Page 4 of The Scattered Bones

I lose track of how long I crawl as the wind whips and tugs at me, but suddenly my heart stutters. It misses a beat. And then a second and a third, and my fingers shoot out before me, searching the stone for what I seek. Minutes fly by, and my fingertips encounter nothing but dust. Despair rattles my chest. I need to find him. We’re running out of time.

“Gods,” I yelp as my knuckles brush against coarse fabric. I seize it and peel away the burlap until I feel flesh. Cool flesh, and I don’t need to see to know these hands. How many times did they wrap around my fingers, stroke my hair, caress my face? I would recognize them anywhere. I found him.

Folding his hands inside the fabric, I fling myself back toward the hole of light. It’s dimmer now, and panic tightens my chest. The sun is too low; the daylight disappearing too fast. I scramble to my feet as the wind fights to drag me down, to keep me in its eternal embrace, but I refuse to surrender. This hateful world ripped him from me once before. Not again. Never again.

I push faster, tossing his hands up to the main level before climbing out to join him. Absent the wind, the silence is almost deafening, and my eyes scan the horizon. The sun is dangerously close to setting. I have minutes. Maybe less.

I launch into a run, barreling through the ruins as I disturb centuries of sedentary bones. I don’t care to avoid the shadows, but each time my limbs pass through them, the evil pulls at my soul. Its rage bleeds into my veins. This entity refuses to relinquish me, and as if willed by its greed, the sun descends faster, forcing me to flee through more and more shadows. This time, when I scream, I hear my terrified voice.

And then I see the exit. Clutching his hands tighter to my breast, I push my aching legs to maintain the brutal pace. My lungs burn with exertion. My brow spills sweat. The wind howls through the darkening hallways as the sun burns her last rays. I’m so close, but I won’t make it.

“Run!”

My gaze snaps to the temple’s entrance. The Stranger hovers on the opposite side of the threshold, safe from the evil’s grasp.

“Damn it, child, run!” His hands extend to me, his fingertips hovering just shy of the line.

I can barely breathe as I race for his open arms. I concentrate on his white eyes, and even though they’re solid, pupilless orbs, I recognize the panic in them. It spurs me on, but then the sun sets. The light flashes one last time, and I’m too late. Through the haze of desperation, I stare in disbelief at The Stranger as he does the unthinkable. The dying sunlight still touches the threshold. One more second and it’ll be gone, but he shoves his hand over the line. His fingers push as far as the light allows, and I dive. I throw myself at him, one arm clutching the bundle at my breast, the other outstretched. My fingers clasp his, and he yanks me hard just as the world goes dark.

I slam with a harsh thud against his chest, and we topple to the jungle floor. I can’t stop the sobs that wrack my body, but to my surprise, The Stranger wraps his muscular arms around me. He says nothing as I convulse. He merely lays there and lets me cry as I catch my breath.

“You aren’t allowed to help me,” I whisper into his chest, my fingers clutching his cloak to assure myself that I’m safe, that I’m in his embrace and not bound to the shadows.

“I didn’t.” His ribs rattle my cheeks. “I simply held your hand.”

“Thank you.” Relief floods my words.

“We should go.” He abruptly stands without ceremony, hoisting me to my feet as if I weigh nothing. “The evil has tasted you. We need to put as much distance as possible between us and it.”

“It’s all right,” I say, clinging to the Stranger’s cloak with one fist and hugging his severed hands with my other. “I don’t think it liked what it tasted.”

The Meeting

SEASON OF ICE, CYCLE 78919

Ijerked awake, adrenaline coursing through my body as my heart beat an uneasy rhythm. A distant commotion played out in the temple’s lower levels, but the sound wasn’t what woke me. It was the overwhelming sense that I wasn’t alone. That someone was locked in my room with me.

