What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(24)

The Fae could never be allowed to have their human consorts, in this life or the next. Of all the myths that had been lost over the centuries, all the legends, and the reasons and the whys, that one truth remained.

When a Fae took his human consort, the consequences were devastating.

“Gods,” Loris murmured as he stared at me, and I felt the glowing marks on my skin pulse in response to his words, as if they’d awakened something within me. “Is that…” he trailed off, and my heart dropped into my stomach when he seemed like he didn’t dare to speak of that which had marked my skin.

Of the monster who sought to own me.

I didn’t know enough of the legends, because only the guards needed to know the specifics of what they might face when the Fae finally broke through the Veil. The rest of us knew only what they deemed necessary.

When the Fae crossed the Veil once more, all would be lost.

“Kill her. Quickly,” one of the oldest guards said as he came up behind the younger two. The one at Loris’s side was his friend, someone I’d seen him with often during his hours on duty. “Don’t let her suffer,” the older man said, and tears stained my cheeks as I turned back to Loris and our eyes connected.

“Loris,” I said, swallowing past the lump in my throat. I didn’t have many friends, particularly not within the Mist Guard, since they were considered above and beyond the trivialities of man. But he’d been one of the few I trusted—enough to let him have my body, and to know about the nighttime walks in the woods, and to share those moments when I shed the roles I was expected to fill and just became me.

The betrayal threatened to cleave my heart in two, even knowing that he was right in his purpose. There was no point in escaping, because the alternative was a fate worse than death.

Being found by the Fae.

“I can’t,” he said, shaking his head and turning back to face his superior, staring into the face of the man who had trained him and been all but a father to him over the years.

“You will,” he ordered. “She’s not the girl you knew anymore. Now she’s nothing more than some Fae bastard’s whore.”

I winced, feeling those words resonate somewhere deep within me. My Mark revolted, writhing and twisting inside me as if it had a rage all its own, and I shoved it down. That was my future, if I lived. Death would be a blessing.

Loris stepped forward, his face twisting into a pained grimace when I made no move to run from the fate that was coming for me. The ferns at the edge of the path rustled as Brann moved, vaulting to his feet when he realized Loris intended to follow through. I pinned my brother with a look, trying to communicate the inevitability of what was coming.

“I’m sorry,” Loris said, and the pain in his voice left me with no doubt that his words were sincere. But duty came first.

“Me too,” I said, wishing it could have been anyone else. I had no relationship with any of the other Mist Guards and generally thought they were terrifying and cold.

But he’d been different.

He swallowed, lunging forward with his sword and looking to the side, as if he couldn’t bear to watch as he fulfilled his duty. I lifted my hands instinctively, flinching back from the impending blow with a shudder.

But the pain never came.

I opened my eyes to watch as Loris tried to pull his sword free from the ball of swirling light held between my hands. Tendrils of it climbed up over the hilt, twining around his wrist and up his arm while I watched on like a spectator. The icy fury in my hands was so cold it burned as a flame spread through my chest and the white fingers of light seared through Loris’s leathers to get to his skin beneath.

His eyes widened in a moment of shock, and then his mouth dropped open in a silent scream. “Estrella,” he gasped, and I released a loud sob as Brann took a step toward me.

“Don’t,” I warned him. There was no controlling the power that came from within me, nothing to stop the instinctive protection that acted without my permission. “Stop,” I begged the magic, whimpering as those vines of white crept up over Loris’s neck and touched his face. His brown eyes filled with white, the skin on his face cracking, and he seemed to age before my eyes. And all I could do was watch in shock as I drained every hint of life from his body.

As the thing that had claimed my body used me as a weapon.

My old friend’s head twisted to the side suddenly, the snap of his neck echoing through the silent woods, and his body crumpled to the forest floor. By the time he touched the brittle leaves of autumn, he was nothing but a pile of snow on the ground.

The older guard stared down in surprise at what had been one of his men, his brow furrowing as his mind tried to make sense of what he’d seen. Of what I’d done, that even I couldn’t understand.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, shaking my head from side to side. The magic in me didn’t care about what I wanted, only about keeping me alive, and preserving my safety until the male who commanded it could find me.

When the guard struck, I threw my weight back to the forest floor to try to spare his life, but the vines of white took what they wanted anyway, wrapping around his throat and squeezing. He dropped his sword to clutch at them, desperate with the need to breathe past the suffocating embrace of the magic. He soon joined the pile of snow by my feet as I let out a strangled sob. The single remaining Mist Guard retreated, hurrying back to Mistfell and safety from the power taking control of me.