Page 128 of Bone Year

“Destiny has been calling.” His voice is rough between thrusts. “It’s time you answered.”

He bites into his own wrist and presses it to my mouth. I fight it for a heartbeat, and then the warm sweetness reaches my tongue, and something in me gives way. He tastes like earth and frost and home in a way that makes no sense. I suck harder, swallowing him down, and he holds his wrist there and rides me in an intoxicating rhythm.

“That’s it,” he says, his breath a tickle at my ear. “Take it.”

His blood hits my belly, and a burning sensation takes hold there, spreading slowly up my torso and into my ears. A round, resonant boom echoes through me, and my eyes widen.

“Draven,” I gasp, “is this supposed to happen?”

He pulls his wrist from my mouth. The sound radiates through me again, so loud it vibrates in my core.

The blankets are torn off me.

I gasp awake, sitting upright.

Draven is standing over me, fully clothed, and a low iron toll is rolling out across the village.

The bell.

Holy fuck, it’s the bell. It’s a warning about the fissure.

“Nice shorts.” Draven’s mouth pulls into a half-smirk as he takes in my tiny pink pajamas.

I scramble out of bed, yanking my leathers up my legs. There’s no time to think about that dream or whether I’ll ever look at Draven the same way again.

“How did you get ready so fast?” I mumble, dropping to lace up my boots.

“I couldn’t sleep.” He’s leaning against the wall like nothing in his life has ever been urgent. “You were making too many sounds for anyone to rest through.”

My face goes hot. Oh gods, if he only knew.

“What’s happening?” I ask, because I need to change the subject more than I need air.

Draven pushes off the wall and steps into the nave of the chapel. “Sounds like something has come through the fissure.”

And if the bell’s ringing, that means the seamkeeper saw whatever it is, and it’s heading for the village.

For us.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“The hands remember what the mind has tried to forget. Sometimes this is mercy. Sometimes it is the worst kind of cruelty.”

— Professor Nestor, Lecture Notes

I pull my cloak on and meet Draven across the nave. He’s at the window, his palm flat against the cold glass, his head tilted in that way that means he’s listening to something I can’t hear yet. It’s early, so early there’s barely any light. Neither of us bothers going upstairs to talk to the seamkeeper. We both know he’s good for nothing but observing.

Noctis paces behind us. I reach for the backpack and throw it over my shoulder.

“Shit,” Draven says, it under his breath, his eyes locked on something through the snow.

I hurry to the window beside him.

“What is it?”

“That kid’s father is out there with an axe. There’s a couple of other men with him.”

I squint into the gray. The square is mostly empty. Most of the houses are dark, shutters closed tight, the bell tolling slow above us. But near the second-closest cottage, I can make out three shapes against the snow, moving in a loose ring, weapons drawn. The man in the middle is recognizable even at this distance by the breadth of his shoulders. Tomas’s father.