Page 27 of A Spell of Bones and Madness
Darkness wrapped its way around her, yet it sparkled with a metallic sheen. Not the darkness Ander was used to, but something more evil than the place that held him. The kind that inched into his mind, his very soul, sucking out everything that made him who he was. Ander had hoped for a warning. A final meal, maybe more than the scraps they gave him. A send-off from Edmund and Khalid. Someone to revel in the fact that they had finally broken him. Someone other than the siren before him.
The woman stalked her way over to him, kneeling down and meeting his eyes with her own. From up close, all he could see were onyx orbs, sinking back into an abyss of her soul. She reached out her hand, stroking his shoulder, but Ander recoiled at her touch. The oiliness of her hand on his skin, the smell of charred flesh and blood radiating off her, all pointed to one thing. This woman was a killer—though he already knew that. An assassin sent once more to try to dispose of him, and this time he had no way to stop her.
Ander closed his eyes once more, picturing home, the crystalline shores sweeping into sandy beaches, the way the scent of the seafilled his lungs as he walked through the markets on the coast. If he could just hold onto that feeling, maybe death wouldn’t be so bad. He always thought his death would come at the hand of the treacherous sea—that he would be swept away, sinking to the bottom to meet his maker, the water and the salt caressing him as he slipped from this realm to the next. Now there was only fire.
“Just do it fast,” Ander rasped, letting his labored breath seep through his teeth. It would be over soon. He had begged for it to be over and the Grechi had finally listened—sent her to do their bidding.
The woman’s brows pinched together, her plump red lips pursed. This time she stroked his face and Ander’s jaw hardened at the scaly fingers and talons that grazed his cheek, the siren she was luring him to the depths below the sea. A thing of beauty with a blackened heart.
“What did they do to you?” she whispered, her gaze lingering over the lashes and bruises covering his skin.
Why was she looking at him this way? She had never looked at him like this before—like he was anything more than carrion, scraps left for the wild animals to devour.
“If you are here to kill me, again I ask, do it fast.” He couldn’t take it anymore. The neverending screaming in his mind, the hot blood that coated his clothes day after day. Even after the cuts and burns healed, the rot of his wounded flesh remained. “I just want it to be over.”
She cupped both cheeks in her hands and his face felt like it was engulfed in flames. The end was near. “I am not here to kill you, Alexander.” The way his name rolled off her tongue was unbearable.
“Just kill me!” he screamed at the wicked creature before him. Must she really torture him right until the end?
The woman turned, her chest heaving, blood dripping from her eyes—no, not blood. Tears? “Help me, please,” she stuttered between heavy breaths, that darkness sweeping over her skin once more. A thing of nightmares.
Three other figures stepped into the cell, two cloaked individuals and a wolf. Even in the low light of the torches, the wolf’s fangs glistened as it trailed toward him. It sniffed at his chains and loosened a feral whimper that reverberated against the walls enclosing the dungeon. Curling up before Ander, the wolf lay its head in his lap, flashing its icy blue eyes up at him. Those eyes were also familiar, but he could not place them. The creature had never been here before—not as they tortured him—asshetortured him.
A tear trickled from the corner of the beast’s eyes, lodging itself in the black fur that formed a mask on its otherwise silver coat as the wolf let out another whimper. Ander picked up his hand stroking down the creature’s head and its breathing slowed, as did his.
This was real. The wolf was real.
It wasn’t possible and yet, it had to be. Khalid and Edmund had never met her—they would not know. They would not know this. How she looked, the masked wolf that used to follow him around when they were children, often curling up just as she did now.
“Chloe?” he barely whispered through his teeth.
Before him, where the wolf had just been, now knelt his sister. “Brother,” Chloe managed to get out before uncontrollable sobs left her mouth. It had been years since he last saw her, since hewas able to laugh with her and dream with her. His most ferocious supporter through life and heartbreak.
“He remembers?” the copper-haired woman rasped out with a sigh of relief.
“What—what are you doing with her?” Ander stuttered, clutching his sister’s hand. “She is with them—she is with the kings.”
Chloe cocked her head to the side. “No, brother. She is not.”
“Yes—Chloe, she is tricking you. Leave me, you must go before she locks you in this cell alongside me, before she tortures you like she tortured me!” Ander looked at his sister with pleading eyes, but all he saw in return were silver rings as her pupils dilated.
“Ander, listen to me,” Chloe said, her voice soft and lulling as she titled his chin up. “It is alright to remember—to remember love. They cannot take that from you. They can never take love from you, not truly, not from here.” She placed her small hand over his heart.
Love. He loved someone once, he could feel that kernel of shame and regret and longing inside himself. But there was no memory of her, no more than the image of the twinkling night sky and a silky voice.
The Nostos. A storm. A young brown-haired girl lay bound before him as he was dragged away. The world swirled around him. The forest in Alentus, seeing her scars for the first time. The way she tried to come at him with a dagger. Her vicious tongue. The way her scent captivated him as they danced around a masked ball. Carrying her back to the ship. The way she clung to him for safety. How her lips tasted as their mouths collided. I can’t hear no from you. I’ll come back for you. I promise.
“I toldyou I’d come back for you.” The same voice echoed in his mind. No—not in his mind, but from the lips of the assassin now pacing in the corner. Ander blinked and took a deep breath in. Lilies and mint floated through the air, laced with salt and lemon. The two mixing scents filled his nose, sending a rapid flutter through his chest. The blackness began to recede from the woman’s features, absorbed by a radiating white glow. Amber-flecked, brown eyes, a cascade of freckles over the bridge of her tanned nose. Warmth. Starlight.Home.
“Starling?” he shuddered.
The woman—Katrin—ran back over to him collapsing next to his chained body. “Oh thank the gods. I thought—I thought they made you forget me.”
Her lips met his in an untamed kiss, and Ander thought he might cease to exist. That he could live here in this moment with her forever. Even though his limbs felt like lead, he lifted his hands with what little strength he had left, letting his fingers thread through her hair.
“I could never forget you, Starling,” he murmured through heaving breaths as their lips parted. “Not truly.”
And all the days, all the burns and broken bones, all the lashings and poison were worth it. For her, for that kiss, that smile, that fire in her eyes. It would always be worth it.
