Page 24 of These Godly Lies
Anna’s eyes find hers. There are cracks appearing over her skin, like pottery left too long in the kiln. They lift away, peeling and floating away like ash on the wind, making her disappear flake by flake. Anna’s voice catches, stuck in her throat the way her feet stick to the ground. Eira’s words from a lifetime ago ring in her memory.
This house is my heart.
Khiran’s grip is tight, a bruising pressure, as he pulls her away.He knows. He sees it, too. Hemust. “Eira’s right,” he rasps, “We need to run.”
There are tears in his eyes, pooling and unshed. Anna can see the fire, can see Eira, reflected in his gaze.
She looks back at the woman who taught her how to live instead of survive—registers the softness of her smile and the goodbye in it.
“No,” Anna says, but her voice is lost in the chaos. She feels Khiran’s arms slip around her waist. Feels him pull. “No,” she repeats, louder this time. He must hear her—he must—because even she can hear it over the static crackling in her ears. His grip only grows tighter, his steps faster.
Anna fights. “No! We can’t—” She gasps, the air knocked from her lungs as her stomach meets Khiran’s shoulder, his fingers bruising her thighs with a desperate grip. The trail is a blur under his feet. Anna cranes her neck, searching the stretch of trail behind them.
There is only flame and smoke—only ash.
Anna’s hands fist in Khiran’s shirt, a sound she doesn’t recognize clawing up her throat.
Khiran doesn’t slow. Doesn’t stop.
Doesn’tlook.
Somewhere between the suffocating pain and numbing grief, Anna thinks it might be better that way.
Anna doesn’t know where the path ends, only that there are beech trees as far as her eyes can see and the sun looks higher than where it was when they left.
Khiran walks another yard, his steps dragging through the dried leaves littering the forest floor. Finally, he sets her down.
Blood rushes back to her legs, the sensation of pins and needles pricking at the bottoms of her feet. She flinches, leaning her forehead against his chest. She can’t bring herself to look at him. “We left her.”Her voice breaks, the words bitter and dark on her tongue. “Weleft her.”
The hands lingering at her hips tighten. “We had to. It was too late. The fire—”
“We didn’t,” she cries, fists curling against his chest. “We shouldn’t have left her!”
“Do you think you’re the only one who loved her?! The only one who’sgutted?! She raised me! I—” A growl, dark and tainted with grief and rage eclipses the words. He turns, his fist pulling back before cracking against the nearest tree. “Damn it!”
Another strike, weaker than the last, and suddenly the coiled tension in his body eases. Wilts. His hand drops away, blood smearing a crimson stain over the pale bark. Slowly, he sinks. Knees planted on the forest floor, he stares at the split skin of his knuckles. “Damn it,” he repeats, a murmur brittle with grief.
Anna hears the way his voice catches, can feel the exact moment his pain eclipses his fury. She kneels in front of him, hands shaking as she reaches for him—pulls him into her until his face presses into the curve of her shoulder. There are tears trailing her cheeks, despite her efforts to bite them back. “I’m sorry,” she croaks. “I’m so sorry. I—” She can’t force the words past the sob clawing at her throat.
It dawns on her that they have never suffered a loss together. In all their centuries, one of them has always been the grounding force to hold the other. Khiran’s bloodied hands lift, one fisting in the stretch of fabric between her shoulder blades and the other at the base of her spine. In her arms, he breaks. He breaks and she isn’t strong enough to hold the pieces of him together. Not when she’s broken, too.
Together, they fall apart.
CHAPTER SEVEN
He knows the woman who raised him. He knows, without a shadow of doubt, that she chose this path for a purpose. Can see the direction she’s leading him in as clearly as if she pointed it out with her own gnarled hand. It is only because he knows her, trusts her, loves her, that he follows.
BALKANMOUNTAINS, BULGARIA
SUMMER1958
Grief is a strange thing. Some moments it’s a weight on her chest, a pressure behind her eyes and glass in her throat. Then, when the tears slow and her breath no longer feels like it’s being torn from her lungs, everything starts to feelless. Numb. It’s the difference between fighting against the current and letting the river sweep her away. Struggle and surrender.
Anna thinks it feels a little bit likedrowning.
Limbs weightless and cold. Suspended in time while the world continues to turn.
It’s hours before they resurface. Anna only knows because the shadows have lengthened, reaching across the landscape like the grasping fingers of a ghost chasing the last rays of light.
