And based on the way her face drains of color, I don’t think she likes what she sees.
Nathaniel leans in, close enough that his breath ghosts over her clammy skin. “You see this eye, Laura?” His voice is sweet, almost pitying. “It lets me peek into other realms. Souls, Grim Reapers, ghosts…” He smiles. “And let me tell you something—what I see in you? Rotten filth.”
Laura’s lungs make a noise. A wheeze.
“I can also see what awaits you,” Nathaniel continues. “And oh, Laura,youare going to have so much time to reflect on your sins.”
That’s it. That’s the moment she breaks. Not physically—because she literally can’t—but spiritually? Existentially? Her entire aurashrivels. If she had a soul left to piss itself, it would have done so.
Nathaniel leans in even closer.
“We could let you slip away. Let you drift into the arms of whatever afterlife was meant for you.” His fingers trail down her throat, pausing just over her pulse. “But that would bekind, wouldn’t it?” His smile is razor-sharp. “And you, Laura? You don’t deserve kindness.”
Then, he turns to me. “Skye, I believe it’s time for you to watch and learn.”
I blink.
“What exactly am I learning?” My mouth is dry. I’m hyper-aware of the fact that I feel more than I used to. Sometimes, it’s good.Right now? It’s bad.
I don’t want to feel weird sympathy for the awful thing strapped to the chair. I alsoreallydon’t want to know what Nathaniel means by “special punishment”. I used to be curious about this stuff. Not anymore. But something tells me I’m about to find out anyway.
Nathaniel’s fingers tap lightly against the syringe resting on Laura’s lap.
“You’ve been curious about what we do with souls, haven’t you?” He asks me. “Well, you’re in luck. Because this one?” He locks his eyes with Laura. “This one’s going to be instructional.”
A sharp prickle of unease dances along my spine.
She deserves this. She deserves this. She deserves this.
Talon moves first, dragging a chair across the floor with that slow, scraping noise that makes everything worse.He pulls up a seat across from Laura, reaching into his pocket like he’s about to pull out a gun, but instead, he retrieves a round, blue marble. It shimmers under the dim light, pale spots swirling inside like a storm trapped in glass. He rolls it across his knuckles with an expression that makes my stomach twist.
It’s the same look he gave me when we first met.
Cruel.
“You know what this is, Laura?” Nathaniel continues. “This little thing is called a Skystone. A curious little thing. Legends say it was never meant for human hands.”
He picks the syringe back up, rolling up Laura’s sleeve.
“‘Breath of the Sky,’ some called it,” he continues. “Others? ‘The Stone That Holds Echoes.’”
Laura’s eyes flicker to her arm. She knows what’s about to happen. She knows because it’s exactly what she was doing to her victims.
Nathaniel leans in.
“Long ago, before men knew how to trap souls in ink or bind them in rituals, the sky itself did the work for them. When the gods exhaled their last breath, the remnants fell to earth, solidifying into these—Skystones.”
He slides the needle in.
“But breath is life,” he murmurs. “And breath is death. And for some… it’s a prison.”
A cold pressure creeps up my spine.
Talon smirks, flicking the stone into the air and catching it.
“See, Skystones aren’t just rare—they’re hungry,” Talon says. “They were never meant to hold human spirits, but that’s exactly why they do it so well.” He tosses the stone once more. “They're like a vacuum. Once you push a soul inside, it stays there. No afterlife. No reincarnation. Just... existence—trapped, endless, suffocating.”
“Too good of a fate for her,” Cassian scoffs from the corner, arms crossed, face contorted in an expression of absolute disgust.
