching for Jules. She and Marcel are off somewhere working to break our soul-bond. You and I can do the same thing. I bet we’ll even have better luck. Marcel might be brilliant, but I have you.” He blinks, catching what he just said. He lowers his eyes and bites the corner of his lip. “You have me, too, Ailesse.”

My heartbeat steadies. A flood of warmth calms the tension in my body. Maybe I can bear the darkness. I take Bastien’s hand and hold it tight. He meets my eyes, and his mouth gently curves upward.