Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace, #1)(108)

She bristles. “Your father was never the man I loved.”

Her words are shards of ice in my chest. “What?” All my limbs go rigid as a sparkle of red at her neck catches my eye. A ruby lodged in the beak of a bird skull. I’ve seen that necklace once before. The memory tears across my mind.

Two years ago . . . my mother on the floor of her chamber beside a golden chest . . . a letter open on her lap—and the necklace pressed to her lips. I’d never seen her cry before, and it frightened me.

Now as I stare at her, my chest heaves with anger, even while my heart feels like it’s shrinking.

She holds Bastien in a shaft of moonlight on the bridge. I don’t want her anywhere near him—or me. “You betrayed my father?”

She lowers her brows and jerks Bastien closer. He hisses as the knife bites his skin. “Kill him, Ailesse,” she demands. “You cannot let your love for him destroy you, too.”

My eyes burn. “You would really ask that of me after what you’ve done?”

“What does my past have to do with what’s required of you?”

“It has everything to do with it! You’ve broken the rules of what we hold most sacred, and now you expect me to keep them. You expect me to sacrifice for them—to kill the person I love—when you didn’t even love your own amouré. ” Revulsion courses through me. “Your rite of passage meant nothing. You broke your oath to the gods.”

Her nostrils flare. “I have paid the price for that and more.” She looks at Tyrus’s Gate again, and her voice takes on a desperate edge. “Don’t you understand? I must revoke what never should have happened. If I’d never met your father, you would not have become my heir—or even attempted to become a Ferrier.”

“If you’d never met my father, I wouldn’t have been born.”

“But I am trying to save you, Ailesse! I have tried so very hard, for so very long, to save you.”

“I don’t know what this is really about, but don’t pretend it’s me.”

Her eyes narrow. “I do not have time for this. Kill him! ” She rattles Bastien, and his jaw muscle tenses.

My body flushes fiery hot, then cold. The drums of Tyrus’s siren song beat louder. I shake as I struggle to drown them out. I glance at Bastien’s father’s weapon. “That isn’t even a ritual knife.”

“No.” My mother withdraws another knife from a hidden sheath in her dress. “But this is.”

I gasp. For one terrible moment I fear she’s going to stab Bastien herself. Then I remember she can’t. She wouldn’t. It would kill me. Still, my pulse won’t stop racing.

She lifts her chin high. “Show me your strength, Ailesse. You have prepared all your life to become a Ferrier. You always knew this would be the price.” She extends the bone knife to me while she keeps Bastien’s father’s knife fast against his back. A bead of sweat rolls down his temple. “I have made my choices and suffered the consequences. You still have a chance for peace.

Trust me, child. It will break your heart less to kill him now than to wait any longer.”

Terrible pressure bears down on me. My legs quake harder as I look into Bastien’s beautiful eyes. Loving him will lead to my death. I’ve always known that. Just like he knew loving me would do the same to him. He gives me a slight nod, asking me to save myself.

How can I?

The melody of the siren song resonates softer now, gentler. I hear its secret voice. You have another choice, Ailesse. You could come to me first. Bastien will follow you. He will die when you do, and the two of you can be together in my kingdom.

I pinch my eyes shut. That doesn’t silence the music.

You could both be so happy.

My chest is a drum of black powder. My nerves are threads of flame.

I have to make this end.

I set my jaw. I imagine myself in the Nivous Sea. I’m turning around in the water to kill the tiger shark, even after Sabine asked me to give her up.

I walk forward and take the bone knife from my mother’s hand. I stop trembling. Her eyes shine with pride. I’ve wanted her approval for as long as I can remember. My throat stings, but I swallow down my rising tears.

“I won’t do this.” My words are iron. My mother can’t break them. Her grin falls as I step closer to Bastien and take his hand. “We’ll do what you said,” I tell him. “We’ll find a way to break our soul-bond. And if we can’t, then I’m prepared to die with you.”

His brows quiver, but his eyes are a sure reflection of mine. He squeezes my hand and nods.

I turn to my mother. “You have no power over us. You can never make me kill him.” I move to drop the bone knife over the edge of the bridge.

She isn’t shaken. “Yes, I can.”

In a flash, she grabs my wrist and secures my grip on the hilt.

“What are you doing?” I wrestle against her. “Stop!”

With graced strength, she drives the knife toward Bastien’s chest.





51

Bastien

MY HEARTBEAT THRASHES IN MY ears. I grab Ailesse’s wrist. Throw all my muscle into stopping the bone knife. Its sharp tip trembles right over my heart. Merde, merde, merde.

I fight to pull it back. My head throbs, muscles burn. I can’t make it budge. Odiva is too powerful.