Her mate’s.
“And where the fuck am I going to get that? He’sdead.” The words pop out of her with a bubble of soiled laughter. “He’s ash on the wind because the stars refused to answer my plea. Not even awhisper.” I track the tear caressing her cheek. “Because they don’tcare,Rhor. Because we’re nothing but a colorful splash of entertainment upon the tapestry of their immortal oblivion.”
Another rumble throws more ripples across the water while I try to remember the girl Rai was before she was cast in this shadow of loss …
All I can see is the ache in her eyes when Heath heaved his last breath, her beautiful face twisting into something I couldfeelin my chest.
All I can hear are the sharp shrieks that ripped up her throat. Pleas for me to let her go when I caught her trying to leap off the cliff at home—determined to break herself apart on the jagged rocks below.
She drugged herself with sips of a half-death she believed would bring her closer tohim.
Seven times I watched her eyes go flat and empty, then sat beside her bed and waited for them to open again—hoping that maybe she’d come back better. That things would go back to the way they were before.
That the words on the stones would bewrong.
“But I think I’ve found a way to get their attention,” she whispers, glancing out across the lake, and a shiver climbs my spine. Rakes across my skin. “After all, thatstupidbook I found said all of creation poured from … here.”
Realization almost clefts me down the middle, my gaze darting to her bloody hand.
The talon clenched in her fist.
Her wrath will spill from a bloody hand. Her wrath will spill from a bloody hand. Her wrath will spill from a bloody hand—
She’s going to toss the talon in the water …
“Rai, no—”
“Why not?” she screams, face contorted with a mix of heartache and rage. “They watchedhimrotfrom the inside out.” With a shrug, she takes a step toward the perilous drop so that her toes are nudging the edge. “Their precious world can do the same.”
“You’re not thinking straight,” I growl. “You throw that talon into the pool and you yield to the words. You fuckingyield.”
She tips her head and laughs, the sound poison to my ears.
For a moment, I’m happy Mother and Father were slower than me. That they’re not here to witness this.
It would kill them.
“Anythingcould spill out,” I continue. “And it won’t be the Gods that suffer. Not truly.”
It will be the people.
Theinnocents.
“Can you wear the weight of that?” Her laughter tapers as I take another step forward and hold her narrowing stare. “Because the Rai I knew cried when I had to put a foal out of his misery after he got crushed against that tree and snapped his spine.”
“Your Rai isgone,”she snarls, upper lip peeled back to reveal her piercing canines. She lifts her chin and looks down her nose at me, like she despises me—trulydespises me. “But I don’t expect you to understand, Rhordyn. You’ve lostnothing.”
“I’m losingyou,”I rasp, and her eyes flare, shoulders bowing as if an arrow just struck her chest.
I hold her gaze, unblinking, a swirl of ashy wind whipping her silver mane into a deeper state of disarray.
She drops her head, breaking my stare, her shoulders folding further.
“Rai—”
“You can’t fix me, big brother. You can’t erase my hurt.”
Another step, and I could almost reach out and touch her. Grab her. Rip her from the edge and pull her to my chest. Instead, I bend my knee andkneel,dropping into her line of sight.
