Chapter 19 · Thirteen Graves

"Don't you fucking touch her!"

Cael's arm locked around my ribs, ripping me back so hard my boots screeched against the stone.

I missed the touch by an inch. Thirteen hands—thirteen of my own dead faces—stared up from the dark.

"Let go!" I twisted, fighting his grip. "They're me!"

"Yeah, and they're dead for a reason!" Cael slammed his chest into my back, pinning me. He wasn't budging. His other hand clamped over my wrist like a steel cuff. "You touch one, you take it back. You understand me?"

I could hear them. Breathing. That was wrong. Corpses don't breathe.

The vault wasn't a vault. It was a pit. Thirteen slabs, thirteen bodies, all wearing the same bell-warden blacks I had on. Same hair. Same scar on my left knee from when I was twelve.

Only the wounds were different.

One had her throat cut ear to ear. One had a bell shard through her eye. One was charred black. One was drowned, hair still dripping.

Then they all opened their eyes at once.

"Mara," the burned one whispered. Her voice was mine, but cracked. Hoarse. "You left us."

My stomach dropped. "What?"

"Don't listen," Cael hissed against my ear.