78. Chapter 78
78
Nelle
I Fell,
Fell,
Fell.
Free-falling was the most unnatural feeling in the entire world. Not having the earth beneath one’s feet, nor the comfort of gravity locking you to the ground.
The creature vibrated within its prison. It hurled itself at the wall of Silas’s dark magic, hissing and roaring—
And in the scream erupting from my throat, came the sound of my terror, the injustice, the despair I’d never get more time with my family, my sisters, Graysen—
He’d come for me, found me, tried to save me—
My mind filled with Graysen Crowther, with those black eyes that smiled when his mouth couldn’t. And those threads, whatever it was that connected us, always whispering beneath my skin. But it was more than that, I realized as I fell, my hair streaming with my descent. He and I had been fated to come together, for reasons that still eluded me even on the cusp of death.
He was mine.
I was his.
And we’d never have time to explore that.
There would never be an us .
The sun shone in a bright blue sky, filling my vision.
Some sort of peace settled over me. My hair flailed and the cool fingers of wind brushed past my limbs, the cliff face rushing by as I fell, fell, fell.
Soon —
Far too soon, I’d hit the ground.
My bones and organs would shatter and rupture.
And I would die.
A blight of darkness blocked out the sun. As if the moon had slipped over the golden orb, and a midday eclipse had occurred, and there was nothing to be seen but darkness in a sea of blue… Until I realized that someone had hurled themselves over the edge of the cliff.
Graysen.
No, no, no no—NO!
He was an arrow slicing through the air.
He hurtled into me hard. As we tumbled, his powerful arms caged my body before he spun, flipping us both over so he was below me, ready to meet the earth first. In the corner of my eye, I caught an eerie glimpse of a dark emerald sheen.
We were falling, cool air ruffling Graysen’s inky black hair, and time slowed. Our gazes met and held. He might have been about to say something. His mouth parted, but instead of speaking, he kissed me — fast, furious, a slamming of his lips to mine.
It was a desperate kiss, laced with finality. In it, I tasted how he truly felt for me. He couldn’t tell me, but his kiss let me know. Too late—
Too late for both of us—
It was never going to be the fall that killed us both. It was meeting the end, the jarring stop where our bones would snap, our brains would whiplash, and our organs would liquefy.
Everything happened so fast. As the top layer of thick shrubs came into view, Graysen tipped me up sideways—
Pressed something into my hand.
He whistled—a loud sound. A shrill call.
A streak of dark emerald speared through the rushing air and struck me right in the chest, right where I grasped something small—
The violent punch sent me sideways—
I screamed. Reached for Graysen. Not understanding what he’d done.
I soared through the air, flying parallel to the ground, caught up in a thick cloud of fluttering wings.
I heard the impact—
Graysen’s body slammed into the ground.
The sound of splintering bones exploded in my ears .
I screamed for him again. The sound of my anguish reverberated against the cliff and down the twisting turns of the river. My heart cleaved in two and every thought, every feeling, went out of my head as I realized in horror…I couldn’t feel him…that intense awareness we had for one another had vanished.
The chittering insects swarmed me and darkened my vision as they tightly swirled my figure to strike me again and again. Tossing me about. Pushing me onwards. They carried me through the thicket of supple shrubs that blanketed the ground. Branches and leaves acted like webbing—slowing my speed, down, down, down. As I smashed through the heart of the shrubs, gravity pulled me closer to the gently sloping ground that met the rocky shore of the river.
My shoulder cracked upon the earth, and pain jarred through my bones. I tumbled, rolling, slowing down until I came to a skidding halt on my back, the river stones a fingertip away.
My lungs filled with air as I gulped in ragged breaths. I was alive. Stunned. But alive!
Stabbing agony throbbed in my shoulder. The flaying branches slashed me, leaving me bruised, sore, and bleeding. Scrambling to my feet, I woozily wobbled, my mind dazed. Terror coiled so tightly in my chest, the sensation so overwhelming I forgot about the pain ravaging my body.
He can’t be dead.
He can’t!
The cloud of chittering scarabs grazed against my skin as they eagerly flew around me. A few of the winged critters tangled themselves in my hair and dress. I swayed, trying to make sense of how I’d survived. How the scarabs had saved me. Uncurling my fingers, I discovered an emerald vial with the stopper jammed in tight. Dropping it, the vial clattered on stone and the swarm of scarabs shot like a wicked wind straight for it.
Graysen!
My body worked while my brain struggled to catch up, and I pushed into motion. Glancing upward, my gaze traveled the cliff to where I’d stood moments ago.
Graysen Crowther had saved me.
He’d willingly thrown himself over the cliff and given up his own life in exchange for mine.
Because as I stumbled through the cold, dark shadow cast by the mountain, I saw how high the cliff was, and there was no way Graysen would survive falling from that height .
