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The soldier who kneeled in front of my husband shot his hand forward, taking the bone blade from Enosh’s palm. With a slow cut, he opened his veins to the chill of winter and death.
“Good man,” Enosh whispered as the soldier slowly slumped into himself as he crawled toward death. “I can do this for the rest of my life. Tell me, brother, how long might that be?”
When Enosh picked up the blade where it had dropped in the snow, a sudden sense of despair settled onto me like thick tar poured over my very soul. It slithered into my chest, robbing me of air, leeching the little warmth I had left from me like he had done the day I’d died.
“Eilam,” I rasped, making Yarin scoot away from me and Enosh to rise to his full height.
‘Ada.’ My name whispered from an aura to my left, almost like the caress of light one felt when the sun poked through the windows in the morning. Not a sight; a sensation. ‘Still so much life in you, refusing my command. An atrocity.’
Eilam slowly came into his form beside me, his windswept hair as white as snow, his black eyes seemingly fixed on me, though it was hard to tell. Oh, and he was naked.
Yarin rolled his eyes. “I would have gladly waited another moment if only you would have found a rag to cover that white fur of yours.”
“By Helfa…” the other priest mumbled, rocking on his knees and swaying back and forth as he stared at Eilam. “Give me the blade so I can depart this unholy place of dark magic.”
Enosh let the man’s arms fall forward and handed him a fresh blade, but his eyes remained locked on Eilam. “As you wish.”
The daybed shook.
My gaze snapped to Eilam, who trembled beside me as he watched the priest slit his wrists. It truly upset him, didn’t it?
A flutter of hope.
Would he give in?
We had four more left…
“You knew she carried my child.” Enosh stepped up to us and, with a flick of his hand, let a leather shape on Eilam’s crotch. “Give her your breath.”
“I did not know what it was when she died, not that it would have mattered.” Eilam leaned into me, bringing his eerie eyes so close to mine, I stopped breathing, if only to remind myself that I no longer needed air. I was dead. He could take no more from me. “Her life was twice forfeited. Once stolen.”
I lifted my chin no matter how it trembled. “I just want my baby.”
Perhaps I imagined it, but his eyes appeared to slip to those lips he’d once kissed, letting the hairs rise along my arms.
“Enosh, did you know that our brother kissed your wife?” Yarin blurted, letting my husband’s jaws clench with such force his ears twitched. “Ada, how bad was it?”
I looked straight into Eilam’s pitch-black eyes. “Clearly so terrible, I died from it.”
Yarin laughed.
Enosh did not.
“Strange creatures,” Eilam said, seemingly unfazed by it all. “Women. So different from us.”
Yarin leaned back into the daybed. “At long last, you took notice.”
“Give her… your… breath.” At Enosh’s growl, all those soldiers who’d lost their lives stood and turned toward us, stares abandoned, sending a shudder across my chilled skin. “Or on my word, I shall kill every soul I come across until you restore her.”
“I do not think you will, Enosh.”
“You are not powerful enough to stop me.”
“From the moment you have claimed your first death of the day, I have been watching, listening.” A strand of Eilam’s hair fell forward, scenting the air between us with crisp breeze and lavender. “No, I am not powerful enough… but your wife is. And stopping you, she will. Already she has… doubts.”
“So certain, brother?” Yarin asked. “All it takes is one whisper.”
“As I recall, our brother has no want for your illusions. No, he longs for… unadulterated love grown from her uncolored inclination. Tell me, Enosh, how much will she love you once the first house collapses onto a child under the weight of corpses? How many whispers will it take to dull her hate once a wave of bonedust suffocates a girl in hiding? Come to think, have you ever told her how many children died in the Soltren lands?”
When my gaze flicked to Enosh, my husband sunk his head—if in regret or to escape my judgment, I couldn’t say.
“Children. So i
Insignificant.
A rush of hot blood itched beneath my skin, tossing me into the biting throes of rage and utter despair. He would not do it. Would leave me behind cold. All because he… expected me to protect the i
And what of my trapped baby?
Was it not i
It was, and I refused to fail it again.
“You think I’ll do you the favor and stop Enosh?” I leaned into Eilam, then a bit more when he shifted back, as though uneasy about my closeness. “Think again, Eilam, because right now, I’m very tempted to help.”
Why did Yarin sink his face into his palm? Why did Enosh hiss? What did I do? Wasn’t this what he’d wanted of me? To stand behind this?
“Will you truly help?” Eilam opened his palm, letting a wooden stake form there. “Show me how mistaken I am in my assumption, mortal. Of course, my brothers shall not interfere, guiding neither hand nor mind.”
“What?” Gaping in shock, I looked at Enosh, who’s eyes narrowed with concern, then back down at the stake. “If I… if I do this, you’ll give me my life back?”
“A mortal’s breath in exchange for yours sounds fair to me.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, I reached for the stake, letting my fingertips stutter over Eilam’s palm before I closed it around the smooth wood. He thought I would give up on my child? That I gave a rat’s ass about one measly soldier?
I rose and hurried toward the line of men. Positioning myself behind a gray-bearded soldier, I brought the stake to the man’s throat, scratching it bloody with how my entire arm tossed under the strain.
Yarin gri
Eilam narrowed his eyes.
Enosh, however… oh, he looked as though he was only waiting for me to stab the man’s throat so he could fuck me in the puddle of blood. Maybe I’d let him right after I did this. And I would; I could. For my baby, I could.
I gripped the man’s hair.
I pulled back on it.
I pressed the stake against his throat.
The man screamed.
Thud.
The stake suddenly lay in the snow, clean and i
Eilam vanished where he sat, the only remnant left behind was the sound of his words. “Point proven.”