Assassin's Heart (Assassin's Heart, #1)(81)

And I found I indeed knew who the voice belonged to. “Can I see you?”

A pause, a hesitation. “I have driven mortals mad.”

“I’m dead,” I answered. “I’m not afraid.”

Vibration in the trees, like a laugh. “I have watched you your whole life. So many think they do not fear death, but when their time comes, they beg it away. But not you. There was no fear with you.”

“Will you show yourself?”

“So be it.”

From the folds of the bone forest a figure stepped before me, tall as the oaks on the dead plains. My gaze brushed across Her limbs, Her body, unable to take anything in, unable to linger, to make sense of what I was seeing.

I met Her eyes and found a blank face with no features, made of nothing but smooth bone, empty, flat, barren. I’d never known something could be both terribly monstrous and terribly beautiful.

As I gazed upon the face of a god, of Safraella, my mind sank toward a dark vortex. The sound of a thousand storms, a thousand hounds baying in the night surrounded me, consumed me. I began to unravel, bits of me floating away until there, before me, was the memory of Les, his lips pressed against mine, whispering kalla Lea.

Everything snapped back into place. The bone trees swayed.

“Where are we?” I asked, watching the trees.

“A forest. A graveyard. A passage. This place is many things.”

“A graveyard for what? Who do those bones belong to?”

Safraella shifted, Her arms stretching out at Her sides, as long as some of the bone trees. “My enemies.”

Gods. This was their graveyard. The trees were the bones of gods.

I swallowed. “If I’m dead, why does everything hurt so much?”

“And whoever told you, little mortal, that death would not hurt?”

I nodded, trying to ignore the pain the gesture cost me. “Am I to be reborn then? Have You come to grant me a new life?”

She leaned closer. “Is that what you want, little clipper?”

It would be so easy, to be reborn as someone else, to forget everything that had happened in this life. To forget I was ever Lea. But it seemed like giving up. Like losing my Family again. “I only thought . . .”

“Yes?”

“It came so suddenly. The end. It seems unfinished.”

“You are all unfinished,” she said. “Like embers in the wind. You burn brightly in your own time, and then you are snuffed out. It is your way.”

I looked down at my feet. The blood from my back dripped down my calves and painted my ankles red.

Safraella straightened to Her full height and displayed Her hand before Her. She held a gold coin between two fingers. I couldn’t see the stamp on it, the Family crest. “You are due a resurrection, Daughter. But it does not have to be a new life.”

My breath stilled in my chest, and I pushed aside the realization that I was actually breathing. “You could bring me back? As Lea? As myself?”

She inclined her head.

“Why? Why me? Why not my Family?”

“You have long been a favorite of mine, Oleander Saldana. Faithful to me even in the darkest corners of your life. There are others who have . . . drifted from my radiance. They forget their place. I would like you to be my reminder to them. A reminder of what it means to forget that I am a god and do not take kindly to those who no longer value my gifts.” Her voice echoed among the trees like the final note of a bass drum.

“The Da Vias? Or are there others, too?” Like my uncle, who had refused to let me wear my mask in his home. She didn’t respond. “Is that why, when the angry ghosts came for me, You protected me?”

“The ghosts are wayward children. Only those in my favor have the ability to send them on their path.”

“And if I can’t be the reminder the Da Vias need? If they refuse to hear Your word?”

“You will return them to me there, or you will return them to me here.” She gestured to the bone forest.

Kill them. The Da Vias. Because murder was always the answer.

Unless . . . unless I didn’t return.

I could choose the peace that came with a new life, or all the death and blood that awaited me as Lea.

And Les. Needles pricked my chest when I thought of him lying dead on the bridge. If I went back, I would face the Da Vias, alone. How could I be Lea without him?

Safraella watched me. I could sense Her thoughts twisting like the earlier fog.

“What should I do?” I asked.

“Little mortal. Very few of you ever get a chance at a true choice. You would give it away so easily?”

I closed my eyes. “No.” I shook my head. “I know what I have to do. I have to go back, be Lea still. Kill the Da Vias. But what about Marcello? They’ll have taken him.”

“What is that saying you’re all so fond of? Family over family?” The bone trees rattled behind Her.

My thoughts raced. Matteo was a Da Via now. He was gone from my life just as if he had died in the fire. Marcello was no longer Family, but he was blood, was family. And I didn’t want to be the last of my line. If the Da Vias killed him, they won all over again.

I would save Marcello. And I would kill the Da Vias. Only . . .

“How can I do it by myself?” I tasted salt against my lips. I’d been crying.