What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(108)

“How did you kill the cave beast, Caelum?” I asked, clinging to the event that had brought all the questions to my mind.

“Would you have rather I died?” he asked, his voice pained.

“Of course not! I just want to understand how. What is your Viniculum’s power that you could reduce the creature to nothing?”

“I see Melian has been talking again,” he sighed, shaking his head and seeming not to care about the way my blade scratched his skin. “I should’ve known she was the cause of your distance.”

“Is it not true?”

“It’s true. Our Viniculum is the same,” he said, touching a hand to the top of the white and black swirling lines on my neck. “That means we have the same magic flowing through us. I am not capable of anything that you aren’t, Little One.”

“My magic turned a man to snow,” I argued, snorting a laugh. “Not into a puddle of flesh and bone.”

“White is for the Winter Court.” He trailed a finger over the white line on his own neck, drawing my attention to the swirling line as it seemed to glow lightly in response to his touch. “Black is for the Shadow Court. It means our Fae have a parent from each Court, with both types of magic flowing through them. You seem to have a tendency toward the Winter side of your Viniculum, but I stray toward the Shadows and they control the most violent kinds of magic. So yes, Little One, I reduced a cave beast to a pile of flesh and bone, because he threatened you.”

I hadn’t thought the Viniculum worked like that, but even with it threatening me, Caelum had also needed to fight for his life.

It made enough sense to push back the worst of my questions, but something still remained, pressing at me though I couldn’t name it.

I dropped my forehead to his chest, the press of his hand still at the front of my throat reminding me of how much everything had shifted in such a short time. Pulling my dagger away from his throat, I sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t let them turn you against me. They don’t do it for your benefit, but theirs. I will always have your best interest at heart, Estrella,” he said, releasing my throat in favor of cupping the back of my head.

“Why?”

“Because I love you. Because I will always love you. It is as simple as that.”

“As touching as this moment is, I feel the need to point out how inconceivably impossible that will be,” a male said, stepping into the mouth of the alleyway.

His face was angular, free from blemish, and his eyes glowed amber in the night. His body was thinner than I’d expected after studying the drawings of the Gods, but there was no question what he was when the pointed tips of his ears showed in the torchlight.

Fae.





34





We’d known the Mist Guard had a presence in Tradesholde, but I’d never guessed the Fae might be lurking in the shadows themselves, undetected by the guards trained to kill them with their iron weapons.

Caelum shoved me behind himself, drawing a sword from the scabbard on his back, but the Fae’s attention stayed rooted on me, as if Caelum was inconsequential to him, despite the Mark on his neck that was the exact same as mine.

“The rumors are true, then. He does have a human mate,” the Fae said to me, his voice sympathetic as he took the first step toward us. “I don’t imagine the Queen of Air and Darkness will be very happy when I deliver you.”

I swallowed, trying not to think of the implications of that statement. What did the Queen of Air and Darkness have to do with me? My Mark seemed to tingle with awareness, humming against my skin as if it could feel the threat in the Fae male’s words.

“We have the same Mark,” I whispered, the words hovering between us. The Fae narrowed his eyes on Caelum’s Mark for a moment, cocking his head to the side as he considered him.

“So you do,” he said, a menacing smile tipping his lips up.

“Go,” Caelum ordered, reaching behind him to push me back down the alley. He might have been able to fight off a cave beast with the power of his Viniculum, but they didn’t protect against the Fae themselves. I couldn’t leave him.

I wouldn’t.

I drew the dagger from the sheathe on my thigh, staying behind Caelum as the Fae strolled up to us without a care in the world. Caelum pushed me farther behind him, blocking my view with his broad form.

His body moved forward, meeting the Fae male’s strike with one of his own as their swords clashed together. With Caelum taking the steps forward to fight with the Fae, I watched as he moved his body in tandem with the other.

Whoever had taught him to fight, they’d taught him well. He moved with a fluid grace that I’d never seen from the Mist Guard, knifing through air with dangerous beauty. His blade caught the Fae male on the arm, the skin surrounding the wound sizzling as the cut didn’t heal immediately. My mouth dropped open in shock, breath frozen at the realization that Caelum’s stunning sword with the intricate golden hilt had iron blades.

“Now where did you get a warded iron sword, boy?” the Fae asked, taking a step back as he grimaced at the cut on his arm. He watched Caelum with far more respect, as he studied his stance and the hold he had on the hilt of his weapon.

“My father,” Caelum answered, lifting his chin high as he struck for the Fae male’s chest. The male sidestepped it, barely avoiding Caelum’s sword. I moved in harmony, twirling around Caelum’s legs and cutting the Fae through the fleshy part of his thigh, then withdrew. I ducked away before he could shift his attention to me again, retreating behind Caelum as the Fae stumbled back a step and paused to look down at the blood that spurted from his leg.