What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)(11)

I hummed, resisting the urge to pet the snake atop my head. I needed something to do with my hands, a way to keep busy, to distract me from the emptiness of my cell. I needed a fucking book to read, but I doubted Mab was going to give me access to her library. Caldris’s face softened as I glanced around the cell before my gaze fell upon him again.

“I’m going to get you out of here, I promise.”

“And what about you?” I asked, trying to tell him through the bond that I would never leave him behind. The only way to get me out was to get him out, and the snake wrapped around his heart would make that nearly impossible.

“We’ll worry about that when you’re safe,” he said, hanging his head.

“No.”

“Excuse me?” he asked.

I glared at him in response. The God of the Dead wasn’t used to being told no—not when the only person who dared to defy him was the Queen of Air and Darkness herself.

“You dragged me here against my will. I will not be sent away like an incompetent child. I am the only one of the two of us who can act outside of Mab’s will. You need me, and we both know it,” I explained, stepping up to the iron bars that held me captive. The snake upon my head felt like a crown, like a twisted joke. Mab was the queen known for her power over snakes, and here one rested with me even still.

“She will use you in ways you cannot imagine. You cut her, min asteren. I could not tell you the last time someone was able to do that. You should have allowed her to scar me as she has countless times and stayed hidden. Now she sees you. What do you think she would do to possess a weapon like you?” he asked, making my lips twist into a grimace.

“I’m not a weapon,” I argued.

“You are. We cannot even begin to understand what you’re capable of yet, but you healed from iron. You used Mab’s own shadows against her. You will strengthen her reign. If for no other reason than that, we have to get you away from her.”

“I’m not going to leave you behind,” I stated firmly, staring at my mate across the hall between our cells.

There was nothing but a determined stare on his face as his gaze held mine, his jaw clenched, immovable as solid ice. But enough force could break it, could shatter the ice around him like the Veil upon the grass of the gardens at Mistfell.

I wouldn’t bow, wouldn’t break. Not when the alternative meant that the past weeks I’d spent coming to terms with the mate who’d claimed me would be for nothing. Not when the bond we’d created and the love we now shared would haunt me.

I wouldn’t allow Mab to be what drove us apart when I’d tried and failed to do so on my own.

“You aren’t supposed to be here. I didn’t believe it when you said that you felt like something within you revolted against these shores. You are far too dangerous to exist in the clutches of the one person who would use you to burn the world as we know it to the ground. With you at her side, she could be unstoppable,” Caldris explained, his gaze softening for a single, delicate moment.

“She already is. If she wasn’t, someone would have stopped her by now,” I said, hanging my head as I considered that freeing my mate from Mab may be impossible in the end.

It seemed unfathomable that one person could have so much more power than what I’d observed in him. There’d been a time when the power my mate possessed seemed infinite, and in truth, it still did in so many ways.

What must Mab’s power have looked like if it was too much for the male who’d decimated Calfalls to fight?

“Maybe we were just waiting for you. Even if we didn’t realize it,” Caldris said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “It has been suggested that my mate may be enough to increase my power so that I could stand a fighting chance, but we never considered what you may be. You are more than just a mate for me to love, and your power will feed our bond far more than a human’s life force ever could. No matter what you are, there is something inside of you that will frighten Mab when she comes to realize how deep it runs in you. When you factor in our bond, the two of us would be unstoppable if we could only complete the ceremony and tie our lives together in truth.”

I sank to my knees on the stone beneath me, touching a hand to the rough surface and wishing the iron around me didn’t dull my senses so much. I’d never healed from it before stepping foot in Alfheimr, so something about this land strengthened me.

As much as I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be here, this was where I’d been born in my first life.

This was the land that coursed through my soul, that powered my very existence. So why did it repulse me, as if the earth itself wanted to send me away?

I shuddered as I bent my fingers, digging my nails into the stone and pressing down with every bit of the aggravation I felt. The stone cracked beneath my touch. Jagged pieces jutted up from the surface to surround my hand. I picked them apart slowly, nudging them out of my way as I touched my fingers to the soil beneath.

It was rich, hearty, even in this place that seemed so devoid of life. The grains were perfect for growing plants, wet and healthy in ways the grainy sands of Nothrek could never be without the magic of the Faerie. I cupped a handful and lifted it from the ground, curling my arm toward my torso as I stared at the dirt that felt so different from the soil I’d spent an entire lifetime toiling away in.

“What are you doing?” Caldris asked, his voice muffled, as if I was drowning beneath the surface. As if the water that flowed through the hills of Faerie raged inside my head, making it so that I could barely see him.