What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)(8)
Mab’s eyes dropped to my arm, studying the slight, pulsating golden glow that filled my flesh as my body worked to repair the damage. Cold filled the marks, soothing the burns as she and I watched my skin knit itself back together. The wounds healed slowly, the golden light spreading through them. Only I saw the golden threads wrapping themselves around my forearm.
Mab reached up a hand to touch her cut cheek, her crimson blood covering her fingers as her own wound sat unhealed.
None in her court dared to move. Part of me was convinced that they didn’t dare to breathe while her jaw was clenched. I took a single step forward, pausing only when she raised a hand and Caldris groaned behind me.
I gnashed my teeth together, gritting out the words. “I do hope that doesn’t scar.”
“It seems having a mate is not the only secret you’ve been keeping, my darling Caldris,” Mab said, ignoring me entirely as she stepped forward. “She’ll make such a fun new pet for me to play with.” She paused at my side, glaring down at me as I lifted my eyes to hers. Caldris’s chains rattled as he struggled, while Mab’s men let him loose from the chains.
“The last person who tried to own me now lies dead,” I warned, forcing myself not to look away from her as she tipped her head to the side and smiled at me.
“Is that a threat?” she asked, a slight giggle slipping free from her lips. “It has been so many years since someone dared to threaten me, I’d almost forgotten what it feels like. I believe I’ve missed it.”
“You could have all the threats you wanted if you released the children you’ve collected and allowed them to return to their families. Only a coward would use them to maintain power,” I said.
Caldris sighed. “Min asteren—”
“Better a coward than dead,” Mab said, shrugging her shoulders as she turned to look at Malachi, severing the eye contact I hadn’t been willing to be the first to break. “Take them to the dungeon until I’ve decided what to do with my new curiosity.”
She turned away, leaving us to the men who looked at me as if they weren’t certain they wanted to risk touching me. Caldris struggled in his chains, trying to get free from the shackles so that he could get to me.
His fury was tangible in the air, and because of the bond, I knew it was rage for me.
I’d revealed too much, played my hand too soon, but I would never regret getting between him and the pain coming for him. Not when I suspected it was the first time anyone had ever done something like that. Beneath his fury, I felt his confusion. Even a God wanted to be loved so thoroughly that someone would sacrifice themselves to protect him.
The hilt of a sword crashed against my temple, forcing me to stagger on my feet and stumble to the side. Malachi caught me, steadying me as he raised his sword once more.
Caldris roared. “There’s no fucking need for—”
Another blow knocked me fully into his grip, and my body went lax.
Then everything faded to black.
2
The feeling of water sluicing over my skin drew me from the depths of slumber. I opened my eyes suddenly, staring out at the dark, reflective surface beneath me. All around me, faint lights twinkled in the darkness like the night sky, stretching on and on for what seemed like an eternity. There were no mountains, no trees, no signs of life—merely an endless void.
My arm lay against the water beneath me, supporting me above the surface as I stared down through the murky, flowing surface. I lifted a hand, studying my fingers before I pressed it against the water once more. It slid beneath the surface, and the water streamed over my hand, flowing as quickly as the waters of a rapid river. Shifting, changing, moving. I couldn’t see the bottom of the strange river beneath my body. Shadows and specters twined together seamlessly, writhing and filling the water.
The macabre, weathered face of a man passed beneath my hand—his skin was pulled taut to his skull, his eyes closed and cheeks hollow. I pressed my face closer to the water to study the way my fingers moved within the fluid. A spectral woman passed by, her eyes closed as if she was in eternal slumber until the moment her torso passed by my hand.
Her eyes flung open. She grasped onto me, and her mouth opened into a scream, revealing razor-sharp teeth. I tugged on my hand, trying to pull it free, but she and the water held me captive.
“Let go!” I screamed, pulling as hard as I could.
Those teeth seemed to rotate in a circle within her mouth, spinning in a vortex that felt like it would suck me into an entirely different world. She slowly dragged herself toward my hand, while I desperately fought to pry her fingers off mine.
“Let it be a lesson for you,” a male voice said as he pressed the paddle end of his oar against her torso.
He pushed her away, and her shriek and wail echoed through the cavernous empty space as she drifted off. I was finally able to yank my hand free. My lungs heaved as I cradled it to my chest, having nearly lost it to my own curiosity.
“Do not play with things you don’t understand, girl.”
“What was that?” I asked, rising to my feet.
The water supported me as I stood; whereas his skiff seemed to float within the liquid that somehow solidified for me. Skulls hung off the sides, the flesh melting from the bones in various stages of decay. The bones of a person’s spine lined the seam of the boat itself, curving around the edge.