What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(116)

Something was wrong. I felt it in my bones, and from the tension in Caelum’s body, he did too.

I didn’t care about the ruckus I made in my urgency to escape Caelum, while I felt him following at my back, his presence heavy with the weight of an unfinished confession.

But a confession of what?

He hurried to my side while the something Other retreated from his face, all traces of anything but worry gone as he glanced from side to side. Grabbing my arm, he pulled me to a halt and touched a finger to his lips in warning.

“What?” I whispered, staring at him in surprise. His expression was ominous as he turned his focus up to Melian. I followed his stare, watching as she spun back around and looked at the ruined city with her brow furrowed.

Beck was gone.

Melian continued to spin, searching for the man who had been ahead of her only a few moments before. There wasn’t any sign of him, and I watched her hand slowly reach toward the sword secured at her waist.

“Did you hear that?” she asked, turning to face us directly. With the rubble of one of the buildings at her side, she glanced across the broken cobblestone street. I listened, trying not to breathe as Caelum kept his grip tight on me.

There was nothing, not even the rustle of trees in the distance, or birds or other wildlife scurrying through the ashes of what had once been a prosperous tribute the God of the Dead.

“Melian…” I hated the distance between us, and Caelum’s grip that kept me from going to her. His body was as rigid as a statue in the moments before he took swift strides toward the courageous woman who led the Resistance.

I moved at his side, hurrying to close the distance to Melian so we could stand together against what would come. I had to hope it was the Fae Marked and whatever security they’d implemented, but the concern on her face made me think otherwise.

She took a few steps away from us, shaking her head to deter us from following and holding out a hand in a signal to wait. I stopped at Caelum’s side when he followed the order.

She looked at her feet, watching the debris blow across the street with a sudden burst of wind. Then her eyes rose to mine, her brow furrowing in confusion. “I must be hearing thin—” her words cut off abruptly.

Melian gurgled, blood trickling at the corner of her mouth and dripping down her chin as she glanced down to her chest.

To the tip of the sword that slowly skewered her alive, puncturing through her ribcage and gleaming in the sunlight with the stain of her blood as it dripped onto the ground at her feet.

It pulled back as slowly as it had appeared, leaving her to crumple to the stone and debris beneath her. A woman’s scream erupted through the air, accentuating the death with the sound of a banshee wailing.

But there was no banshee to be found.

There was only me.





37





“Estrella!” Caelum shouted, his voice breaking through the haze as a member of the Mist Guard slowly stepped over Melian’s body and prowled toward us. Caelum’s hand came down on my forearm again, slapping against me as he gripped me tightly and yanked me to the side.

The streets of Calfalls we ran through weren’t nearly as abandoned as we’d thought, with other men wearing the uniform of the Mist Guard stepping out from the very streets we’d already walked. Caelum urged me around a corner, our feet moving more quickly than was natural over the uneven terrain. He tossed me his sword, which I fumbled to catch as I raced through the streets.

A man stepped into of our path, causing Caelum to release me suddenly in favor of drawing his second sword. The clang of their weapons clashing rang through the air as I ducked low and swiped through his knees with my sword, taking out the fleshy part of his thigh until he dropped to the ground.

Caelum’s mantra repeated in my head. My sword was just an extension of me to be used to my advantage.

I’d always thought I would hesitate when the time came to intentionally take a life, and my desire not to see anyone hurt would be enough to keep me from acting toward self-serving interests. But I’d stopped caring the moment I saw Melian hit the ground, and I felt the loss the Resistance had suffered with her death. Caelum and I wouldn’t join her in the Void.

Not if I had a say in it.

Caelum moved on to the next Mist Guard, slicing through him quickly while urging me on. “Run, Estrella!” he shouted, his voice filled with panic when I paused to wait for him. Something in that command sank inside me, compelling me forward, even though I wanted to stay and fight at his side.

We were supposed to live together. To die together.

So why were my feet carrying me down the street, leaving him behind, as if I was willing to sacrifice him when I wasn’t?

Still I didn’t stop, racing over the jagged rock road and vaulting over the debris. I ran over the top of one of the stones, leaping off of it and launching myself through the air as my legs continued to run, bracing for the moment that I struck the ground.

The blow came from my left, hitting me in the side of the neck so hard that it propelled me to the right. It wrapped around my neck, the iron searing into my skin and stealing the breath from my lungs.

I fumbled for my footing as I dropped onto my side, struggling to my feet with my hand clutching at the iron chain wrapped around my throat. The hum of magic that usually ran through my Mark was lost, as lost to me as Melian was now.

In the absence of the magic I hadn’t thought I wanted, there was nothing. My body was weighted down by the humanity that I’d had all my life. But I’d grown used to that note of something other inside me, and my breath heaved in my chest as I tried to raise my sword.