Page 108 of Mistress of Bones
“Why not? An Emissary of the Lord Death will be useful. He’ll open so many doors. He can demand access to any ossuary, any crypt. Just imagine the things we can create, between your gift and mine. The bodies! We can pick and choose among the best, make a god of our own with nobody to stop us.Wecan become gods.”
The speech washed over Azul like background rain. She only saw Enjul’s face, remembered how it had twisted with horror in his last moments, how he pleaded to remain with his god.
“Don’t bring me back. I want to stay with him.”
She longed to touch her forehead to Enjul’s chin, end this torment in her gut, in her thoughts, in her guilty conscience. But even if she did, even if her touch stopped her brother’s gift, Enjul’s body would not decompose. His death was too recent. Sergado could raise him again. Over and over again.
“Don’t bring me back. I want to stay with him.”
His face, his horror. His last wishes.
Azul could not abandon him to this. She must find a way to destroy his body—burn it beyond use, turn it into another animal, another being.
“We, the emissaries, were born with the blessing of the god inside us.”
The god is here?
“He has no body, but we carry him inside us.”
The cat twisted its head, sank one of its long fangs into Enjul’s forearm. Tendons snapped, muscles tore. His grip loosened, and Azul broke free. She slammed her hand against his neck.
Sergado’s laugh was immediate. “I admire your stubbornness, but this is a waste of time. Stop now, Sister, or risk the lives of your man and your new pet.”
What did it matter?Azul thought as Enjul’s body folded over hers. Their lives were forfeit anyway—Sergado would kill them once he had her safely in his grasp and tucked away.
She allowed the body to drop and followed it down to the floor. Her hand never leaving his neck, she straddled him.
“Azul,” Sergado said. “Must you keep up this foolishness? Even if you do something to him, I’ll simply reclaim the body later. You know this.”
Her gift searched and searched. Desperation clawed at her. The large bones of the huge feline came into sharp relief, as well as the bones of those lying around her, of those still standing by her brother and keeping Sombra in check. The bones of those sleeping in the other houses, the bones of those farther away. A forest of bones, indistinguishable from one another.
She tried to bring back the focus she had gained in the ossuary. From flesh to muscle to bone, she searched and searched. Azul squeezed her eyes shut, willing her gift to work faster, better. There was nothing. Nothing there other than Virel Enjul. Had she been wrong?
But no. There it was.
So tiny. So small.
Enough.
A piece of the Lord Death.
Since Sergado de Gracia loved death so much, she would give it to him.
Leaning down, she placed her lips against Virel Enjul’s, Emissaryof the Lord Death, for this was the last time they would ever meet, and there was no shame in saying goodbye to him the way she now realized she wanted to say hello.
The Eye of Death opened in her palm, flush against Enjul’s cool neck. The cat coiled closer around her, ready to strike. Her brother shouted something. His guards stepped away, allowing him a better view. There was nothing to see—her gift rushed into Enjul, made its own network of bridges over his bones to reach that other presence inside him. And once they connected, the god demanded flesh. It demanded power. It demanded her essence. It demanded everything.
Her soul was severed suddenly, torn apart by invisible teeth. Azul cried out in pain. She dropped on her side, curling into herself. It had taken so much—too much. A gaping hole had been carved out of her, and she feared she would never have enough soul to bring anything else to life again. That Isadora was truly lost to her because she had chosen someone else. Somethingelse.
Enjul’s eyes snapped open. He rose, pushing Azul’s leg off his midriff. She tried to focus and tell the cat not to attack him, to stay out of his way. When Enjul got to his feet, he looked around, taking stock of the room.
On the stair landing, her brother gaped, stumbling as he took a step back. Enjul spared him a glance, then focused on his own hands, flexing them as if he were trying them out for the first time.
“Hmm,” he said. “It’ll do.”
All of Sergado’s men dropped to the floor.
“What?” Sergado cried in shock.
