“Give me a coin,” Val said to someone.
“You know Estella doesn’t allow us—”
“I said give me a gods-damned coin!” he screamed.
A moment later his ungloved fingers pressed something against my lips. I let him slip the coin into my mouth. He sobbed and leaned over me, pressing his lips against my forehead. He gently lowered me to the ground. Then they were gone, vanishing into the streets that led to Marcello.
I rolled onto my stomach and agony shredded me, like my heart ripped free from my chest. I screamed against my closed lips. I needed to keep the coin safe. I had one last thing to do.
I crawled to Les, every movement agony, every second my vision growing darker. The sounds of the night faded until all I knew was the image of Les lying before me on the cold street. When I reached him, I brought my fingers to my mouth and pulled out the coin. It was stamped with the Da Via crest. I didn’t need it.
I slipped it past Les’s unmoving lips, his breath silenced. He was still beautiful, even in death. I would’ve wished something different for him. But Marcello had been right. I was a Saldana, and we brought destruction to those we loved.
The pain diminished. A final mercy in a life seemingly devoid of them.
I closed my eyes and waited for my breaths to stop.
thirty-four
PALE LIGHT SPILLED ACROSS MY FACE. I GROANED AND covered my eyes. It was too early. I wanted to sleep.
The light continued its push until I sighed and rolled over, peeling my eyes open.
I could see nothing except watery gray light. I blinked a few times, waiting for my eyes to adjust, to focus on something.
I pushed myself up. My nerves burned against my skin, in my muscles, my organs, my bones. I cried out and froze, trying to keep the pain at bay. After a moment the fire eased to a strong ache. Still painful, but manageable.
I turned my head slowly, searching for furniture, landmarks, a hint to discover where I was. But there was only the endless pale light and what seemed to be fog rolling in and out of the edge of the nothingness.
I struggled to stand, barely keeping my balance against the pain that blazed through my body. I glanced at my feet, trying to keep them stable. My legs were bare. I was naked. Scratches and bruises covered my body, the largest bruise flowing across my chest like a menacing ink blot and rolling down my left side to a violent mass of swollen and wounded flesh.
Something warm dripped down my spine. I reached behind me and my fingertips returned red with blood.
The knife. The knife that had pierced my body. That had killed me.
I was dead.
I looked around again. Nothing. No one. I was alone.
I swallowed. “Is anyone there?” My voice emerged hoarse and rough, like I hadn’t spoken in years.
The fog shivered and spiraled and then blew away, as if a wind carried it, though I felt nothing. No one answered me.
Behind the fog stood a forest of trees, each one white and bare and stretching toward the sky. I looked closer. A forest, yes, but they weren’t trees.
Giant bones were stuck in the ground and reached upward, swaying with the hidden wind. No mortal thing had ever possessed bones so large.
I took one tentative step toward the forest, bracing for the expected pain. Then another. I continued in this slow and agonizing manner, but I never drew closer.
I wrapped my arms around my stomach to lessen the pain.
“Am I dead?” I asked, not expecting an answer.
“Yes.” The voice was soft and quiet and seemed to emanate from the trees before me.
“Who are you?”
“You know who I am, Daughter.” The trees swayed.
And I found I indeed knew who the voice belonged to. “Can I see you?”
A pause, a hesitation. “I have driven mortals mad.”
“I’m dead,” I answered. “I’m not afraid.”
Vibration in the trees, like a laugh. “I have watched you your whole life. So many think they do not fear death, but when their time comes, they beg it away. But not you. There was no fear with you.”
“Will you show yourself?”
“So be it.”
From the folds of the bone forest a figure stepped before me, tall as the oaks on the dead plains. My gaze brushed across Her limbs, Her body, unable to take anything in, unable to linger, to make sense of what I was seeing.
I met Her eyes and found a blank face with no features, made of nothing but smooth bone, empty, flat, barren. I’d never known something could be both terribly monstrous and terribly beautiful.
As I gazed upon the face of a god, of Safraella, my mind sank toward a dark vortex. The sound of a thousand storms, a thousand hounds baying in the night surrounded me, consumed me. I began to unravel, bits of me floating away until there, before me, was the memory of Les, his lips pressed against mine, whispering kalla Lea.
Everything snapped back into place. The bone trees swayed.
“Where are we?” I asked, watching the trees.
“A forest. A graveyard. A passage. This place is many things.”