What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(23)

Where were we going?

Brann paused, wincing as his eyes caught on something in the front row of twilight berries. A Mist Guard stood over Rook, one of the swordsmiths from our village, and glared down at the spot where he clutched his neck. Pain had transformed his face into a picture of torment, and I lifted a hand to touch the same spot on my body—the very same place that had burned with cold heat when Brann’s hand brushed against it.

“Please, don’t!” Rook yelled. The guard ignored him, shoving his blade through the smith’s chest and pinning him to the ground before he withdrew it. The villager’s eyes relaxed almost instantly, his chest shuddering with his final breath as I lifted a hand to cover my mouth and keep silent.

He’d been a well-loved member of the community. He’d supplied the Mist Guard with the very swords he’d used to run him through. There’d been no moment when I ever thought they would be capable of executing him so coldly.

But with the Fae able to walk among us once again, anything was possible.

“He was Marked,” my brother said pointedly, his eyes dropping to the cape that concealed my burning flesh, which seemed to worsen with every moment that passed. As if something cut through me, bit by bit, tearing the skin from my body to reveal that which should have always been there.

The Mist Guard kicked Rook’s hand away from his neck, giving me my first view of the swirling patterns on his skin. They glowed the color of freshly grown grass in spring, the Mark of the Fae whose magic claimed him as her consort. An otherworldly scream filled with anguish made the ground tremble all over again, and it took me far too long to realize it hadn’t been one of the beasts from the caves in the woods.

The sound came from a female on the other side of the Mist, feeling the loss of a treasure she’d only just found.

Something like her would come for me.

I reached up, sliding my hand inside my cloak to touch that cold fire on my skin as understanding crashed over me in sudden awareness.

Oh Gods.

I turned back to my mother, her words lost to the wind that howled toward us over the open water where the Veil had once been, but her lips moved clearly, making sure I could understand even with the distance between us. “Go. Quickly,” my mother mouthed, turning to watch Lord Byron as Brann pulled me toward the trees. The woods were dark and menacing without the sun shining down between the branches, and fear lodged deep in my chest. Even I didn’t dare to wander in the woods in this kind of darkness, without the moon and stars to illuminate the dangers waiting for us.

I didn’t want to leave her, to abandon her to the village and the danger that was coming.

“Brann, the woods—”

“At least you’ll stand a chance this way,” he said, picking up his pace as we ducked beneath the low-hanging branches at the edge of the forest. Even having seen what had come of Rook, even understanding what that Mark on his neck had meant in the vaguest sense, the reality of what that meant for me lingered just out of reach.

All that mattered in the moment was survival, and that the people I’d worked alongside, who’d been a part of my life for as long as I could remember, would now want me dead.

The very same man who’d only moments ago been determined to stall my execution, so he could get me into his bed, would now be the one to order it, as if I’d never existed in the first place, wiped from memory and record. I’d been willing to die, but not like this.

“Find her!” Lord Byron shouted behind us, and Brann and I exchanged a quick glance before we picked up our pace.

I could barely make out his features as he ran by my side, barely see my hand in front of my face with the darkness spreading across the sky. My cloak slipped as I hurried, dropping away from my neck, and the sudden burst of white light that filled the trees drew a startled gasp from me as I stumbled.

Any doubt I might’ve had whether the magic of Faerie had claimed me was gone in that moment.

The rest of my left arm burned, a line trailing down from my neck until even my fingers felt like they’d been lit on fire. I watched as black and luminous white swirls appeared on my wrist, giving way to a black moon that covered the top of my hand as I came to a complete halt in the middle of the clearing.

My legs stopped moving. They stopped listening to my brain entirely as I pulled my unmarked hand away from Brann and met his eyes with fear. “Estrella, what are you doing?!”

“They won’t stop,” I said, a ragged breath leaving me with the realization. They would hunt me down until they found me, kill anyone who helped me, and burn entire cities to keep me from being taken by the Fae who would make me his consort.

From the Fae who would become stronger with his mate at his side.

“We’ll deal with that later. Please,” he said, reaching out to take my hand once again. I knew without a doubt that all I would achieve by running with him was to put him in danger, and I couldn’t risk his life for this.

Even if we managed to get away. Even if the Fae didn’t cross the Mist, what kind of life could he have on the run with me? What kind of life could our mother have without either of us to take care of her?

“I love you,” I whispered. Taking his hand in mine, I squeezed one last time and then pushed him so hard he stumbled back into the brush on the edge of the narrow path and disappeared beneath the massive fern leaves.

The footsteps that sounded behind me seemed to loosen my feet, letting me turn slowly to face the guards who had watched me grow up. Who had known me when I’d been nothing more than a child, and would still put a blade through my heart without hesitation, ensuring that I would never reincarnate. There would be no more lives for me, not with my soul destroyed along with my heart.