What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(117)

A boot connected with it, kicking it from my hand as a man stepped in front of me. I dropped to my knees as my lungs ceased to work and I couldn’t draw in another breath.

The man’s boot struck me in the chest, kicking me backward until my body planted on the ground, then I stared up at him as he stood over me and tilted his head to the side.

He looked like so many of the boys from my village, so painfully human as he studied me. “What a waste. They always choose the pretty ones,” he said, pursing his lips as acknowledged how great a loss it would be to kill me.

Because of my fucking face.

I snarled at him, then he raised his sword over his head, preparing to swing it down onto me as I stared death in the face. I couldn’t take my eyes off the blade of his iron sword and the maniacal expression on his youthful face, which hinted at everything he thought he was doing right.

He thought my death would matter. That it could make a difference.

I waited for the pain, braced myself for it, and accepted the end that had come for me. My only regret was the knowledge that Caelum would probably follow, lost to his rage and unable to fight.

“NO!” Caelum roared, the sound causing the hair on my arms to stand on end. The Mist Guard swung his blade downward.

But it stopped a foot above my chest, halted in place by the pulse of absolute power that washed over the Ruined City. It exploded out from the epicenter at my right, distracting the man standing over me.

I followed his horrified stare over to where the power had come from, to where Caelum had been fighting with the other Mist Guard.

They all lay dead at his feet as Caelum stepped over them without a second glance. He walked forward, striding down the street as quickly as he could but never running, unconcerned with the soldiers racing his way, their attention focused solely on him.

Magic rolled off of him. Shadow hands left his body and touched the corpses at his feet. I stared at his face, horror consuming me as the power poured off of him, forming into shadows that fell to his feet.

The horror started at the top of his head, a gleaming silver crown appearing as the air itself shifted, parting to reveal something new. Or something very old. The silver crown bled darkness, the black ink of it dripping down the metal and into the top of his hair. What had once been an ashy blond brightened to ashen silver as it grew to a slightly longer, shaggier style where it ended above his shoulders.

His features shifted, becoming sharper and even more stunning, as his ears elongated and his eyes gleamed a bright, frosty blue. He grew taller, his features more brutal, and his beautiful face twisted with cruelty as his tunic and cloak transformed into a mix of pale-blue fabric and black armor and leather coverings. He was enormous, a formidable figure who made the Caelum I’d known look like a weakling as he cut through the Mist Guard that tried to stand in his way.

The swirling black ink of the Mark on his neck writhed with power as he pushed his sword back into the sheath across his back and raised his hands. A dark compulsion flowed from them, black tendrils of inky magic coiling as the corpses of the men he’d killed rose once again.

The ground beneath me shook, a skeletal hand emerging from the dirt next to my head. I screamed, watching as the skeleton pulled itself out of the ground, but I couldn’t move, pinned to the spot as it reassembled its broken pieces into the shape of the man it had been and turned on the Mist Guard standing over me. It attacked, launching its entire body at the man and tackling him to the ground.

Finally freed from my paralysis, I scrambled backward on my hands and feet until my back touched the wall of the building behind me. Curling my knees into my chest, I watched on in horror as Caelum and his army of the dead made their way toward me.

He thrust his hand into the chest of a man who tried to fight him, wrapping his fingers around his heart and yanking it out while the organ still pumped blood between his fingers. He dropped it to the ground, stepping over the corpse that rose again behind him to fight off the remaining Mist Guard, who had been stupid enough to think they could ever stand a chance against the monster who strode straight for me.

The man I’d fallen in love with had never really existed; Caelum wasn’t real—nothing but a deception. I’d seen the likeness of his true form before. Seen drawings and statues of that beautiful, terrifying face and the horror of his power over the dead.

Caldris.

More skeletons rose all around me as I forced myself to my feet, using my hands on the stone wall at my back to pull myself up, even when everything in me felt like giving up.

Beyond the skeletons that surrounded me, I was vaguely aware of more fighting, and of people emerging from the rubble to run from Caldris’s army of the dead as he stalked toward me.

The skeletal corpses formed a circle of protection around me, cutting off any chance I had of escape. They parted slowly as he emerged in front of me, letting him enter the bubble they’d formed.

This close, he seemed larger than humanly possible. His form was taller than any of the skeleton’s remains, towering over all of them as he stopped in front of me. The Mark on my neck burned, sensing the power of the Fae so near.

I shook my head when he reached out one of those perfect, strong hands to touch me. With his glamour gone, every line of his body was feral; the sharp lines of his face were as animalistic as the way he moved.

I backed into the wall, my hand brushing against the finger bone of one of the skeletons guarding me and drawing a terrified squeal from my lungs.