What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)(12)

“I don’t know,” I admitted, staring down at the hole in the earth where I’d taken the dirt from it. I returned the soil, placing it gently and touching my fingers to the earth once again. My fingers curled into it, the individual grains imbedding themselves under my nails and staining my fingers.

I ignored the pulsing whisper, the driving force to remove my hand from the thing that did not belong to me. It did not claim me, that quiet murmuring of the soil that echoed in my head.

Abomination, it seemed to say; and if dirt and soil and all those things had the ability to speak, I might have taken that insult to heart.

A trick of the mind, I reminded myself, finally pulling my hand away. I covered the hole with the stone once again, piecing the shards together like a puzzle until it wasn’t readily apparent to any guards who might intrude on my personal cell.

“It doesn’t want me here,” I whispered, trying not to acknowledge the melancholy in my voice. It was foolish to care what something that did not live thought of me, but I couldn’t shake the stinging feeling of rejection.

I’d never belonged anywhere, and it seemed I still wouldn’t.

“What doesn’t?” Caldris asked.

I could feel his gaze on me. I hadn’t yet met his face, not wanting to see the concern in his eyes. I wondered if whatever had changed within me had also taken something from me. If it had changed me into something less stable, crafting me into something that would always struggle to separate the truth from fiction.

I raised my eyes, finally meeting his blue stare. The dirt seemed to cling to the Fae Marks on my palm and fingers, as if it could hide who and what I was.

“Faerie,” I answered, not knowing what else to call it. The magic that coursed through the dirt was natural, derived from the Primordials who’d crafted the world themselves.

Was it the Primordials who did not want me here, if that was the case? Or was it purely the result of their magic?

“You say that like it spoke to you,” he said, his brow furrowing.

I was sure he’d heard the whispers that danced in his head; and given that I, myself, questioned if they were real, I could just imagine how difficult it must be to hear them through the bond. Like a secret whispered through people, how much of what we sensed from one another was diluted or altered?

“It wasn’t words so much as a feeling,” I confirmed, because the word I’d put to it was my own. The only word to match the feeling it gave me. How could I possibly thrive in this place where I was a prisoner in a land that didn’t want me?

“What’s happening to me?“ I asked instead, tears pooling in my eyes. My nose stung with the threat of them, as if they could burn a path up my throat and scorch the world. The realization of all that had happened, all that I’d lost, overcame me.

I’d known being with Caldris meant sacrificing my freedom, but I hadn’t been expecting to be held within a literal cage.

There was sacrificing my freedom for love, and then there was having it stolen for no reason. This was the latter, and I wanted to do whatever it took to get back to the sacrifice.

“I don’t know,” my mate admitted. He didn’t shrug his shoulders. The movement would have been far too casual for the seriousness of our conversation, but the lack of commitment was there, nonetheless. “We’ll figure it out when we can. For now, we’re better off not having the answers. Mab can’t demand information we do not have.”

I nodded, trying not to let my curiosity get the best of me.

Some secrets are better left in the dark.

I could hear my father’s voice as clear as if it had been yesterday, the mantra of the ferryman a gentle hum in my soul. I didn’t understand why, and I’d have been lying if I wasn’t curious to see him again, to demand the answers I was due. It was a stark contrast to the girl who had always been content to stay oblivious, who felt the truth in that statement.

Where had that gotten me? What good had my willful ignorance done for me in the end?

I was done being kept in the dark about the things that concerned me. My birth was one mystery I was determined to solve the riddle of. Why was I protected? What was I that I had to be smuggled out of Faerie as an infant with Mab’s daughter?

Caldris smirked, rolling his eyes slightly as he stared at me across the void between us. Even if it was only a few paces, it felt like a chasm determined to keep us apart. To separate what Mab knew would be too powerful for her if we could only come together in the truest sense of the mate bond.

“You aren’t going to leave this one alone, are you?” he asked, shaking his head as if I was impossible. It was done with genuine amusement alongside his frustration, as if this was just further evidence of all the reasons he loved me.

I smiled back at him, silently shaking my head.

“I thought as much,” he said with a sigh.

Warmth pulsed down the bond, striking me straight in the chest. His feelings on the matter were clear, as if I couldn’t read them on his face. We’d always been able to communicate somehow, even without words, prior to the bond linking our minds together as one.

I twiddled my thumbs, dropping my gaze from him as I debated whether I wanted the answers to the question I would ask. Part of his mind was protected, the memory of exactly what they’d done to him fuzzy, as if he’d hidden it behind a veil so that I couldn’t access the fine details of his pain. Only the swift, unyielding agony he’d experienced came through, as if whatever wall he’d erected in his memory wasn’t enough to block it out and keep it from me.