Page 57 of In Death’s Hands (The Threads of Fate #1)

The world explodes around me when I come to. I’m gulping down air like I haven’t been breathing for too long. My body is screaming in pain, my mind lost in between realities.

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

I can’t feel who I am.

My consciousness is scattered. Split in between. It feels too large and too small all at once. What am I?

“Liv!”

Nathan. His voice is a tether bringing me back into my aching flesh.

A flesh that has been marked. The thought comes and goes before I can process it.

I gasp, water sloshing all around me. Water. Cold. I whimper and strong arms reach for me.

I see skin. Skin. Skin. Skin.

Nathan. Nathan. “Nathan.”

“I’m here.” I feel his warm hands brushing back the soaked strands of hair that have escaped the messy bun atop my head.

“How… touching .”

Celestina. Shit. My mind takes too long to return to me. All I feel is cold, her voice creating stronger shivers than the icy water ever did.

Fresh air kisses my skin and I gape at the shattered window next to me. I have seconds to take in the destruction in the room. Chaos.

Shadows climb the walls, curving in towards us at the top like a wave about to swallow us.

More are gathering at the base of the tub, which Nathan is pulling me out of, holding all of me as my shaking legs cannot support my body.

Celestina is in front of us, murder in her eyes.

A scream bursts from my lips when I see Atys passed out on my left, a trail of blood on the wall behind him.

I try to get to him, but Nathan holds on tight.

I go back to Celestina, searching for an explanation, but my eyes land on Turan standing in the doorway of the bathroom, looking desperate and so guilty that my stomach sinks.

“Wh-what’s going on?”

Turan opens her mouth, but a wave of Celestina’s hand has the bathroom door shutting her out.

“What did you see?” demands Celestina, taking a step towards me.

Nathan moves in front of me, and I see his shadow taking form in the far corner of the room, behind Celestina.

“We only did what we agreed to,” he tells her with a voice of steel. “Liv went searching for answers.”

“From the Order?” screams the woman, rage incarnate. Her hair is moving on the breeze coming in from the window I’m willing to bet she shattered.

Nathan nods once. I want to step up next to him, but his hands are keeping me firmly at his back. The hair on my nape is the first to stand, then my whole body is brimming with his unspent energy.

Violence is a living thing in this room. But I don’t understand what’s happened. How did we get to this?

“Everything is fine,” I say weakly, trying to deescalate the situation, which I’m sure has got out of hand for no real reason.

My eyes keep tracking Atys’ breathing, the rise and fall of his chest irregular and barely noticeable.

He needs help. Quickly. When I rise on my shaky toes to look over Nathan’s shoulder, I meet Celestina’s wild eyes.

“Everything is fine ?” She laughs roughly. “You stupid, stupid girl. What did you learn?”

“We broke one rule, Cel; it does not warrant such a reaction,” says Nathan through gritted teeth.

“I will be the judge of that. You dare come into my court and disobey me? I will only repeat myself once. What did you learn?”

“Nothing!” I really don’t know what I learned. It’s all so murky.

I make the mistake of looking at Atys again, and my eyes widen when his still unconscious body is dragged by an invisible hand towards the woman scaring me to death.

“Liar,” she seethes.

“No!” I cry out, fighting Nathan’s hold in vain. “I don’t remember!”

“I don’t believe you.”

I want to beg for my friend and plead with her that I’m not lying, I have no reason to, but before I can, red fills my vision. I choke and cough as images and voices fill my head. The Order.

I do remember. I look for the red again, expecting to see a thread, but it was only the trail of Atys’ blood on the white tiles.

With the memories come the realisation of how truly screwed we are. She ’s the one holding one of the missing Fates. She ’s the fucking liar in all of this. I suddenly understand why communing with the Order is forbidden.

I don’t know what to do. I want to play dumb, but anger chooses for me. “I’m not the liar here, you bitch!”

I’m not a fan of that curse for women, but if there ever was an appropriate word for her, I’d say this is it.

I feel Nathan tense further as her nostrils flare. Her face transforms into a wrathful mask and the air starts to whip me. I cry out against a particularly vicious lash, and when I look down, I see a bleeding welt on my thigh.

“What did you learn, you rat ?”

I shake my head, but she grabs Atys’ hair, holding his body half sprawled at her feet, half in the air.