Stones rattled as I scrambled along the riverbank and tripped over rocks damp from the sprays of spindrift scattered by the wild river churning beside me.
Cutting away from the tumbling water, I clambered frantically inward, across tussock, pushing fiercely through hip-high scrub until I reached the point where we’d fallen. Terror squeezed my heart when my gaze found Graysen. His limp body flattened loose earth that had come free from the cliff face.
My feet slipped and skidded on the mound of fresh sodden earth as I stumbled toward him. My knees sank into the soft dirt as I kneeled beside his body.
He lay broken and still. His black eyes stared blankly up at the bright blue sky, vacant and lifeless. Blood spilled from his mouth, his nose, and the back of his crushed skull. The complexion of his golden skin had paled. The wyrmfire and Ukkenskrit tattoos weaving up his throat were a vibrant contrast against ashen flesh.
His chest wasn’t moving.
Crushing panic devoured the remaining shards of my heart.
My hands shook as I checked for a pulse.
I couldn’t find one.
I COULDN’T FIND A PULSE!
Do something! —I screamed at the thing inside me.
Anything— I begged it —ANYTHING!
But it was roiling and screaming, hurling itself at the dark magic that had it trapped.
I roared at the gods, at every god I could think of. At Hazus, ruler of Nine Hells, Collector of Souls— Give him back to me! Give him back! GIVE HIM BACK!
Tears clung to my eyelashes and trickled down my cheeks. And my heart, my godsdamned heart, rattled inside my empty chest and ached so viciously I knew it would never mend.
Graysen was dead.
My shoulders slumped as I let out my grief in a raw, sorrowful wail.
I don’t know how much time had passed, how long I’d keened, bowed over his corpse, my tears splashing upon his blood-flecked cheeks. Everything had faded into the background — the rushing noise of the river, the breeze coursing through the swaying brush, the sound of birdcall. There was only me, numb, in a body I no longer recognized. I couldn’t feel him. I couldn’t feel that awareness that bound us together, that had always been there since we’d first laid eyes on one another as children, nor could I feel those filaments of magic that forged into something deeper when we’d grown closer. Now there was nothing…nothing but va st nothingness…
And my heart thudding in an empty chest…
And a crinkling—
Crinkling?
I blinked, furiously wiping away the tears from my eyes, my senses sharp and alert.
The sound—almost indiscernible—was coming from Graysen. From inside him.
I leaned low and pressed my ear to his chest, seeking the source of that strange sound.
There, right there, was a noise like crunching tinfoil inside a fist—
Bones.
A wet sound—
Organs.
I pushed back in surprise. Spreading my open palm across his chest, I pressed my other hand over my own—over the exact same spot. Our hearts. Hearts that beat as one whenever we were together.
Nothing but silence.
Please, please, please —I begged the gods. Zrenyth. Skalki. Brangwene. Any god that would listen.
A thud echoed.
A second.
And I heard it—the joining of our twin-hearts. His was so much weaker than my pulsing organ. But I felt it. Felt him.
Graysen’s chest rose, swelling as he sucked in a deep breath.
The emptiness left his eyes, and his gaze sharpened.
He was alive! Alive!
His bloodshot eyes widened in shock, then slowly slid to mine. He laughed hard, and it turned into a splutter. Blood spat from his mouth. He drew in a ragged breath, the lines in his face creasing in pain. “Little bird…let’s get something straight… You can’t actually fly.”
“You’re alive?” How on earth had he survived that fall?
He winked, then winced. “Not so easy to kill.” He groaned, his blood-stained teeth flashing in a grimace. “Hells… Holy hellsgate it hurts.”
I laughed. It was a choking mad sound that sprung from my throat as fresh tears fell. I pressed my warm lips to his cold ones.
We were very much alone, with no way to raise help. I pushed the inky hair from his clammy forehead. “What can I do? ”
“I can’t move…until my body heals itself.”
I knew the Crowthers had heightened strength and speed and senses. Caidan had mentioned his mother’s strange healing ability, but to heal himself to this extent…?
He answered my unspoken question. “My mother’s bloodline blessed us with her unnatural healing. Though…fuck…” His pain-filled eyes blinked up at the cliff face. “I really didn’t think I would survive that fall.”
I couldn’t even begin to unravel that right now either, so I shoved the questions aside and grinned madly as a flurry of happiness barreled through me. He was alive!
“You owe me, little bird.”
I did. I owed him my life. But another thought steamrolled through my mind—Danne was still alive and would seek us out.
But I couldn’t leave Graysen here alone—vulnerable and defenseless.
He must have read the indecision on my face because he said gently, “It’s okay, Nelle. Run and don’t look back.”
