Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace #1)(84)

Ailesse’s eyes close. She inhales a deep breath. I smile, watching her smile. She looks like herself again. “The moon is full,” she whispers. “I wish you could feel it.”

“Describe it for me.”

She keeps her eyes closed and basks in the light. “Imagine it’s the hottest day and you’re parched for thirst. You finally find a spring of water and take a long drink. You know that feeling when the coolness trickles down through your chest? This is like that.”

I wander closer. She lures me without any flute or song.

If my father knew Ailesse, would he like her?

“Or imagine a night that’s bitter cold,” she continues, “and your bones have turned to ice. At last, you find shelter and tuck close to a crackling fire. This is the moment when you feel that first burn of heat.”

Can my father see Ailesse now? Is there a window looking down onto me from where he is?

Would he forgive me for wanting to see her happy?

“Ailesse?” I whisper.

She opens her eyes. Would my father forgive me for feeling peace and not hatred when I’m with her?

“Do you remember how you danced with me at Castelpont?”

She gives a small nod. Her hair gleams in the moonlight and falls past her shoulders to the middle of her back. Would my father forgive me for wanting to hold her?

“Will you dance with me like you did then?”

She takes in a breath, but doesn’t say anything. Maybe that dance is sacred to the Leurress, and I shouldn’t have asked her to—

I swallow; she’s moving closer. The light ripples across her face. When she’s almost touching me, she rises on her toes, extends her leg, and pivots in a slow circle. Her arms float above her head, wind and water and earth and fire, as she glides around me. Her hand lifts to her face, and she runs the back of her fingers in a line down her cheek and throat and chest and waist and hip. I’m barely breathing. The look on her face is giving, not vain. She shows me her hair next, a shimmer of auburn that slips through her palm.

Her hands take mine, and she pulls them to rest on her waist. My thumbs graze her lower rib cage. Drawing close, she touches my face . . . the bone of my jaw, the slope of my nose. There’s a rhythm to her movements, like each motion is timed to music only she hears.

Her fingers tremble as they move over my lips and trace the length of my neck. They lower even farther, to my chest. Her breath shudders as her fingers spread over my heart. I feel it pound faster. This part of the dance I don’t remember.

Her eyes close. She leans her forehead against me and turns her cheek so it lies across my shoulder. I hold her tighter, wanting to keep her like this, but the dance isn’t finished.

She takes my hand and twirls away from me, slowly and gracefully, then spins back again until her back is pressed to my chest. She lifts her arms and folds them around the nape of my neck. I raise my hands and slide them around the circle of her waist. This is peace. This is right. I was meant to be here with her.

She stays in my arms much longer than she did at Castelpont. When she slowly unfolds herself and turns around, she gazes up at me, searching my eyes. “That’s all I can do,” she whispers. “We’re coming close to the moment where . . .” She meant to kill me. I meant to kill her.

“Then this can be the new end.” My fingers weave through her hair.

She draws a breath and releases it. “What if you and I didn’t meet on a bridge? What if I was a normal girl who didn’t wear bones or see the dead? Would you feel anything for me if I never lured you with a song?”

My mouth curves. “Would you feel anything for me if I wasn’t your soulmate?”

She shakes her head, which worries me for a moment, but then she answers, “I can’t imagine anyone else for me but you.”

I sweep a lock of her hair off her face and brush my thumb across her cheek. “You never needed to play a song for me, Ailesse.”

Our heads drift together, mine lowering, hers rising.

Adrenaline pumps through my veins. I can almost taste her lips. I’ve been wanting to kiss her for days, and those days have stretched on for ages.

She gasps and jerks back. Her eyes dart wildly around the room.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, a little off balance.

“A Chained is here.”

“Chained?”

“A dead person—a bad one.”

“You can see him without your grace bones? I thought—”

She shakes her head, breathing fast. “I feel him. Once he snuck inside, the energy from the moon dimmed.”

My muscles tense. I curse myself, realizing my terrible mistake. I shouldn’t have risked bringing her here, where the dead can find her. “We have to run.”

The Chained’s bodiless voice snarls, “Do you think you can hide from us?” The hair on my arm stands on end. He barely sounds human.

And he’s right beside us.

In a flash, Ailesse pulls my father’s knife from my belt.

“Wait!” I reach for her.

She springs away and strikes the air, swiping the knife with a cry of exertion. The Chained man hisses. Ailesse’s head whips to the side. She’s thrown back several feet, and her body crashes against a wall of the quarry. She crumples to the ground.

I shout her name, rushing toward her. I fall to my knees and draw her into my arms. She sucks in great gasps of air. Her breath has been knocked out of her lungs. “He’s too powerful,” she pants. “He stole Light before he came here.”