“Hullo, beautiful stranger.”
Her head snapped up, and she stumbled at the sight of a figure lounging against the windowsill. Her breath froze in her chest.
Tall and slender, his skin, almost moon-pale against his onyx hair, glimmered with an iridescent rainbow hue in the late noon sunlight. He angled his head, studying her with irises resembling transparent turquoise glass.
He’s ethereally beautiful…
He shifted against the sill, revealing the other side of his face where a brutal, jagged scar—swollen and unhealed—split his face from temple to chin. Then his skin shimmered back to smooth white again.
But equally terrifying.She didn’t want to look at him but couldn’t seem to stop.
“No need to be afraid, little one. I oftentimes linger in this place. And who might you be?” The words were a whisper of sound.
Christ! A ghost?
Her stomach heaved. Her knees trembled, and her boots fell from her trembling fingers.
The urge to run from the icy suffocation took hold, but she couldn’t move. “N-no one.” Her teeth clattered.
“Hmm. I doubt that very much.” His hand moved upward, and he scratched his jaw, the movement hypnotizing. His translucent gaze drifted over her, and the sensation of a thousand spiders crawling over her skin coursed over her. “No matter,” he murmured, the scar on his face flickering to reddish black, then fading to white again. “It’s been too long—”
“Who are you?”
“You, little mortal, may call me Vetuste.” He glided closer and held out a slender hand that wavered, became translucent then corporeal again. “Come. I will give you what you seek.”
“What?” Her breath fogged the icy air.
“To say goodbye to the one you love,” his soft voice coasted over her, washing her with longing.
No, my mother’s gone!
“Is she truly?”
In life, she’d learned nothing was given without a price. But caught in his hypnotic stare, all she could do was rasp, “Wh-what do you want?”
“Soon, little one, soon. Mine is merely a little favor but for later.”
No, don’t,a scratchy whisper bled into her thoughts, so faint, she barely heard it.Keep…him…safe…
“What? Who?” she breathed to the unseen owner of the voice.
Pain blistered her mind, a snarl echoing in her skull. Leya grabbed her head…Darkness surrounded her. A light flickered. A man hung suspended in a cage, beaten and bleeding. Matted dark hair hung down his shoulders, hints of blue glinting in the dull strands.
Aerén?
No, no, please God, no…
Then Aerén vanished, and she was in another place, a hospital ward, everything crystal clear…Mama?Her mother lay still on the bed, her face pale beneath her brown skin. Only the beeping machines sounded, one breathing for her, the other keeping her heart pumping.
No, no! Her mother was gone—
Her dry gaze settled on her quietly weeping father near the bed,his eyes fixed on her mother’s face. Hana gripped her fingers so hard, but Leya barely felt the pain, felt anything.
“It is time,” a soft voice said.
“No! Mama, don’t leave us, please, please!” Hana cried, rushing to the bed and grasping their mother’s hand.
A doctor crossed to the machine, fiddled with the controls of one machine, then moved to the other. Silence fell.
