She’d seen the men lined up in his house while the tattooer inked a dark, thick band around their ring fingers.
Married to the family and only the familywas what they said.
He crouched in front of the stove, holding the ring over the open flame. “My men do wear the band. You are not my men.”
Gage walked over to her and placed one hand on her shoulder. He held the ring with a tea towel, and there was gravel in his voice when he spoke. “This is going to hurt, but you can’t move, or else we’ll have to do it again, and the blurred burn will shame you. Understand?”
Elysia grimaced, bracing herself. Eyes shut, she grunted her permission. “Just do it already.”
The next thing she knew, she was biting back a scream and the smell of burnt skin was singeing her nose.
He pressed harder, the signet ring shoved into the sensitive hollow of her throat. “Don’t. Move.”
Tears streamed down her face, but she didn’t move. Slow breaths puffed out of her nose, her shoulders gently rising and falling while Gage’s fingers dug in.
“You’re almost there.” The ring seemed tobe one with her skin, burning through the layers of flesh, ensuring it would brand and not heal. An eternity later, he pulled the ring out of her flesh. Gage’s gaze shuddered, locked onto the small, angry mark until he turned away with his mouth tight. He hadn’t wanted this for her.
She grabbed his wrist. “I’m sorry, but thank you.”
Turning back to where she sat, he pressed his palms down on her thighs, bent over so they were face to face. “Pray you don’t need it. Because no one becomes family without a cost. Not even you. And if by some miracle this all ends? You’ll still be family—no matter how long you live.”
“Whatever it takes.” Steel girded her words because it was true. She had no choice but to go wherever this journey took her.
He grabbed her palm and pressed a kiss over the faint scar. “Send word if you can.”
She nodded, standing up and preparing to leave. Her chest burned with pain, but a mischievous spark still entered her eyes.
Gage took a wary step back. “What, what are you looking like that for?”
She grinned and tossed the snarling ball of fur at him.
Gage’s blanching face was the last thing she saw, and then she was gone. Elysia laughed. She could’ve sworn she heard Kava’s big bad Shadow hiss in surprise.
Chapter 7
Elysia stumbled,her knees hitting crumbling white stone steps. She brushed the dust off her smarting kneecaps and stared at the ancient temple before her as the wind whipped furiously. Tucking her hands into her sides, she lowered her face against the stinging winter cold and began her ascent.
Up on a thick platform, the bone-white walls of the temple jutted against the dusky bloodred sky. Domed and octagonal with dark windows, it was eerie how the temple loomed over the rest of the world. Instinctively, she kept her steps silent and cautious. Off-white dust drifted into the wind like smoke, but she refused to look out below as the steps grew steeper.
Though her chest and thighs were burning, she heaved herself over the hanging edge of the temple’s platform and stood. The wind was even worse this high, her hair cutting against her skin. She held it back with one hand and swept her gaze over the desolate sea of tombs that rolled out in waves as far as her eye could reach.
A fraught silence prickled against her skin. She studied the temple at her back. It wastooquiet. The kind of quiet that made her fingers itch for her dagger. Aidan had said they were expectingher, but he wasn’t even allowed in this realm. Maybe he was wrong.
In the distance, a strange howl pierced the silence, and Elysia fought to temper her unease. The beasts of Bellia were nothing like those of Kava. Bitter winters and beautiful temperate summers gave way not only to bears and wolves, but to shifters and magical creatures she’d only glimpsed in Topp’s books. The kind of creatures that a mere dagger would not even be worth raising against.
With the sounds of Bellian beasts at her back, the temple invited her closer. She approached, snatching her hand back from the temple wall before it could touch what she now realized were actual bones pulverized into compacted form. Little shards stuck out in odd places, ready to slice the unsuspecting person who was unfortunate enough to trail a hand over the walls.
Elysia pushed against the heavy black door until it slid silently on a well-oiled track. The door clanged as it closed behind her, the sound echoing throughout the empty temple. All at once, candles burst to life. Flames danced inside hanging lamps, and fat half-melted candles were strewn about the bone-dust-covered floors.
At the center-back of the temple was a throne. Enormous and intimidating, it was a massive puzzle work of perfectly fitted skeletal remains. She drank in the silent and still room. It was death made into art. There were spiraling columns of spines, interlocking femurs from which lanterns hung,and more pulverized dust pounded into symbols on the black floor.Every sculpture, every detail was death given form.
While most of the old Kavian beliefs had been lost, there were many who still held the old superstition that the spirit of a person lingered in the bones. If the old Kavian beliefs about bones were true, then the amount of power in the very structure and material of this temple was inconceivable.
Footsteps echoing, she walked closer to the skeletal throne, her gaze snagging on the golden coins clamped between teeth and pinched between creeping tarsals. Snug within the eye socketswere dark, glinting bloodstones that she imagined their master could peer through to see his earthen temple.
Unlikely, but in the flickering candlelight, the gemstone eyes seemed to follow her, pressing on the strange guilt she carried for ignoring Aidan’s wishes. Given Crusher’s unexpected appearance, she wouldn’t be surprised to find out the hypervigilant pervert was still stalking her. Glancing around, she scanned for a reaper or priestess lurking in the shadows but saw nothing except what one would expect inside a temple.
Burnt-out and still-flickering tealights, food offerings, and curios were scattered about the base of the throne. Despite her non-religious upbringing, she knew each little candle signified a petition or prayer. It was a foreign curiosity to her—praying to someone or anything with expectation for response.