Fear pulsed through my limbs, and I bit the inside of my mouth to keep silent. Hreinasta’s temple had protected me for the past ten cycles, but I’d slept alone my entire life. I knew what solitude felt like. I was intimately acquainted with the presence of every priestess who served me, and the being hovering at the edge of my consciousness wasn’t one I recognized. It wasn’t someone allowed to be there, and for long and terrifying seconds, I prepared to die. I prepared for my innocence to be ripped from me, but as I prayed to Hreinasta for salvation, the presence didn’t move. It didn’t speak. It simply hovered in the shadows.

Gathering my courage, I opened my eyes and scanned the darkness. The hour was well past midnight, but as the commotion receded further into the temple, the feeling persisted. Someone was watching me, and when my sight finally found him, the earth shifted.

A dark shape huddled in the corner, almost invisible inside the shadows. I might have missed him if I hadn’t committed that entire room to my memory, but I’d memorized every angle, every curve, every imperfection of those chambers, and his mass protruded from the wall like a looming demon. He was dressed in the darkest black, his raven hair the same inky shade. Even his eyes were dark, as if he was born and bred of the night, molded to hide within the shadows. Despite his crouched position, I could tell he was massive, tall and broad and muscled. I’d never seen a man this close beside my father, but that was cycles ago. I could gaze upon him and my brothers when they prayed in the temple courtyard, but no man, not even my own flesh and blood, could touch my skin since I was pledged to Hreinasta. Men were forbidden from entering her inner sanctuary, and as a result, I’d never witnessed the finer details of the masculine features.

I scrambled backward across my mattress at the realization that a man hovered feet from my bed. My back slammed into the wall with a loud slap, and I opened my mouth to scream.

“Please, don’t.” He threw up his hands in a placating gesture, and I froze, my alarm lodging in my throat. His voice. Its deep rumble, even spoken in a hushed tone, was so fierce, so rough, that it shook the air as he pleaded. The sound rattled my chest, its gravel vibrating my bones, and my alarm heightened. It was as if a demon had whispered. It was as if beauty had come to life as words. I wanted him to speak again, to push that deepness against my skin and shake me to my core. It was both cruelty and seduction, jagged edges and blooming roses. I should have screamed. I needed to scream, to escape this intruder, but instead, I hovered on the edge of my mattress, craving the melody of his voice.

“I won’t hurt you.” He emerged from the shadows, and a tear escaped my eye to trail down my face. “I promise you’re safe from me. I just need a place to hide.”

Embarrassment flushed my cheeks, but I couldn’t stop the tears. I didn’t know how to interact with men, and being forced into one’s presence in the supposed safety of my own room shoved me off kilter. His closeness was overwhelming. It made it hard to breathe, and I knew I should run. I should have screamed for help, but I was frozen. I cried in fear. I cried because his voice was everything. It reached inside my soul, rewriting my definition of perfection. It strangled my erratically beating heart and coated my mind with its harshness. That sound. It could burn the world to ash with its power, and it terrified me how it erased the wariness of men that servitude had engrained in my being.

“I’m sorry.” He moved forward, thought better of his actions, and then recoiled. “It’s all right. I won’t touch you, see.” He sat hard against the wall and threw up his hands in surrender. “Please don’t cry.”

I hated myself for how easily his voice convinced me to obey, but I sank against my pillows anyway, mimicking his posture as I wiped the tears from my cheeks. From that angle, I realized just how large the young intruder was. He was a monster in the shadows, and I dreaded seeing him stand to his full height. He would tower over me.

“What are you doing here?” I finally gathered the courage to ask after minutes of tense silence. “Men aren’t allowed in the inner sanctum.”

“I know.” He flashed me a smile, and my heart forgot to beat. His voice might have been rough and dangerous, but his smile? It was the sun. It shone with blinding beauty, and I blinked, afraid to look at the inviting curve of his lips. I was untouched, untainted, unmarred. Even my thoughts were pure, but staring at his smile was an unadulterated sin. I didn’t realize an expression could hold that much magic.

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