“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.
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.
My God was nothing but pure, brutal beauty, and I wanted absolutely nothing to do with him; not ever again.
“They won’t hurt you, Little One,” he said, tilting his head to the side as he stared down at me. Even his voice was deeper, something ancient resting within it as those blue eyes gleamed.
I looked away from him, staring between the skeletons to where the corpses of the dead Mist Guard fought with the Marked who’d emerged from the rubble to escape. We’d found the people we’d come to save, and in doing so, I had led the Fae right to them.
The army of the dead disarmed them, forcing them to their knees and restraining them in groups as I watched in horror.
“Stop this,” I pleaded, turning my attention back to Caldris where he waited for me, that hand of his still outstretched, as if he couldn’t quite believe I wouldn’t sink into his embrace again.
I wouldn’t allow him to touch me, ever, after what he’d done, and the way he’d lied to me at every turn.
I hadn’t even known his name. He wasn’t even fucking human.
“You know I can’t do that,” he said, something probably not regret shadowing his face as he stared down at me intently. His attention never even so much as twitched off of me, completely unconcerned with the battle waging around us.
“Let them go, and I’ll go with you. That’s what you want, right? That’s what the purpose of all of this was? Just let them go.” I begged, swallowing down my terror at the thought of being brought to Alfheimr, and of what might wait for me there.
“Oh, my star,” he said sadly, sympathy filling his gaze as his hand dropped to the iron chain wrapped around my neck. He unraveled it slowly, the flesh of his fingertips burning against the touch of the warded metal until he flung it to the side. “You’ll come with me anyway.”
