Page 41 of These Eternal Bones
This is wrong.
I am to be silent, I know, but I cannot help the scream that leaves me as the hot metal is pressed to my finger, branding me.
I’m unsure if it is the pain or the fissure that formed in my chest that steals the ground from underneath me as I collapse.
****
“Mistress, mistress!”
I jolt upward with a ragged sob so quickly I knock into Péal, her pale, ashen hair tickling my flesh.
Her kind, round eyes greet me, although pinched with concern. I breathe deep, taking stock of everythingaround me, the warmth of the cottage and the paint smeared easel, but none of it does away with the pool of dread forming in my belly.
“Elric?” I blink rapidly in a desperate attempt to halt the tears in my eyes.
Her fingertips are warm as she brushes my hair from my face. The length kept long and thick. The way god intended it to be. It’s heavy and in the way, always frizzy and tangled, I hate it. I feel in that moment that there is no God. That he was just another story to keep us scared, to keep us close. “Not today, miss, I was sent to collect you.”
“Wrong, Iwas sent. She simply tagged along.”
My eyes snap to Cartiel leaning against the door, my cheeks flushing as I wipe the remaining tears from my eyes. “I can hardly imagine he’d send you.”
Thebronzeman rolls his eyes. “I am the safest next bet.”
The covers are suddenly too heavy, too constricting, but I pull them to my neck, hiding my body anyway.
He didn’t come.
Although I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, the last few days… since that night in the snow, Elric has been quiet, distant, angry even at times, while not outwardly at me.
His regret is clear, but he didn’t come.
I feel the bite of that deeper than I imagine I should. After all, he is my employer.
“Youare the safest bet?” I quip, not hiding my doubt. Perhaps my snarkiness will keep the tears at bay, to hide the disappointment festering in my chest. He’s been odd, distant, but this is the first time he hasn’t been the one to escort me to the estate.
“Oh yes, mistress. As annoying as they are, Nephilim are incredibly powerful beings.”
“Nephilim, what is that, exactly?”
“Bastards of God.” He answers curtly.
God.
“So, he is real?” The question slips from my lips, a frayed line of hope connected to the pool of dread as I stare at the thin, lanky golden man.
“Don’t know, never met him.” That’s all he offers me before slinking from the cottage, the thick wooden door slamming behind him as if to compound his displeasure with the topic. Or me.
“Ignore him. He’s been a sourpuss since the last time. It was his first, you see, grief is odd, the way it lingers. It made him bitter.”
I open my mouth to pry when she speaks again, something Péal does often. “He was quite worried about you, mistress. Nephilim have a vast amount of power, but it weakens them considerably with each use, so they use it sparingly. Soul magic, they call it. Much different from what fae use.”
“What do you use?”
She smiles, tugging the blankets free from my hands so she can urge me from the bed. “Everything around us. The trees, water, air, and earth. We pull from it and give in return.”
“So, he was worried? He used magic?”
“We could hear you crying from the tree line. He said your soul was troubled. You seemed scared.”
