What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)(58)

I knew the pain of the whip well, knew what my skin would look like when it tore it in two.

“Princess,” the Faerie behind me said, her voice soft. There was an urgency in it, a plea for me to leave her.

I would not.

Malachi glared, our standoff coming to a pause as he considered his options. A glance around the room showed the rest of the Fae had closed ranks. They’d moved closer to watch. To whip me would be to make me a martyr, to make me the female who took a beating meant for someone less. I knew the moment that realization dawned on him, the trap I’d unintentionally set.

“Take off her collar, pet,” someone in the crowd called. A soft murmur of agreement came throughout the room. “Let us see who is still standing when you fight someone who can fight back!”

Tilting my head to the side, I raised my brows in a challenge. A grin played at my lips, because Malachi and I both knew who would emerge victorious from such a fight. He swallowed, winding his whip back around his arm.

“Get back to work,” he barked, stepping away from me.

The Faerie behind me shoved to her feet and moved to stand beside me, the bottom tip of one of those magnificent wings brushing against my shoulder.

Thank you, the touch seemed to say.

I brushed one of the ebony feathers with a finger.

You’re welcome.

***

Sweat slicked my brow in spite of the chill of winter, the full sun beating down upon the white salt at my feet. The rock beneath the salt and sand and pebbles was firm, nearly impossible to crack as I shoved the pointed tip of the shovel down into it over and over again. The Fae all around me did the same, digging through the impossible hardness of the rock to create shallow graves for those we’d pulled from the cages in the throne room. Adelphia’s body had been wrapped in the thinnest of shrouds, a mercy that Malachi rolled his eyes at but allowed when the other Fae went through the motions of a proper burial for those unfortunate souls.

“It’s more than many here receive,” Imelda said, her soft words carrying upon the wind that blew salt into my eyes. I swallowed as the giant Fae female with the wings, Elli, swung her pickaxe into the ground just in front of me. She hadn’t left my side since I’d stepped in front of her, assisting me with the tasks that exhausted me far more quickly than I wanted them to. The immortal strength, the unending power, it seemed to linger just out of reach, thanks to that venom.

I had no doubt that was intentional.

The rock crumbled beneath her blow, leaving me to shovel the shards of it out of the way. The grave formed before my eyes, and it wasn’t me but Elli who reached down to pick up Adelphia and lay her body in the hole in the rock.

Imelda stepped up beside me, depositing two golden coins into my hand before she made her way around to the others, who prepared to bury nameless Faeries and humans alike. Tears stung my eyes as Imelda pressed her own coins into the hands of those she passed, aiding the souls of the fallen in their passage to the Void.

I lowered myself into the shallow grave, Elli’s hand reaching out to steady me. My own touched hers, barely a baby’s grip on her pinky, as I stepped down into the small space beside Adelphia’s head. I pressed a coin into each of her eyes, resting them atop the lids I had closed forever.

The first tear fell as I stared down at the woman who had been one of my first friends in a changing world.

“May The Mother guide you peacefully to the meadows of Folkvangr,” I said, running a hand over the shroud that covered the worst of the damage to her hair—to her head.

Elli helped me out of the grave, scooping up piles of rock and salt and sand with her bare hands and loading it into the grave.

My friend disappeared from view, returned to the earth so that her body could become something else even as her soul moved on—as she found peace in the afterlife.

My blood burned, begging for me to let my wrath loose upon the world. I turned, looking back to where Malachi watched me, his hands shoved into the pockets of his trousers.

He read the promise in my eyes, the weight of my stare.

I turned away, Elli and Fallon following at my heels as I helped the closest Fae with the grave they dug. My hands bled as I pulled stone out of the way, scraping myself upon the rocks.

The earth seemed to tremble; the ground seemed to shift.

As if it too recognized the monster that simmered in my blood.





18


Estrella


Caldris waited atop the hills above Tar Mesa two days later, the tallest of those undulating masses of curved rock and salt seeming unending as we hiked up the steep side. A male I didn’t know well enough to name led the way. Malachi followed at my back as we proceeded in silence.

I hadn’t seen my mate in days, hadn’t been allowed to visit with him in the time in which Mab spent preparing for the solstice. I’d heard whispers of the coming celebration when Malachi took Nila and me on walks throughout the palace, ‘exercising my legs’, he’d joked, as if I were no more dog than Fae. I missed Fenrir desperately, but I didn’t dare to imply that I cared about the three wolves who had tackled their way into my heart.

Not when Mab could use them against me too. If my love was a weakness to her, then the fewer creatures I revealed my love for, the better. I trusted that Caldris had made sure they were safe, that they’d been able to survive this court and the delicate scheming for the entirety of their lives before I arrived.