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Not that I take more than a glance of her frenzied state and the shadows of several men pursuing her. Since I linger behind the pillar, she doesn’t notice me when she pauses to remove her lace shoes before tossing them down the opposite hallway.Hmm...I smirk.
Silent, I observe as she scurries away, corpus roses falling from her hair as it escapes her braids in a silver flurry?crackling flames woven into the flurry. The shoes were an apt ruse since the lead guard gestures most of his men in the opposite direction, spilling deeper into the ruins while he and two others follow the one where the girl fled.
It leads to a dead end.
When my bodyslams into a wall of skulls, all my hopes of escape shatter. Cornered in this hollowed-out room, I spin to face Elder Kanat’s sentries. Gasping and shaking, I close my eyes when the nether-mark chafes my flesh again. Foolish. He won’t forgive this transgression. Any chance I had of helping my family is gone.
Damn those refters. Damn our debt. And damn Ganyx and his weasel-face and bird-beak nose and snake-like tongue! Damn that bad-to-the-bone elder most!
“Come with us now, little dove.” Kanat’s chief sentry approaches, flanked by two others. As he enters the hollow, he tenses, neck muscles bulging, straining the bone collar around his throat. It signifies his protector status?a personal warrior for the elders but with as much training as the King’s soldiers. “No more chances to fly. Elder Kanat will not be kept waiting.”
Yes, I’m certain he loves the idea of jumpingmybones. Over my dead body.
Licking my lips, I press my back against the skulls until the bones bruise my flesh. No possible way around the sentries close to the exit.
Nearing me, the chief sentry raises his hands donned in bone-armor gloves with sharpened claws. My breath bursts as the mark wreaks havoc on my back, but gooseflesh prickles my naked arms as he advances, glove extending. I slam my eyes shut, panting.
“Shh...don’t struggle. We don’t want your sweet flesh spoiled for the Bite Offering.”
I’ve soothed the frightened animals on our farm, pacified them with a tender caress and soft words before chopping off their heads to be used as meat. Now, I am one. The sentry’s claws close around my arm. Elder Kanat will have me whipped before the Offering. Once he discovers my mark, he’ll throw me into the Void and wash his hands of me. Or a public burning.
At the last second, I dig the nail into my coffin by reaching between my thighs for my scyan, my lethal blade. The Ith sentry opens his mouth and steps back, astonished. I narrow my eyes to deadly slits. Adrenaline sprints in my blood. The penalty for a human attacking an Ith is death. Nothing to lose, I’d sooner die at the hands of these soldiers than accept Elder Kanat’s mark. Or invite his lascivious gaze upon my body on our wedding night. Nor will I allow him to punish my family with my execution. I close my eyes and suck in a deep breath, prepared to launch.
The sentry’s claws retreat. When I open my eyes, I nearly scream. Instead, I bite my tongue, drawing blood. Skulls, dozens of ancient skulls, hover around the room?ripped from the walls. Stupefied, the sentries open their mouths, eyes fixed on the skulls dancing in the air.
“Come now, gentlemen,” a rich baritone croons to the sentries. “Whatever bone of contention this lovely, young nighyan may have with the Guild, surely it does not merit such unpleasantness.”
Oh, I love his voice!
The chief sentry draws his sword and barks to the masked invader, “The girl owes a flesh debt to Elder Kanat.”
“Hmm...yes, the elder is still no better than a dog with a bone.”
Wide-eyed, dumbfounded, I gape at the masked man as he casually twirls the skulls following his deprecatory insult.
“Show your face!” demands the chief sentry, eyes wavering.
“I’d rather not,” the man responds and flexes his gloves. The skulls waltz in the air, casting bone dust onto my skin. My lungs constrict from the air I’m holding. How does he wield such power?
“So be it!” The sentry charges.
The skulls attack.
I leap into the corner in the nick of time. Several skulls strike their target, driving the sentry to the ground. His head crashes against the wall?eyes rolling to their ceilings. Knocked unconscious. Frozen from fear or awe, I grate my nails into the skulls behind me as the other sentries run only for skulls to batter them. Most skulls shatter, but by the time the soldiers lay motionless on the ground, several still remain in the air. Their vacant, black-holed eyes face me. I blink, searching the darkness for an elder or potentially a bone seer, but no seer has been discovered in five centuries.
As my eyes center on the dark-robed, masked man lingering in the opening, the skulls fall, crashing to the ground. I flinch at the clatter of the bones and shrink when one rolls to tumble against my foot.Arms protecting my chest,I root my gaze on the figure, on the robes shifting to the side as he leans over. He collapses. Not wasting another moment, I leap over the fallen chief sentry and cracked skulls and bone pieces, rushing to kneel before the figure.
I chew on my lower lip, debating, eyes flitting to the hall. “Just go, Isla,” I urge myself in a desperate whisper because more soldiers could barge in at any moment.
But my gut clenches, my heart assaults the sheltering framework of my ribcage with need to learn my masked guardian’s identity...for more reasons than one. Throughout my life, the Nether-mark has haunted my spine with its fire and ice...until now. Reaching behind me, I touch the puckered flesh, but it’s subdued, peaceful, quiet. Never this quiet. Its shadow energy hums beneath my skin, but no pain engulfs my back.
Instead, deep shades abound, soothing my flesh.
Who is this man?
Lips parted, I gaze at my liberator and touch his chest. Garbed head to toe to mimic the Corpse King for this ceremonious night, the figure must be a seer. But my eyes lower to the significant bone dangling from a simple leather cord around his neck, and I cover my mouth to cage my gasp.
The parietal skull bone. The symbol of royalty. The Crown.
