He stumbles a step, his eyes dark and blown with lust, his chest heaving. “Elara…”
“I wish…” To see you? No. He might only give me a glimpse and count it done. “I wish to explore your true form.”
Chapter
Eleven
Elara
Vale recoils as if I’ve slapped him.
He goes utterly still, his chest rising and falling in ragged, uneven breaths. The lust that darkened his features moments ago drains, leaving behind a blank, hollow expression that chills me more than any snarl could.
I expect him to argue. I expect him to laugh it off, or perhaps to vanish into the trees and leave me with my wish ungranted.
But he does neither.
He simply stares at me.
His face begins to shift. Not magically—not yet—but emotionally. A flicker of incredulity gives way to a grim set of his mouth, which then dissolves into something tired. Something ancient. His features seem to ripple in the gloom, unsettled, as if the creature beneath the skin is pacing the cage, unsure whether to rattle the bars or simply sit down.
My mouth pops with sudden dryness as I repeat, “I said I?—”
“I heard just fine.” He runs a hand through his hair before he lets out a sound that lands somewhere between a scoff and a sigh. “Clearly, I am a fool for you. In a few weeks, you have managed to outmaneuver me more times than the entirety of humanity has in a millennium.” He shakes his head, looking down at his boots. “Very well. Let us be done with it. It should be quick.”
He steps back.
Then, he steps out.
He moves into the pool of silver moonlight, bony toes barely touching the ground before his entire form distorts. His velvet coat loosens into black linen. Threads unfurl from his sleeves. His shoulders broaden, not with muscle alone but withpresence, as if the space around him is being forced to make room.
Then the illusion tears.
It stretches upward, growing until alabaster bone and pale-gray skin blot out the stars. Shadows wrap around him, forming a cloak that seems woven from the night itself.
My heart stammers a frantic rhythm against my ribs. His face…
The left side is stark, white bone—an eye socket of hollow darkness, half a nasal cavity, the jawbone laid bare, a polished curve of ivory ending in teeth, roots visible where gums should be. Behind them, the wet, dark muscle of his tongue movesas he breathes. A thick, ropy tendon, gray and glistening in the moonlight, stretches from the hinge of the bone jaw to the column of his neck, holding the nightmare together with a taut, biological precariousness that makes my stomach turn and my fingers itch to touch.
I squeeze my eyes shut for a heartbeat, forcing air into my lungs. It’s just bone. Flesh. Skin. Organs.
It’s just a corpse.
When I open my eyes again, the terror has receded, leaving behind a trembling, fragile awe. His jagged skull fuses seamlessly into the pale face of the man on the right, though his eye on that side is a dark pit, half-hidden by a black strand of hair, holding a sort of…sorrow?
“Is this what you wanted? What you wasted your wish on?” His voice is different—a rumble like millstones roughing together that vibrates all the way into my spine. “Are you…satisfied?”
My mouth snaps shut on a gulp.
Satisfied? Not nearly.
I step closer to him, toward a god stripped of all pretense, something ancient laid bare to its mesmerizing truth. Is his pale blue skin cold to the touch? Freezing like the grave?
Death’s head turns a fraction, tracking my movement. “You are trembling.”
“I am.”
But that doesn’t keep me from lifting my arm. Slowly. Deliberately.
