What Sleeps Within the Cove (Of Flesh & Bone, #4)

by Harper L. Woods

There was no sun without her—no stars to light the night sky as silence pressed in on me.

“I almost had you. When it was just me, with my mate as far away as she could possibly be. How long do you think you’ll continue to breathe when she returns?”

“I alone determine what does or does not concern me. He is my friend,” I said, stressing the words as I narrowed my glare on the one who’d spoken. That was a warning I would not heed, a reality I could not give into.

“Estrella Barlowe will die here. The moment you pass through these gates, you can do so knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that your life has come to an end. There is not a single path in which the Fates let you leave here without knowing the touch of death.”

oh helll no

“Better to die free than live on your knees,”

period

“You don’t see it, but we do. She’s … softer somehow. Still Mab, but not quite the same as she is with us. You’re her favorite. You remind her of her husband.” “The husband that she slaughtered in cold blood in front of me?” I asked,

mmm that part

“He loved your mate. For all the ways she reminded him of me.” My jaw slackened, hanging open as I stared after her. That wasn’t true in the slightest. Estrella was nothing like Mab. Before I could respond, Mab turned on her heel and made her way to the dais. “Clean up this fucking mess before dinner. I don’t want to see it again,” she called, waving her hand over her shoulder to accentuate the command. “And find me whoever released the God of the Dead from his cell. I’d like to have a Gods-damned word.”

OOP

“What happens to the souls who deserve to be brought to Tartarus and die before they can be delivered?” I asked, thinking of all those who had escaped punishment during Mab’s reign. “They linger in the Void, becoming something twisted and monstrous. They cannot move on to the afterlife, not when they are not worthy of The Father or The Mother’s embrace. The ferryman keeps them trapped within the river, so that they cannot harm the souls who deserve peace.”

“No one can know anything for certain when it comes to you. No one like you has ever existed before,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at me finally. “So I made an educated guess.”

“Why didn’t I burn?” I asked. “Because you, dear Tempest, were first born in the Cradle of Creation,” she said, stealing the wind from my lungs.

“The last being Fenrir allowed to ride him was the very thing that existed before death. He was the embodiment of nothingness. A distinct lack of life. He is where death comes from. He is the Void.”

“You keep your mind closed to all but your mate, but your walls are weakened without your magic and I am stronger in the place I call home.”

“I didn’t intend to tell you at all until after you’ve won, but watching the three dance around answers irritates me greatly. I’d eat them if it wasn’t frowned upon.”

lmfao

His other children. Rheaghan. My now dead brother. Mab. My cunt of a sister. I was going to be sick.

screw me man. im gonna be sick !!!!

“Knowledge is power and not all here would see you stumble in the dark,”

“Everyone has their own motives, and you would be a fool to forget that. Everyone will use you to their own advantage, especially here. You are the tides, constantly shifting. We would all guide you in a direction that serves us. We were merely the ones fortunate enough to be tasked with it.”

Watch out……

“It means something will probably eat him tonight, but the phoenix will revive him come morning as she does all those who are punished here. It is an eternity of death and suffering,” Badb answered.

“You won’t survive. The phoenix will not revive you in the morning if you die. You have a physical form here as a visitor for the trials. You are not a prisoner of Tartarus.” “Then I guess I’d better not fucking die, yeah?”

oop

Not my fucking murder puppy.

right thooooo

“I was looking forward to watching you fall into insanity with me because of that stupid little bitch.”

smh....

“You cannot defeat hatred with kindness. Nothing can overcome pure, absolute hatred, you fool,” he said,

“Until next time, my daughter,” he said, the words feeling far too emotional. He opened his mouth as if he might speak again, then thought better of it and clamped it shut. Again, that feeling of emotions danced over my skin.

“I had a father,” I said, turning my gaze away from him as I fought to swallow the emotion clogging my throat. “And he was ten times the man you will ever be.” Khaos clenched his teeth, pursing his lips as he raised his hand. “Because I am not a man at all,” he said finally,

“I have protected you in all your lives,” Brann said, his voice soft enough to make me wish I could see it. See him one last time. “Allow me to do it one last time.”

