What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)(48)
Mab stood on the other side of it, her voice carrying across the emptiness that lay between us as she spoke.
“What are you?” she asked, the command pulsing up through my body from the point where her snake had sunk its teeth into me.
In the same way the snakes controlled her victims, binding them to her will, that very venom existed within me for the moment. I felt her will pressing down on me as I gritted my teeth, molten lava following when I didn’t answer quickly enough.
“I don’t know!” I screamed, bowing my head forward as the snake adjusted his bite to get his fangs even deeper. I was still screaming when the mist faded to a moving portrait in my mind. There was only the faint vision of Mab beyond it, her eyes glowing with an eerie white.
The day at Blackwater filled my head, the moments where the moon and stars had faded from the sky replaying like a memory. Whatever power the snakes gave Mab, as the scene played out, her eyes moved as if she was watching it in her head. My fingers twitched in response, the memory of that all-consuming rage washing over me as if I was back on the bridge once again, discovering the lifeless body of a human boy who had been entirely innocent and died for nothing.
There were no golden threads hiding in the mist. There was nothing for me to grasp onto to unleash that rage as my Fae Mark glittered in the dim lighting.
Mab didn’t seem appeased by the memory she’d brought forth, making the rest of my journey toward Alfheimr skim through my head quickly as she searched for the answers I couldn’t provide.
I fought, struggling against the hands moving through my memories, rifling through them as if they were hers to command. An eternity seemed to pass, my blood boiling with the venom her snake kept within me. She rifled through weeks of memories, flashing across them quickly. She paused every moment Caldris stared down at me with affection, noting the love he showed, and I could practically hear her planning to use it against him.
If love was weakness, then what Caldris felt for me would be his ruin.
She paused when she found the blight dying in the snow, her eyes widening as I approached. I reached out with shimmering fingers to touch the feathers of the bird, his eyes glowing with gold once more as if it recognized me.
“Through death comes life.” My voice echoed through the mist between us.
The white in Mab’s stare faded suddenly as she reared back. Her snake released my neck finally, the mist around me fading slowly as the venom no longer pumped through my veins, stagnating within and leaving me weak.
I rolled my head to the side, finding Mab standing before me and staring down at me. Her mouth was hidden by the hand she’d raised to worry her bottom lip between her talon-like nails, shredding the skin that healed as soon as it bled.
“Did you find your answer?” I asked, my head filled with a dull, throbbing ache.
Having her rifle through my memories wasn’t pleasant in the slightest, and I could only feel gratitude that the ferryman and the mysterious golden-eyed man had stayed out of her sight—that she’d stopped before she uncovered them.
I had a feeling they would provide more answers than my life ever could.
“Nothing possible,” she said, brushing her hands down the front of her dress.
I felt like death warmed over, like I might collapse from the pressure remaining in my head while she was perfectly poised.
“Then why stop?”
“The mind is a delicate thing,” she answered, stepping forward until she waited just beside my chair. “To push too hard would be to break it, and I don’t desire that for you.”
“Yet,” I said, continuing her words in the only natural course. She might not have spoken the threat aloud, but it lingered there, waiting for me.
“I’ve no desire to see you become useless, Estrella,” Mab said, a smirk playing on her lips. “You’re worth far more to me, alive and bound.” She stepped around the edge of my chair, making her way toward the massive doors to the throne room. “Come. We’ll be late for dinner, and I would hate for you to miss it.”
***
My body sagged as I followed at Mab’s heels. All attempts at the composure Nila had tried to instill in me had fled with the venom making me sway on my feet. The velvet of Mab’s gown trailed over the blue limestone at her feet, creating a line that I focused on as I walked behind her. Malachi caught me when I stumbled to the side, a hand bracing at my elbow.
I jerked away from the touch sluggishly, shifting myself off balance as I tumbled to the opposite side of the hallway. My hand landed upon one of the statues lining the walls, the figure of a woman standing atop a pillar staring down at me as I turned my gaze up to look at her face.
“Her name was Sarilda. She was the Goddess of War, before I killed her in her sleep,” Mab explained, appearing at my side.
I turned to face her slowly, my vision dancing as the hallway swayed. The vision of two of them flashed before me, making me sick to my stomach as Mab placed a steadying arm beneath mine.
“Why would you kill her?” I asked.
The statue depicted a woman with long hair, her body encased in armor and a shield and sword in her hands. I supposed the real question wasn’t why she’d killed her, but why she’d done it in such a cowardly way.
Mab paused, staring up at the statue of the Goddess with a curve to her lips. It was almost a genuine smile, as close to respect as I’d ever seen on her face.