Chapter 24
The Huntress’s absence was like the pulling of a blade. Her departure left her wounded, raw and bleeding into the air.
Her scent still clung to the clearing, cold metal over wet stone, mingling with the faint steam of my bloodheat.
Kael’s grip was still iron on my arm, his fingers digging deep enough to bruise. This time, I pried his hand away slowly, deliberately making sure he felt every inch of separation.
“You almost ruined that,” I told him, my voice low enough to slice.
His eyes narrowed, storm-shadowed.
“She had a bow to your heart.”
I stepped back from him, letting my bloodheat curl between us like smoke.
“She had a bow to my stage. And I wasn’t done performing.”
The Bone Throne convened in the ruined temple at the valley’s heart, its soot-blackened columns stil
