The Mortal Bone by Liu Marjorie M

Author:Liu, Marjorie M. [Liu, Marjorie M.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: PENGUIN group
Published: 2011-11-02T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

IT was night on the other side of the world, in a desert filled with tumbled ruins broken in the sand and cracked rows of delicate columns that rose like pale fingers toward the stars. I stared, drinking in the stillness of the place and the endlessness of its stone remains, tumbled and fallen. It reminded me of a mass grave. I tried to imagine the city that had been here but could not. All I knew was that this was a burial ground for something that had been beautiful and that time had torn it down.

Even stars die, whispered the darkness inside me. We have tasted their last fire and burrowed through the veins of their fading hearts. Accept us, and we will do so again. We will hunt the stars for light, and you will be our Vessel.

Zee shivered and backed away from me. All the boys did, even Dek, unwinding with a hiss and slithering into the sand. My neck tingled. I touched where he had scratched me, but the skin was still smooth. I dropped the blanket, and the cool night air wrapped around my naked upper body.

“You should have warned me,” I said to Zee. “Why did you bring me with you?”

“Safer,” he rasped, as Raw and Aaz prowled, stone breaking beneath their claws. “For all of us.”

I thought about what Rex had told me and picked up the blanket again, throwing it around my shoulders. “And Grant? You should have let him come.”

Zee’s broad chest rose and fell. “No place for him. Not yet.”

I heard strain in his voice and something else that made me uneasy: resignation, perhaps even guilt. A terrible sinking sensation hit my gut.

I straightened, staring at him. “Why are we here, Zee?”

He did not answer. Aaz nudged me. I hadn’t felt him draw near. He pushed something soft into my hands: a long-sleeved crew-neck shirt, navy or black in color. I took it gratefully, pulling it over my head.

When I looked for Zee again, he was gone.

I found him a short distance away, bounding over the ruins like a slick shadow. Raw and Aaz joined him, also taking graceful, bounding leaps—skidding, almost dancing, with light, clawed steps over the uneven terrain. My wolves, in the night.

I felt light-headed watching them, a sense of déjà vu. I had never been here, but I felt as though I remembered this, somehow: some vision of them racing through a desert night, in the middle of a fallen city—faster, harder, with deeper purpose.

Dek hugged my ankle, and I scooped him up. I did the same with Mal, placing them on my shoulders as I followed the others across the ruins. I had to take a roundabout path, trailing my hands over fallen columns and carved rubble. I had seen similar ruins in books—these were Corinthian, perhaps.

A heavy hush surrounded us. I could have floated in that silence.

I found Zee and the others prowling around a towerlike structure that had four walls, a solid base, and a standing row of pillars in front of it.

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