A sob escapes my lips, and I can feel my body weakening further under the constant lashes of the air. I refuse to look down and see the mess of my flesh.

When Celestina wraps her slender hand around Atys’ throat, I cave.

“No! Wait! The Order said that the Novensiles weren’t to be feared, which is stupid.

Th-then that the person who cursed you all and has been after me is one and the same.

” She tightens her hold on Atys, forcing his neck into an awkward angle.

“I swear!” I scream, my heart seizing in fear.

“It wouldn’t tell me who did it. Something about altering what—” My mouth closes of its own accord.

“Altering what ?”

I want to say, “What was written in flesh,” but the words don’t come.

My mind freezes over for a heartbeat, wondering what it is with this sentence that keeps tripping me up.

I try to open my mouth again. For Atys, who’s been so nice to me, I try to say the words.

But I can’t. She sees the fight in my eyes, sees me keeping something to myself.

I notice the familiar tangle of red threads appear above her head a second before I hear a crack.

A crack.

That resonates.

No. “No!” I yell as I push past Nathan, somehow finally breaking free of his protection, and tumble towards my friend.

Atys lies in a pile of unnaturally placed limbs.

I look at his chest and wait. And wait. And it never goes up.

His next breath stays lost to the world.

A scream echoes in the room, so loud it seems to push Celestina away from him.

This decent man that tried his best to lighten my terrible situation.

She’s taken him from me. And why? Because we talked to a thing that doesn’t even give straight answers?

Because she didn’t want us to know she ’s the one holding a Fate?

I look at her startled face, and the scream I heard before comes again.

From my lips. She flies back so hard that she dents the wall.

I feel myself getting to my feet and stalking towards her.

I will make her pay. I clench my hands, and I could swear the red mass of tangled threads moves in answer. In a call.

Hands catch me once more, but I am lost to rage and grief.

“Liv!”

I shrug Nathan free but his shadow steps in front of me, hands raised in a placating motion.

This gentle being makes me pause. Take a breath.

The blinding rage ebbs slightly, enough for me to breathe.

To see what I’ve done. I unclench my fist and ignore what happens in response.

It cannot be, anyway; the anger makes me see things.

The shadow’s hands come to my cheeks, cooling my now burning skin.

Nathan is at my back, his chest brushing against me with every harsh, too-fast breath he takes.

I let them calm me down. But a movement behind the shadow makes me realise how wrong it was.

Celestina is back on her feet, and I feel a vicious pleasure at her dishevelled state.

“See what you brought back?” she spits at Nathan. His shadow disappears. The ones swirling at our feet freeze. The words take forever to land.

He stumbles, taking a step backwards. “It was you ?” he asks, shock laced through each of his words.

See what you brought back, see what you brought back. See. What. You. Brought. Back.

Celestina barks out a laugh, wiping blood that somehow trickles down her lips. “You do not know what you’re talking about, boy.”

“What did he bring back?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper as my mind runs over everything that’s ever happened to me. From the moment Death appeared, looking so damned exhausted and alone, to when I met Nathan’s lovely eyes, when he introduced himself and his voice felt like coming home.

Celestina stares at me, confusion quickly turning to endless glee. She cackles, her shoulders shaking as her hideous laugh becomes so loud I want to hurt her just to shut her up.

“What,” I start again, my voice louder but so fucking shaky, “did he bring back?” I point a finger at Nathan, daring one glance at him, but quickly jerk my eyes away from the desperate look in his.

The plea to drop this. But my finger is an accusation.

My finger is an answer. I already know. Fuck. Fuck.

Celestina’s red lips stretch and reveal too-bright teeth that separate and let out the one word that will destroy me. “You.” And then she vanishes from the room, her cackle the only sound left in her wake.

“Liv.”

I shake my head, refusing to meet his eyes. Fuck. “Say it,” I demand.

“Liv, please let me—”

“ Say it! ” I shout, a world of anger and hurt powering my scream.

I hear his sigh. The pain and hopelessness of that sound alone are enough to make me stumble. To question my own demand. But I need to know. After everything, I deserve to know. But his sigh took my strength along with my voice. “Say. It,” I whisper, fighting for each word.

A pause. And then he says it.

“I am Death.”