Page 94 of Bound By Fury

I carry the way of the water in my belly. The long-forgotten whispers of the sky and sea.

The fated four are coming.

And my line will lead them all.

—Nora

THIRTY

HIS VOICE IS A HUSH in the void of my mind.

Beneath it, the sound of rustling leaves, of panting breath, of anxious tap, tap, tapping against stone.

My head lolls. There’s a deep ache in the muscles around my chest. A gnawing pain in my left arm. The hollows beneath my eyes throb with pressure.

Hands smooth against my sweat-dampened coils.

A rough, frustrated voice so at odds with a gentle touch. “Harper! Wake up!” Followed by a firm, stinging slap against my cheek.

I groan, flailing against the shock, a strange, animalistic sound ripping from my throat.

“Stop!” the voice hisses, hands gripping my shoulders and shaking. “Quit it!”

Who the hell does this person think they are? Bossing me around at a time like this! Don’t they see what’s happening to me right now?

Bewildered, I chastise the disembodied voice. “Don’t tell me what to do!”

I consider kicking them, but I figure that can wait until I can look them in the face while I do it.

When I’m finally able to open my eyes, I’m met with an ink-black sky and eyes like liquified emerald, swimming with something fraught.

I try to push myself to sitting, but it’s no use. I’m no longer on the packed-dirt path. Instead, my thighs and back scrape harshly against a cement bench as I slide down onto the ground in a heap. The muscles in my eyes strain to adjust to the circular clearing in the center of the hedge maze.

Behind me Malachi’s head is in his hands, his hair nearly purple against the wash of cool moonlight. He drags his palms down his face as he peers at me, lips twisted into a frown.

Wrapping my arms around my chest, I fight against flashes of the last few minutes—because that’s really all it’s been, barely a few terrifying minutes—coming to me in waves. I shoot to my feet, my stomach heaving as I look for my attacker. Are they still here? Lurking in the shadows, waiting for the right time to finish the job?

The maze is silent save for Malachi’s bouncing foot and the soft wheeze of my breath.

I don’t see a red hood or a mask of midnight feathers. Instead I’m met with a broad chest and pale arms swirled with black and covered with a gray pullover. Eyes like a raging storm.

I feel like I should say something. But when I open my mouth, nothing comes out.

My thoughts are impermanent. Slippery. I hold my eyes wide open until they sting, until water escapes my lower lashes and flows down my cheeks in a steady stream. I’m not crying. I’m afraid that if I close my eyes again, I’ll be forced to relive what just happened.

Like a prayer, like an invocation, I fold, falling to my knees. Right there in front of Malachi and the statue of Cornelius Biltmore, his bronze hand curved around the wolf’s fur, my forehead meets the cool dirt floor.

For my entire life I have wished to feel only a fraction of what I do. It is a burden, this abundance of emotion. It clouds my thoughts, unsteadies my hands. It is something that only releases in my art, and until my pen hits paper, it rots me from the inside.

Art is my absolution, but there is no art here. Only me and the moon and stars. Me and the boy I’ve grown to loathe.

“Just go!” I say through gritted teeth, refusing to look at him. It’s bad enough that he found me like this. That he somehow saved me when I’d failed to save myself. But my shaking is uncontrollable.

They left me to die, the witches I’ve fought so hard to understand.

The stars that led my ancestors to new lands, to freedom, to this godforsaken power I’ve been burdened with. Abandoned with.

My chest feels cleaved in half.