What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(41)
My arms ached as I continued to lower myself, my toes grappling for purchase to take some of the pressure off my limbs that were nowhere near strong enough to support my entire weight for long. I couldn’t believe I’d survived the fall at all, that I’d been capable of the strength to catch myself in the first place.
It had definitely been one of those moments where I’d acted first, with no thought for how exactly I would get back up to the top after I found what remained of my brother.
I shoved down a strange surge of guilt for choosing to look for Brann instead of helping Caelum fight. My brother would always come before a stranger, even one who called to the part of me that wanted to belong somewhere. It was my fault I was plunging down a cliff to try to find my brother’s body.
He couldn’t be dead, but I couldn’t move on until I knew. And I wouldn’t be responsible for the same happening to Caelum, if he did manage to escape the Wild Hunt and leave me behind. He was far better off without me to put him in danger.
I lowered myself down the cliff, dropping to a rocky ledge, my urgency making me careless about whether it would hold or crumble beneath the sudden impact of my weight. My legs buckled beneath me as I rocked forward to prevent them from breaking, then scrambled to my feet and stumbled down the sand and dirt to the receding tide below.
At the edge, I walked farther until the icy seawater rushed into my worn boots and filled the soles with needles of ice, until the water claimed me as I stumbled to my knees and the waves crashed over my head.
I rose, emerging from the salt water and flinging my hair back as I scrubbed my hand over my face. “Brann!” I screamed, searching left and right. The night was too dark to see far, the water a well of black at my feet as I felt around for where he might have landed, but I couldn’t rest until I saw him for myself. Until I laid eyes on his body and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that my brother was gone, I wouldn’t be able to stop.
I turned to look back at the steep slope behind me, searching for a body on the shore with my eyes as I searched under the surface with my feet. If he’d managed to swim to land, the cold could have rendered him unable to move any farther. There was no sign of him, so I spun forward and prepared to dive back into the water.
I’d been meant to die with him anyway, so I’d search for him until I did.
Unforgiving hands wrapped around my waist and sent a shock of pain through my torso, lifting me off my feet as their owner walked us back toward the shore. “No!” I screamed, kicking my legs through the black water at our feet. “Let me go! I have to find him!”
“He’s gone, Little One,” Caelum murmured in my ear as he dragged me back. “You should be, too. What the fuck were you thinking with that stunt?”
A strangled sob climbed up my throat as I clawed at his arms in a last bid to get free. I’d barely managed to climb down on my own, stumbling over my own feet as I hurried down the last of the hill at the bottom of the cliff, but somehow Caelum navigated up with one arm wrapped around me, dragging me with him.
“Let go!” I screamed, the sound bouncing off his neck where he wrapped me in his embrace to haul me up the last of the hill.
“You have to be quiet,” he snapped, looking up at the top of the cliff where the Wild Hunt probably still waited for us. “Your brother is gone. He will not answer you from the Void, no matter how loudly you call to him. Nothing human could have survived that.”
“I did,” I argued, glancing back toward the water.
“And you are no longer human,” he said pointedly, touching a freezing hand to the Mark on my neck as we crested the hill, above the high tide line, and he settled us down flat against the dirt as he watched the cliff for any sign of movement. He laid his body atop mine, pressing me into the ground at my back with his weight as he spoke the words. They resonated with the part of me that had clung to my hope. Brann had always been stronger, more agile than I was, but even he wouldn’t have been skilled enough to climb down, especially not after being stabbed in the stomach. My body went lax beneath Caelum’s; all the fight draining out of me as reality settled over me.
My brother was gone. He’d never annoy me with his overprotectiveness again. He’d never smile at me when he thought I was being foolish but he loved me anyway.
He’d never live.
My bottom lip trembled as I shook my head, staring up into Caelum’s dark eyes as he dropped his forehead to mine. “I’m sorry, Little One,” he whispered, watching as I let my eyes drift closed. The urge to follow Brann into death like I’d promised plucked at the edges of my consciousness as the cold settled into my bones. “I need to get you warm.”
Caelum lifted himself off me, hauling me into his grip until my legs draped over one arm and he wrapped the other around my back. He carried me over the ledge at the base of the cliff, poking it with his toe every step he took.
My teeth chattered as I glanced down at the pea-green fabric of my dress, wincing when I realized how it clung to my skin. Caelum didn’t allow himself to be distracted by it, searching along the ground for something until he breathed a sigh of relief.
A cave just large enough for the two of us and high enough that we should be safe from the rising tide stared back at me when I turned my head to look at what he’d seen. He stepped inside it quickly, glancing up at the top of the cliff as he did, to make sure we weren’t spotted.