Page 27 of Silver Claws, Crimson Tears
Flames snap along the wood, washing Vaylen’s face in warm light. His eyes cut toward me, steady, measuring, questions brewing there that he keeps leashed behind his calm. He doesn’t speak them. Instead, his gaze drops to the hollows beneath my eyes, the way my shoulders sag.
“You need rest,” his voice is firm, holding no room for debate. “Take my tent. I’ll keep watch until Phoebe relieves me.”
My lips part with some flaring instinct to contradict him, but the weight pressing down on my body smothers it. He isn’t wrong. My bones feel heavy, as though they carry stone rather than flesh.
I give a single nod and force my body upright, crossing the camp toward the tent without a word.
Inside, the air carries the faint scent of leather and oil. His scent. His presence lingers even here, orderly, disciplined. I sink onto the furs, bones creaking in protest following relief.
Through the small gap of the flap, firelight ripples overVaylen as he stands with Phoebe closer to the flames. His shoulders remain squared like a man made of granite. Phoebe leans in, her expression bright and restless, her hands carving shapes into the air.
Vaylen listens, unmoving. His jaw lifts when he finally speaks, lips shaping words I can’t hear. Duty coats his bearing even now, every syllable weighted like he carries the sky itself. I close my eyes before I catch more.
Sleep pulls me down fast, no gentle drift. One blink and the fire’s gone, the camp’s gone.
Everything turns to damp stone and black walls pressing in. My body jerks, weightless, except there are arms locked around me, hauling me deeper into this choking dark. Wind hisses over my skin, snapping tight around my wrists and ankles, binding me as if the air itself approves of my capture. I thrash, but the current holds fast, slicing into me like icy rope.
“Coward,” I spit, my voice cracking in the suffocating tunnel. “Let me go and see what happens when I land on my own two feet.”
The man—if he’s a man—keeps walking. His arms don’t even shift under my weight. Shadows coil thick around his face, sealing his features away. Only his shape is burned into my sight: broad, tall, and unyielding.
My fury knots tighter than the air around my limbs. Every swallow tastes like iron. “I don’t belong to you. Do you hear me? Let me the fuck go!”
Without warning his grip vanishes. I drop, skull smashing the stone floor with a crack that explodes stars over my vision. My ears ring. The air leaves me in a rush, and every breath that follows feels like drowning on dry land.
Blurriness swallows the corners, and when I manage to lift my head, she’s crouched there. A little girl, knees bent, thin frame covered with grime. Mud cakes her face in streaks, and her hair isclumped in greasy tangles. She drags the back of her wrist under her nose, smearing snot across the dirt.
Her eyes, dark and sharp as chipped flint, rake over me with the sort of disdain older women reserve for spoiled bread at market.
“This is her?” she asks, voice flat, unimpressed.
I blink through the haze, my wrists still buzzing with phantom restraints. My skull roars from the fall, but some ember inside me still spits sparks.
“Depends,” I rasp, bracing on my elbows even though my body wants to crumple back onto the stone. “Who exactly were you expecting? Because if you’re waiting for someone to say you smell good, guess again. You reek.”
The girl’s lip curls, and her mouth parts, ready to fire back at me, but a voice cuts through the cavern.
“Don’t waste your breath,” the man says.
It rumbles low, a sound that rolls like thunder off stone peaks. The shadows shift at the edges, clinging to his broad frame, concealing everything but the strength in the command. My skin prickles, and my throat tightens against the weight of that tone.
“Just do your job, Fern.”
Fern. So the wraith-child has a name. She huffs, a sharp little flare of irritation that doesn’t match the tremble in her skinny limbs. Lips pursed, she digs into the pocket of her shabby, rope-held trousers. The legs swallow her feet, hems folded awkwardly, each cuff stiff with dirt.
Her hand comes out clutching a vial.
The glass catches the dim light, a faint shimmer swirling inside like liquid fog. She bites the cork free and spits it to the side, never breaking her stare.
My fingers twitch against stone. Every bone in my body screams to move, so I do. My shoulder knocks into the jagged wall as I twist and claw at the floor to push myself backward. Stone scrapes my spine raw, blocking me in with its cold indifference. I grit my teethand breathe hard through my nose, shoving past the sting in my elbows and knees.
“Stay away from me,” I snap, bucking in open defiance. “You bring that closer, and I swear you’ll regret it.”
Fern doesn’t even flinch. Her filthy little hand hovers steady, the vial tilting beneath my nose.
A sharp, acrid tang stings the back of my throat before it even touches me. My eyes water instantly. It burns like the first breath of life. I thrash harder, slamming my shoulder against the rock until pain shoots down my arm.
“I said no!” My voice cracks deep, raw, but it doesn’t matter. She waves the vial again, her expression caught between boredom and contempt.
