Page 147 of Once the Skies Fade

He’d played me for a fool.

He’d tricked me into thinking he gave a shit.

I’d thought the stars cruel before—keeping me from him as I lay there dying—but now I had proof they were: they’d dared tie my soul to the one sent to kill me.

I fell into one of the armchairs, realizing only too late that it was the one he’d sat in.

Leaping back to my feet, I pivoted, and a roar burst from my lungs as I heaved the glass at the wall. It shattered in a satisfying crash, sending millions of tiny shards sprinkling to the floor and brandy splattering across the stone. My knees buckled beneath me, and I crumpled onto the area rug, bracing myself with my palms. Curling my fingers into its soft fibers, I squeezed my eyes shut and let another growl rush out of me.

My shadows pooled out from under my hands, weaving around my arms and pressing against my chest as if to stave off the invisible wound Matthias had left.

The liar.

The fucking liar.

I didn’t want to hear his excuses. I didn’t want to know why he’d been sent. I didn’t want to be anywhere near him.

But the thought of sending him away brought back the same rush of fear I’d experienced when he’d walked away from me in the infirmary—a terrifying emptiness with flames encroaching, threatening to consume me from the inside out. I thought I’d been hollowed out by Brennan’s death, but that was nothing compared to the mere prospect of abandoning my stars-damned mate.

Were these my only options? To live the rest of my life with the male who turned me into a fucking mockery in front of my subjects or to suffer an eternity of agonizing loneliness?

Fuck the stars and their damned bonds!

Slowly, I pushed myself up off my hands so that I sat on the floor. Leaning against the side of the sofa, I pulled my knees up to my chest as my shadows settled around me to wait patiently for my command.

I would have to see him—eventually—but first I needed to sort through the knot of thoughts tangled in my mind. Isa’s debriefing of what had happened while I’d been unconscious left me with so many questions and so much confusion.

Matthias had poisoned himself to find the cure.

If the Durands had sent him with that poison to kill me, then why would he do that?

Why would he risk his own life? So he could ensure he was the one to take mine?

What if the poison wasn’t for me?

What if it was merely a precaution?

There’s only one way to know the truth.

Talk to him.

The thought triggered the image of his face in my mind, and I snapped my teeth together, clenching them as hard as I could to keep my anger constrained. No, I wasn’t ready.

I needed time, but I had so little of it. He’d hang if I didn’t do something, and while part of me would have relished placing that noose around his neck, another part cowered at the prospect of the torture my heart would face if he died. I’d already endured so much. Could I bear to lose someone else—and not just anyone, but the one whose soul had been seared to mine?

Life was one misery after another, heartbreak after stars-damned heartbreak, and I was tired of being broken again and again and again.

I had barely closed my eyes when a faint knocking pulled them wide. My shadows crept back into my palms when the door slid open.

“Calla? Someone would like to speak to you,” Isa said timidly, as if she expected me to bite her head off in response.

Without looking her way, I bit out the words—for what felt like the hundredth time—“I’m not ready yet.”

“It’s not Matthias.”

Jerking my head around to look at her, I winced at the sharp pain that stabbed my neck from moving too quickly. Isa stood just inside the room with the door nearly closed, her hand resting on the handle like she was prepared to bolt.

“Who then? If it’s Graham?—”

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