The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and Ash 3)

“Stop!” Casteel yelled. “Stand down. Now!”

I dug at my throat, panic blossoming in my chest. I couldn’t breathe. Pain streaked down my throat as my nails drew blood.

“Let her go,” Casteel said, dropping his other sword as he clasped my wrist. “Damn it, let her go!”

“I don’t think I will. You see, she needs to understand the same lesson you were so resistant to,” Isbeth said. “She has no choice. She never has, and I can tell she still believes otherwise. Perhaps she is a perfect fit for you, and she’ll never learn. Your brother has been far more accommodating.”

My lungs burned as sharp, stabbing pinpricks attacked my hands and arms—my legs. Black dotted my vision. Pressure clamped down on my skull. Those icy fingers sank into my head, into my mind. Pain sliced through me—the kind that seized control of my entire body, and this—oh, gods, this was what I had planned to do to her but hadn’t been quick enough or known how. It felt like she was tearing me apart from the inside, scattering my brain. I jerked, straining against Casteel as I clasped the sides of my head. I twisted, only aware that I breathed because I could scream.

“Poppy!” Casteel gripped my arm as I clutched at my head, tore at my hair as those claws kept digging in. Panic filled his eyes as wet warmth gushed from my nose, from my ears. “No. No. No.” He pulled me to his chest as he twisted toward her. “Please. I beg you. Stop. Please, godsdamn it. Stop! I’ll do anything. You want Atlantia? It’s yours—”

“You are not the true heir,” she cut him off. “You cannot give me what I want.”

“She can’t give it to you if you kill her,” he shouted as my teeth bled. “You want to control her? You want me, then. Take me. I won’t fight you. I swear. I won’t. Just stop. Please.” His voice cracked.

Consciousness was slipping away as I fell further and further into the soul-shredding pain. I could barely hear their words or understand them. I was losing the ability to make…thoughts, but I heard that—heard Casteel begging, and through the torrential pain, I shook my head. I took those screams roaring through me and all those frayed slivers of thought to form one word, over and over. “No. No. No,” I whispered and screamed as all the light went out around me because I would rather be dead. I’d rather be—

“You’re killing her. Please,” Casteel pleaded. “Please, stop.”

“You. Oh, you have always been my favorite pet. And when she wakes, she’ll know how to keep you alive,” she replied, her voice fading and draining away until I wasn’t sure that what I heard was real. “Malik. Retrieve your brother.”

And then there was nothing.

My head throbbed endlessly, and there was a metallic taste in my mouth when I opened my eyes. Fragments of sunlight drifted through the thick branches of an elm.

“Poppy?” Kieran’s face leaned over mine. My head…my head was in his lap. “You there?”

I swallowed, wincing at the pain. “I think so.” I started to sit up. “Where are we?”

“In the woods just outside of Oak Ambler,” Hisa answered as Kieran helped me up. I rubbed my aching head as I squinted. Hisa’s features were stark.

I kept looking as my mind slowly cleared away the fog. Delano sat beside Naill, who stood with a hand over his heart. Emil and Vonetta knelt beside the…beside a prone body. “Tawny?”

“She’s alive.” Emil looked up quickly, his eyes haunted. “But she’s been wounded.” He stepped aside, and I saw the darkness staining the rose color of her gown around the shoulder. “The bleeding has stopped, but…”

Vonetta pulled the collar of Tawny’s gown aside, and I inhaled a shaky breath. Her veins stood out under the rich brown skin, thick and black. “I don’t know what this is.”

I rose, unsteady. My clothing was stiff with blood. Some was mine, but most of it had belonged to Ian. “I can help her.”

“I think you should just sit back down for a little bit.” Kieran was on his feet beside me.

Pressing a hand to my head, I kept looking and kept…searching the patchy memories. The sound of crunching, breaking bones came back to me. “Lyra?”

Kieran shook his head.

My heart started thumping as I slid my hand to my sore throat. Isbeth. “Where is Casteel?”

Vonetta turned back to Tawny, her shoulders tight—too tight.

Silence.

A tremor rippled through me. The hum in my chest pushed and expanded, and my heart—my soul—twisted because I already knew. Oh, gods, deep down, I already knew the answer. I cracked as I drew in a too-shallow breath.

I stumbled around in a circle. My eyes locked with Kieran’s as I felt my broken heart crack even more. “No,” I whispered, stepping back and then toward Tawny. I needed to help her, but I bent, doubled over. “No. He didn’t.”