She was a great and terrible beauty in a timeless way, the kind of breathtaking that men waged wars for.

“You can never be certain with mixed bloodlinesss such as yours, but you are jusst as much mine as you are hisss. Perhaps more, looking at you now,” she said.

And the Wild Hunt rode.

“Staying in Tartarus for too long will have disastrous consequences. You are a shade, the undead, and therefore you are susceptible to the pull of the Five Rivers. Make sure you return before Tartarus traps you forever,” he said.

“The River of Pain,” she said finally, earning a scoff from me. “Of course it is,” I said, rolling my eyes as I took another step closer to the water. I’d endured enough pain in my life, and I was so fucking tired of it being the test for everything.

“Fear is your worst enemy. Fear makes pain and suffering so much worse. If you can numb your mind to the agony of those fears, you will be able to numb your body some as well so that you can overcome whatever the river deems your challenge to be. I have seen people persevere through burning, drowning, being skinned alive—”

Only those who hadn’t suffered could underestimate what the greatest pains were.

To relive this moment all over again, as an observer watching one of my worst memories unfold … This was true agony.

“But promise me, when the time is right, you’ll leave this place. Fly free, Little Bird,” he said, and my heart clenched as he lowered me to the ground and stood. He smiled at her one last time, his cheeks tipping up even from behind as he turned toward me slowly.

“I’d give myself,” she sobbed, ignoring my mother’s shocked protest behind me. It felt like the brave thing to say, and I remembered being so proud of the words as I jutted my chin out and pursed my lips.

“We thank you for your sacrifice, Macario Barlowe of Mistfell. May you find peace in your next existence, warmly embraced by The Father,” the High Priest said, his voice spreading through the gardens as he touched his dagger to my father’s throat.

These were the scars I would gladly wear for the rest of my life, the ones written in vengeance and justice.

I was the daughter of Khaos. So chaos was what I would embrace.

She was not helpless or afraid. She was enough.

To who I had been, who I was now, and who I would one day become.

I forced myself to hold still through the agony, letting the power take root in my soul and flood my veins. I would never again be helpless. I would never again be afraid. I would take back what was mine and what Tartarus had stolen from me.

No. I was not just a tempest. I was the storm as something new surged through me.

If I died, so be it. It was only a matter of time before I succumbed to the madness after losing my mate, and I wanted to do something that mattered before I went.

“What am I to do with you, daughter?” he asked, watching as I tossed the collection of hair onto the sands before me in an offering. “Never before has someone taken their power back from Tartarus in the middle of the trials.”

“Estrella has been chosen for a fate that you cannot even begin to imagine. There is more to her future than simply having the power to do as she pleases. She must prove herself to have inner strength as much as outer strength. She must prove that she is kind, but fair, that she cannot be controlled by the human sensibilities that are undoubtedly a part of her given her upbringing,”

“She is more than just a daughter of Khaos. She is the daughter of Khaos,” she said, a knowing grin spreading her lips wide. “Estrella is his chosen heir. She is chaos incarnate.”

“Many have entered into the Trials of the Five Rivers,” she said, looking to the cave ceiling. I followed that gaze, studying the turquoise snakes where they seemed to hang from the ceiling and stretch toward her. “Of those who have dared, none have been born here. You are just as much a part of Tartarus as any who reside here. Perhaps more so. Perhaps this place recognizes you, or perhaps you’re just stubborn enough to dare to try.”

They looked so much like Medusa that I felt the stall of my heart in my chest, somehow knowing that these women were family to her … family to me by extension. There’d been a life here that I’d never been a part of. A family unit that I’d been deprived of. Time I could never get back.

“You must pass beneath the falls,” one of the Gorgon women said with a gentle smile. “Cleanse yourself of everything that came before this day and the handfasting that awaits you. You must go to one another as you are, not as the world would have you be.”

“You are soft and gentle, and you want the things around you to remain so. You are not cursed like I am, but gifted with another means to protect yourself.”

“What are you?” I asked, swallowing back that part of me, that tiny, insignificant voice that remembered what it had been like to deny myself answers. To avoid asking hard questions because sometimes ignorance was far better than truth.