I shook my head, my wild, knotted locks swaying with the movement. “Never.” But what was I going to do? The creature was trapped. Without its dark might, I was just a girl. And Graysen was a broken mess.
“You need to get up,” I ordered, even though I knew there was no way he could.
He hacked, coughing up blood, and it splattered across my cheek. “Can’t,” he rasped wetly. “You need to go—now.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Have to… Danne…will be here soon.” He groaned and his brows knitted together as pain lanced through his trembling body.
I clenched my fists into the front of his adamere armor. My voice broke on the words. “No. Not without you.”
They’d find him and kill him.
I rose, quickly shifting to the back of his head, bent over, and hooked my hands beneath his arms. “Get up, get up, get up,” I urged, still trying to pull him upright until I realized with sickly horror, something I should have known—without my strength, he was too heavy.
“Go!” Graysen gritted out.
“No!”
“Go,” he begged softly.
“I can’t,” I cried. I couldn’t leave him here. I’d done it once, I’d never do it again.
“Please, Nelle,” and this time his voice cracked and became desperate, “you need to go now…he’s coming for you.”
Neither of us noticed the unnatural way the thick bushes swayed, then split apart, until Danne shoved through the foliage and stood before us.
Revulsion twisted my gut to see that smug grin on his face as his eager eyes lit upon Graysen. He clicked his tongue. “Well, what do we have here? A fallen Crowther?”
He’d discarded his tuxedo jacket and his crisp shirt was damp and smeared with dirt and sap. I suspected he’d climbed down the cliff from the same gently rolling spot I’d earlier spied at the edge of the ravine.
Smoothing a hand over his hair and tidying the ruffled locks, he then rolled up his sleeves slowly. “Step out of the way, Nelle.” The grin he wore slipped into a wolf-like smile as his gaze grazed over Graysen’s helpless position.
“Get out of here, Nelle,” Graysen ordered, calm
My hands fluttered with indecision.
What can I do? What can I do? What can I do?
I was just a girl, but I’d never go down without a fight.
What do I have?
My gaze frantically searched for weapons.
A broken branch. A rock—
Across his chest, Graysen’s bandoleer was empty of blades.
But his sword—
The knotted hilt of his wyrmblade poked out from under his shoulder.
I lurched for it—
Wrong, wrong, wrong —my senses sang a moment before my fingers curled around the hilt.
The creature stopped thrashing as soon as my palm pressed upon the wyrmbone.
And stilled.
My mind rested on the here and now. I barely noticed the energy coursing through my fingers and hissing through my veins to heat my blood as I yanked at the sword, hoping to unsheath it.
The sword lay pinned beneath Graysen’s broken body.
It wouldn’t budge!
Please, please, please—
Graysen tipped his head back. Genuine terror shone in the depth of his dark eyes. “NO!”
But his sword was the only weapon he had on him that could keep Danne away. The only weapon I could wield …perhaps, maybe… I had little experience with swords.
Digging my heels into the soft earth, I pulled. A grunt wrenched from deep within my gut ended on a shrill note of victory and a half-sob of relief.
The wyrmblade whined as it came free of the sheath and sliced through the air. It was heavier than I’d assumed, or perhaps that was just me—a girl with no superior strength, nothing different about me.
Spinning around, I struck out at Danne. “Get the fuck away from him!”
Danne jerked back, narrowly evading the blade that swung a hairbreadth from the tip of his freckled nose.
“Nelle.” My eyes slid toward Graysen, unease rippling down my spine at the quiet desperate way he’d spoken my name. He was a stone-cold killer, but clearly, something had him terrified. “Let it go, Nelle.” It was telling that he used my name, not little bird or Wychthorn .
And I remembered what he’d said in his rooms…
… It’s cursed.
I almost dropped the sword. Almost.
From Graysen’s stricken expression, I saw it was too late. Far too late for me. I’d touched his cursed sword.
His whole body trembled violently with the effort to raise his hand and widen his fingers in a placating gesture. “Nelle… Drop it. Let my sword go…” he urged, his voice croaked with raw emotion.
But I heard movement, a cracking of loose stone and the crinkling of dead leaves underfoot.
I whirled around. The cursed blade cut through the air and the sharp edge of the wyrmbone barely missed catching Danne’s soldier on the arm.
His face crunched into a snarl. He lunged forward—
But I jabbed the blade at him, skipping back. “Keep away from him!”
I had no right wielding a sword. I lacked any skill and knowledge of weaponry and warfare. The sword in my hands was just a sharp thing to poke at anyone coming too close.
The soldier moved fast, slinging bodily sideways—
Slapping his hand against the flat of the blade so hard, the impact jarred up my wrists and shook my bones. I lost my grip—
The wyrmblade arced through the air, spinning wide, before landing with a heavy dull thunk against the base of a leafy shrub.
