What Lurks Between the Fates (Of Flesh & Bone, #3)(80)

I knew he could feel how unsettled I was, that he could feel my nerves and that pulsing thrum of the tide washing over my heart that no one else seemed to hear. I squatted down to free my dress when it didn’t come loose, coming face to face with the smallest of creatures. She was the size of a mouse, the fur on her body the color of moss. Blue eyes gleamed back at me as she stared up at me, her tiny front paws clawing at the taupe fabric of my dress at the bottom. She had a cute button of a nose, and the tiniest antlers rested upon the top of her head.

“What are you?” I asked, lowering to my knees.

She twitched her nose as she stared up at me, glaring at my hand and baring her teeth as I held it out like I might pet her. She snapped her long, skinny tail through the air, the spiked edges pointed as they came down upon my flesh and drew tiny pinpricks of blood.

“It’s a wolpertinger,” Caldris explained, eyeing the sharp teeth she bared as he spoke.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, grasping the fabric of my dress where she didn’t seem to want to let go, despite her lack of fondness for my attention. I tore a small piece from the bottom, letting her keep the part that she clung to as her mouth closed and she hid her teeth once more.

“That wasn’t wise,” Caldris said, sighing as he held out a hand for me to take.

I failed to see how a tiny scrap of fabric would matter to me in the end. I had a feeling the wolpertinger needed it more than I did.

“Why not?”

“They’re greedy little creatures. If they think you’ll provide them with the things they need, they’ll never leave you alone,” he answered, chuckling beneath his breath. “Once she tells all her friends about the woman who gave her a nice blanket, you’ll have all of them raiding your wardrobe.”

“They’re just clothes,” I said, thinking about how nice a scrap of soft, warm fabric must be after centuries of no people being allowed within the Cove.

“We’ll see if you still feel that way when they find their way to your room next time,” Caldris said.

We paused as the forest opened up, and a clearing emerged in front of us. The others made a circle around a tree at the center of the clearing. The holly tree was even larger than the others in the forest. The trunk was bigger than a man, wide with deep roots that spread through the clearing. It jutted up into the sky, moonlight streaming down through a hole in the Faerie hill until it reached the free air outside. Mab stepped forward; her face drawn tight as she stood before the great tree.

“Seven days of light in the dead of winter,” she said, nodding to the Summer Court Fae who wielded fire.

The woman stepped forward, holding out her hand and summoning fire to her palm. Mab held out a torch she’d grabbed from the side of the tree trunk itself, the metal rusted from the passage of time. Turning to the Summer Fae, she held it out and watched as the other lit the flame.

The fire made Mab’s fair skin seem to shine in the darkness, and I took a step forward against my own will. Caldris wrapped his arms around my shoulders from behind, crossing them over my chest and pinning my back to his front.

“It will be all right. I promise,” he murmured.

“She can’t possibly mean to—”

“The ritual of the burning tree is sacred to the Court of Shadows, and this tree has been alive for longer than I have. It will be reborn soon enough,” he explained, holding me steady through my wince as Mab raised the torch above her head.

“Seven souls to pay the tithe,” Mab said as the flames licked the low-hanging leaves. They caught fire, the branches seeming to glow with golden light as the flames spread through the tree.

It rolled up to the top; the flames lighting the branches and each of the leaves. But even as they burned, they didn’t change. They didn’t dissolve to ash or blacken. The burning tree lit the clearing like the beacon of a sun.

“We mourn the loss of the darkest night, welcoming the time of the sun,” Mab said as she returned the torch to the holder. A few pieces of bark fell away from the trunk as she scraped it.

The first of the leaves fell upon the ground, burning as it floated free.

Seven days.





26


Estrella


That haunting voice called my name—the sounds of each syllable resonating like a song in the wind.

Estrelllaaa.

The vision of the woman from Mab’s gleaming jeweled crown appeared before me. Her brown skin shone in the light of the twin moons overhead as her full lips formed my name. The voice stretched across the dark void between us as she took the first step to close that gap.

“Come home, Estrella,” she said.

She crossed the distance suddenly, as if that single step had moved her across an entire world. A flash and then she was in front of me, her deep green and gold hair writhing upon her head.

It took me longer than I cared to admit to realize it wasn’t hair that sprouted from her scalp, but the living bodies of snakes. They bared their teeth at me, their green hued scales the same color as her shining eyes.

As the leather and armor she wore upon her breast.

“My mate is my home,” I whispered to her, unable to tear my gaze off those eyes.

I swallowed, tears pooling in my eyes as I felt something click into place. Fear tore at me like phantom talons, sending my heartbeat racing until it flooded my own hearing.