What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(20)

“You chose me because I loved my father, and you wanted me to teach our children to love you that way?” I asked, simplifying his response and taking out the horseshit that was designed to make me pity him.

I wouldn’t, because he’d stopped being a victim a long time ago and chosen to abuse me, even knowing how much it hurt. My steps faltered as I considered whether he’d done it to others in secret, or worse, when he didn’t have the prospect of marriage to restrain him from causing permanent damage.

“Yes. I chose you because you love with all your heart and do not care what people think of you for it. What more could a father want for his children?” he asked, turning to stare down at me in a moment of vulnerability. “They’ll be lucky to have you.”

He raised a hand to cup my face, the soft fingers of a life of luxury touching my swollen cheek. I wanted nothing more than to grab that hand and shove it away, but I let it stay as the first people started to trickle onto the path beside the gardens.

They passed us in silence, stepping onto overturned dirt from the gardens, which we’d pulled every plant out of during the harvest. They made their way toward the front in groups, approaching the place where the sacrifice happened every year with solemn expressions.

They’d be sad as they watched the horror unfold, but then they would celebrate as if I’d never existed.

“They won’t,” I said, murmuring the words quietly. My voice caught—the reality of what was to come staring me in the face. I couldn’t look toward the gathering assembly without seeing my father unwillingly dragged to the front, the echo of my screams and the burn in my throat assaulting me through my memory.

“Estrella,” he scolded, utter disbelief filling his expression as I took a step back.

“Your children were never going to love you the way I loved my father. Do you know why, my Lord?” I asked, letting the hatred I felt for him show in a rare moment of honesty. I couldn’t do much to hurt him, not with the pyre calling me, but I could strip away the motivation for everything he’d spent over a decade working toward.

“Why?” he asked, his throat moving with his swallow.

He glanced over his shoulder at the figure lurking at my back. I didn’t need to look to know who waited for me if I only turned, instead blasting Byron with the full force of my glare. “Because you will never be worthy of that kind of love.”

“I won’t intervene once you make this choice. You understand that?” he asked.

“I do,” I said simply, lifting my chin higher as I stared back at him. I didn’t expect him to, didn’t even want him to; not when survival was tied to his bed and his sadistic pleasures.

Lord Byron’s nostrils flared as he glared down at me, nodding briskly to the man behind me. I turned to the High Priest, finding his soft gaze on mine as he said, “You’ve been informed?”

“Can I say goodbye first?” I looked over his shoulder to where my mother and Brann approached the Veil. He heaved her wheeled chair over the raised rows of dirt in the enormous garden bed, pushing her forward as her body jostled.

“Of course,” the High Priest answered, his words solemn as I stepped away from him and walked over to my family. I helped Brann, turning my back to the Veil and grabbing my mother’s chair by the wheels and hauling it toward the shimmering white boundary.

Toward the place where she would have to sit and watch me die.

My one regret.

I smiled. The people around us faded into a haze until there was only my mother’s eyes on mine, her sad expression filling her face as she undoubtedly remembered the times we’d made this journey in the past. She remembered my father pulling her to watch his sacrifice, Brann and I trailing behind them with tear-streaked faces.

We finally stopped moving, settling into a space that was as good as any. It was toward the back of the crowd, and I had to hope that would shield them from the worst of the details.

I lowered myself to a squat in front of her, taking her trembling hands in mine and pressing a kiss to the top of them. “I love you,” I said softly, smiling through the burn in my throat. I shoved back the tears that threatened, memorizing her features for one last time.

Her brow furrowed as she gazed back at me, removing her hand from my grip to touch my cheek softly. “I love you too, my girl. It will all be over soon,” she said, assuming the sadness in my eyes was due to the torment I felt on this day every year.

I pushed to my feet, stepping around the edge of her chair to draw Brann into a hug. I squeezed him too tightly, savoring the moment his arms wrapped around me. “Estrella, what’s going on?” he asked, pulling back to look down into my face.

“Take care of each other,” I said, staring at him meaningfully.

The High Priest’s voice interrupted whatever he might have said next, arrowing through the garden like the crack of a whip as everyone fell silent. “Would the chosen please step forward?”

I pulled out of Brann’s embrace, turning slowly and drawing a deep breath. Facing the Veil ahead of me, my eyes landed on where the High Priest waited with the ceremonial dagger clutched in his grip. It was the same blade that had parted the flesh of my father’s throat fourteen years prior.

I chanced a glance over to where Lord Byron waited at the High Priest’s side, his face closed off and expression reserved. There was nothing to be seen of his frustration on his stoic face—only the hands clenched at his side.