The soldier with cold eyes and an equally cold smile pivoted —
I darted away, evading him. Braced my stance and raised my fists, ready to fight.
“NELLE!” Graysen roared, fear lacing his voice.
The soldier surged forward—
I side-stepped, throwing a punch—
Only to have my wrist snatched and brutally twisted. The force tugged me off-balance, my body following, and my back slammed against the soldier’s front. He grabbed both my arms and pinned them to my sides. I struggled and shrieked, kicking out, trying to extricate myself from the soldier. But he was too big, too strong.
Danne stepped closer to Graysen, his sly smile widening at the sight of him lying defenseless on the earth. “I supposed I could do it the old-fashioned way by beheading you. But I want to have a little fun first.” He flicked his fingers at him in delight. “The great Graysen Crowther. Look at you, all bloodied and broken. You don’t seem so scary like this.”
He lifted his leg—
And smashed his foot down on Graysen’s shin—
Bone shattered.
Graysen gritted his teeth, drawing in huffing breaths. And despite Danne hovering over him, despite the agony he must have been in, he only had eyes for me. And swimming in their depth was such sorrow, a terrible foreboding ran through me.
Danne lifted his foot again—
“Stop, Danne!” I cried.
Danne stilled and looked my way.
“Please, don’t,” I begged.
“Kill him? Oh, I’ll easily do that.”
I sucked in a ragged breath, my heart thundering in my chest— No, no, no!
Danne lowered his foot and walked toward me, halting right in front. He kept his beady gaze on mine as he unsheathed something from the soldier’s belt that gleamed dully in the shadows of the cliff when he brought it back into my line of sight.
A dagger fashioned from a dark curse.
The black blade hummed. It was the kind that could punch through adamere armor.
“Perfect,” he grinned, as he returned to Graysen and crouched down.
Fear crowded every inch of me. “Please,” I begged, struggling in the soldier’s firm hold. “Don’t do this.”
But Danne ignored me. Pinching the hilt between thumb and middle finger, he casually swung the dagger back and forth over Graysen’s forehead. I suppose he felt powerful like that. As if Graysen were no threat. “We’re all thieves and murderers, Nelle. We serve the Horned Gods. We steal souls. End lives.”
Down by Graysen’s side, I caught the barest of movements. His elbow twitched…his forearm…then his shoulder.
However, something ensnared Danne’s gaze. Something that made his brows nudge together. He wasn’t looking at me, I realized. His gaze was on the soldier holding me.
And it was enough of a distraction—
A menacing snarl rumbled from deep within Graysen’s chest as he whipped his hand up to grab Danne by the throat.
He squeezed hard.
Danne’s eyes bugged. A bright red hue flushed his cheeks and his mouth gaped as he tried to gasp for breath.
A flash of movement—
Danne recklessly drove the dagger into Graysen’s chest.
Graysen grunted. Nostrils flaring, his lips were a narrow line, and tension feathered from eyes that burned with fury.
Danne stabbed again and again.
My shrill scream tore through the ravine. I fought against the soldier, crying out for Danne to stop. Please stop!
Graysen held on, but his entire arm shook.
A fourth stab. Blood poured from the wounds and pooled in the dents of his armored chest.
His grip faltered and Danne wrenched himself free.
Wheezing, Danne fell back onto his ass as he kneaded his throat with a trembling hand and sucked in oxygen.
But his gaze wasn’t on Graysen. It had returned to his soldier.
It was in that brief moment, as I wondered why his guard hadn’t let go of me to aid Danne, that I felt an erratic movement. The fingers on my arms tightened, released, tightened—
I glanced downward—
The large hand wrapped around my forearm had black webbing crisscrossing pale skin. Skin that was grayish and bubbling …
…nodes erupted all over his hands. Not only his hand, either, as I half-twisted my torso to whip my gaze upwards. His face, gods , his face was crusted with weeping black pustules.
A garbled shriek tore from my throat and I ripped myself free from his grasp, easily, because he’d stumbled back. His agonizing scream played against the crashing sound of river water. In horror, I watched those pustules burst and black fire erupt, licking his flesh and setting him ablaze as he reeled around the muddied earth. Flames caught hold of branches as he staggered through the scrub toward the edge of the river, only to fall to his knees, slumping face-first onto slippery stones. The black flames burned high, spitting and crackling as they devoured him entirely until there was nothing left but ash.
Just one touch.
“Hellsgate,” Danne muttered, staring in wide-eyed shock at the remains of his soldier—fine flakes of ash that were picked up by the wind and dashed against the green knotting of shrubs, even on me.
My hands… my hands… I had been touching Graysen’s cursed sword.
“You were holding it,” Danne breathed, hungry anticipation gleaming in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Nelle, I’m sorry,” Graysen choked out, devastation carving deep lines around his features.