A sudden gust of wind whipped Shaw’s coat about him. “What now?”
Lux studied the crow. The familiar tilt to its head. “I recognize this bird.” With slow steps, she passed by an incredulous Shaw until she paused before the black-winged creature. “Hello, crow.”
The sleek head tipped further, and she smiled at the acknowledgment. Except—the eyes. There was something unusual. Not quite right. Rather than familiar obsidian, they were murky and grey.
“Why—”
The bird lunged for her face.
Lux shrieked, batting it away, but the crow only continued its attack. Talons raked her cheek. She felt its beak pierce the skin at the corner of her eye, felt blood trickle hot from the wound. She screamed. The animal would not relent; it came for her, again and again. Until, abruptly, it ceased.
Lux stumbled back against the bridge, feeling the familiar cool stone beneath her fingers. She sought Shaw and watched him lower his spotless blade. Bloodied, her knife clattered to the moss at her feet.
Murderer.
Her back scraped down the stone as she fell.
“Saints.” Shaw’s arm reached beneath hers, his opposite thumb pressed to the edge of her eye. “It’s over, Lux. The cut is shallow; I’ll fix it up, so you won’t even notice.”
She shook her head against her parents’ eyes, lit with life before they transformed into a sinister grey and back again in her mind.
“I killed it. I killed them. I killed them, again.” Panic clenched her lungs, ripping out their air, and she clawed at her chest. “I’m a monster.”
Shaw dropped to her side, but his warmth couldn’t reach her. Her body shivered with cold. “You’re not a monster. Listen to me.Lux. Look at me.”
But she couldn’tbreathe.
Rough hands gripped either side of her face, turning her toward him. A furrowed brow pressed to her own. Warmth. A little, at last.
“Inhale with me.”
“I—can’t—”
A hand left her cheek to push beneath her chin, extending her throat. The other grabbed her palm, pressing it flush to his chest. “You will. Do as I do.”
Lux couldn’t hardly hear his words anymore, but his touch…
His chest expanded beneath her hand. Warm breath grazed her face. And the more she focused on the rhythmic pattern of those two things, the less she focused on anything else. Her eyes desperately sought his. Near as they were, she scarcely managed to make out their familiar shape, but it was enough.
Her lungs ceased their frantic cry.
The pressure on her brow increased for a heartbeat before lessening; her breaths matched his pace.
His next exhale seemed to come from the depths of him. “You may act as if you’re sculpted of ice, Necromancer, but a true monster? I’ve met those before. I’ve shaken their hands, staredinto their eyes.” His hands left to trail the lengths of her arms before gripping her frozen fingers. “You are not one of them.”
Chapter twenty-two
It took the completerigging of one trap on the outskirts of the forest for Shaw to finally ask the question Lux could see lingering in his eyes.
“Will you be able to kill a howler should you catch one?”
Her earlier panic having ebbed to a low-frequency hum in her veins, she huffed. “I wasn’t upset because I killed a crow if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“It isn’t that, no. I heard what you said.”
She straightened, eyeing the dripping meat with distaste. Inside, however, where no one but her could see, she withered. “A body that’s been revived past its time comes back twisted and unnatural. Its soul is warped and hungry for things it should never hunger for. Eyes are dulled, the color faded like fog. The crow had those eyes. And so did my parents.”
“Your—”
