Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace, #1)(111)

A sudden rush of adrenaline shivers through me. My hands tighten into fists. I slowly stalk toward my mother. “Get up if you dare to fight me.”

She frowns. “Don’t be absurd.” She rises, and we stand face-to-face. “You have no chance to defeat me. Do not harm yourself by trying.”

There she goes again, doubting me, trying to make me feel inferior. She’s unprepared when I shove her with surprising strength.

She stumbles back and glances at the pouch in her hand with my grace bones. Her eyes grow wide. “How are you doing this?”

I honestly don’t know. Maybe it’s the silver owl. Maybe it’s Elara’s Light from the full moon pulsing stronger than ever inside me. Maybe it’s years of pent-up rage and heartache. “Was Bastien your sacrifice, too,” I demand, “or just a needless death?” I drive my palm into her collarbone. Her bear claw necklace stabs her skin. She’s thrown back another three feet, still blinded by shock.

“You also wanted to kill Bastien once,” she replies.

“Because you taught me there was no other way.”

This time my mother is ready when I charge at her. Her leg swings out with a vicious kick. I grab her calf before she strikes me, and twist hard. She flips over, and her stomach slaps the bridge.

The silver owl shrieks above me. It sounds like approval. Even Sabine doesn’t cry for me to stop.

I stand over my mother. She scoots away, gripping her leg. “Killing me will not bring Bastien back to you,” she says. “You will never know what tenacity that requires.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” I tell her, my voice sure and strong. “I’m going to take every grace bone you wear and cast them into the abyss. You’ll never have power to hurt anyone again.”

She swallows as I reach for her skull-and-vertebrae crown. “Wait! This is not necessary, Ailesse.” She rises swiftly, keeping her weight off her injured leg. She glances behind her. The black dust is thinning. Her eyes fill with panic. “He hasn’t come,” she murmurs. “Tyrus still needs a sacrifice.”

I harden my stare, daring her to try to send me through his Gate.

She gasps, suddenly looking past me. “Release Sabine at once!”

My heart pounds. I spin back. But Cas isn’t threatening Sabine. She still has him in a firm grip and looks as confused as I am.

A sharp tug on my dress pocket jerks me off balance. I turn back around, and my mother grabs my shoulders.

“No!”

She hurls me backward several feet—but farther away from the Gate, not closer to it. My back strikes the bridge. My shoulder blade throbs as I lift my head and tense for another attack. But my mother doesn’t move.

The bone flute is in her hands.

“I am sorry, Ailesse.” Her black eyes shine with remorse, but her face is as hard as ice. She drops the pouch with my grace bones and races away, despite her injured ankle. She darts past Bastien and rushes toward the last swirling particles of Tyrus’s Gate.

My breath catches. “Mother, no!” I spring up and bolt after her, my blood on fire.

The Gate is closing, but the siren song swells. I stiffen every muscle and cast up a wall against the lure of the Underworld. My heart twinges when I jump over Bastien’s prostrate body, but I barrel onward, my speed blazing faster than ever. My mother is quickly within reach.

My arm stretches out for her. “Please, don’t do this!” I shouldn’t care if she leaves me—if she sacrifices herself for someone she loves stronger. But I do. Elara help me, I do.

I can’t grab her in time. She pushes off the ground in a tremendous leap. Her hair is a river of darkness as she flies. Through the air. Through the dust. Through the Gate.

Dust blasts apart like she’s broken through glass. It doesn’t re-form into an arched door. It falls into the abyss in a rush of glittering black.

I crumple to my knees. “Mother!”





53

Sabine

I STARE AT THE WALL where the black dust swirled a moment ago. The shimmer of Elara’s Gate has also vanished. My knife trembles against Casimir’s neck. I can’t release him, not even to wipe my tears. Mother. How can I feel such terrible heaviness? All my life, Odiva held a strong attachment to me. I never understood why—not until three days ago. There wasn’t enough time to grow to hate her . . . or find a deeper place in my heart for her. And now she’s gone, her last sacrifice in vain.

Ailesse slowly turns from the wall. One of her hands grips a fistful of hair at her scalp; the other hangs lifelessly at her side. Our eyes meet. I see her chin wobble. I ache to run across the bridge and let her cry on my shoulder.

“Let me go to her,” Cas pleads, despite all the inexplicable things he’s seen tonight. “Let me comfort her.”

Before I can threaten him to keep quiet, Ailesse sighs and her eyes flutter closed. “Oh, Sabine . . . why did you bring him here?” No anger rakes across her quiet voice, just overwhelming fatigue. “Please, just take him away.”

I frown. She wants me to leave? “But—”

She looks at Bastien and crumples to the ground, sobbing with fresh pain. “My mother killed him when she found out he wasn’t my . . .” She buries her head in her hands, refusing to say “amouré.”

Does she think Bastien’s death is my fault? My chest burns with a sting of betrayal. “You have no idea how hard I’ve fought to . . .” I clamp my mouth shut and take a moment to rein in my frustration. “All I wanted to do was save you, Ailesse. I’ve been trying to save you since the night you were captured. I didn’t know you’d had a change of heart.”