Crown of Bones

by A. K. Wilder

  “They call non-savants with that gift ‘hotu-pele’ in Tutapa. It means the favorite one.”

  I like his definition but I’m not so sure it’s a gift. “They say ‘pet’ here, but…” My face pinches. “Most savants are annoyed by it.”

  “Idiots,” he says under his breath.

  “I don’t know.” I put the books down and cross my arms. “But the link has expanded.”

  “How so?”

  “Now they talk to me as well.”

  “Talk?” Kaylin looks surprised at that. “In words?”

  “Sometimes, but mostly images. The pictures come into my mind with a clear meaning—at least, I think I know what they mean. The first few times, I startled, then brushed it off as my own confused ramblings…”

  “Since when do you have confused ramblings?” He laughs and fills the teapot with fragrant herbs, lemongrass, apple mint, orange peel, and spices, a Tutapan version of Ochee.

  I laugh back. “You’d be surprised what goes through my head. But it actually began even before we arrived at Aku.”

  “With Marcus’s phantom?”

  “It was a glimpse, initially. He’d catch my eye, and then it turned into a longer look and a feeling, then whole conversations.”

  He whistles through his teeth. “What does Marcus make of it?”

  I’m back to biting my lip. “Haven’t mentioned this to him yet.”

  He thinks about that for a moment. “Then what made it so urgent, there on the library steps?”

  This is the time to get to the point, tell him that I’m picking up his thoughts, maybe, but I already feel myself falter. “In the archives room, Mia’s phantom spotted us, and I told it to go away.”

  “That’s why it backed off? You gave her phantom an order and it obeyed?”

  “I think so, unless it was another coincidence.” I already know he doesn’t think much of coincidence, at least not philosophically.

  He takes my hands and kisses my fingers. “There’s nothing to fear.”

  “Nothing to fear?” I pull back. “Maybe for you, who can stare down enemies on any b’larkin day of the week, but I’m not like that. This cross communication from phantom to non-savant, it’s not possible. I’m not even trained, and I’m…”

  “Ash, slow down.”

  I guess this topic bothers me a lot more than I’d thought. “It doesn’t make sense,” I finish lamely.

  He pours the tea, minty steam rising from our cups. “Maybe the phantoms find you attractive in an inexplicable way, and they’re all trying to understand why.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  He pins me with a look that makes my face heat. “Attraction comes in many forms, for many reasons.”

  “Maybe.”

  “There’s nothing to fear,” he says again.

  We finish our drinks in a contemplative silence. When he takes the empty cups away, I retrieve the books. “For now, let’s explore the treasures we’ve found.”

  “Not sleeping tonight?”

  My eyes go to the window. “Not yet.”

  “Then I’ll read with you.” Kaylin returns to his place beside me and opens the tome.

  “That’s it?” my inner voice asks, sounding more than a little perturbed.

  Pardon?

  “You’re not going to ask the burning question?”

  I can hear it now. Oh Kaylin, I meant to say, as well as phantoms talking to me, I also think I hear your thoughts. Do you hear mine? Sure, I’ll tell him that straightaway. Just what he needs, a good reason to question my sanity.

  “Look at this,” Kaylin points at a sketching in the book.

  “Solar system?”

  “Read the title.”

  I squint at the fine lettering. “Amassia’s binary suns,” I whisper, and all other thoughts disappear.

  47

  Marcus

  It’s working! I hit the training field before dawn. Belair soon joins me, and by the time the bell rings for morning ritual, we’re already sweating. When everyone else goes into the dining hall, we sit cross-legged on the sidelines and share bread, cheese, and apples from the kitchen. It’s quickly dispatched, then back to it. By the time Zarah arrives, shouting for the class to do laps, I take the lead, Belair right beside me. My training must be inspiring him, too. And the best part is, Zarah notices.

  “If you’re trying to impress us, Baiseen, you’ll have to do better than this,” she says, but I see approval in her eyes. That afternoon, she is still sharp as knives on me, but she takes more time with us both, giving extra instruction. It means more work, especially when she assigns us special training, nothing less than ten times the workout, up and down the long steps to the leeward side of the island. And even better, Ash is always there to note it. Of course, she has said she’s proud of me all along, but now the truth shines in her eyes. And I believe her. Belair and I won’t leave the Isle empty-handed.

  “I’m not sure I should thank you.” Belair keeps pace with me as we run up to the top lookout, his chest heaving and hair sticking to his face.

  “You’ll thank me when you win all your matches.”

  De’ral surprises me with a war cry so loud, long, and guttural that it raises the hair on my neck. I holler a challenge as well, Belair and the sun leopard joining in.

  “We’ll be awarded our yellow robes. There is no doubt.”

  …

  My new training schedule has made meeting up with Ash nigh impossible. Sure, she’s on the sidelines, recording my classes with Zarah, but that’s not when we can talk. When she’s in the library, I’m taking extra training sessions with Belair on the beach. In the evening, I pass out in bed as soon as my studies are done.

  It’s been a week since Ash told me she and Kaylin discovered something interesting. Extremely interesting, were her exact words. She insists that Samsen, Piper, and Belair hear it as well, so finally, here we are, in her room, waiting on this “extremely interesting” report.

  And waiting…and waiting…

  Belair, who’s finishing up writing his summary on the history of warrior phantoms throughout the realms, has yet to arrive.

  “Why aren’t you working on your report, Marcus?” Piper asks, glancing at my empty hands.

  “Because I handed mine in this morning.” My smile is smug, but bless the bones, I earned it.

  The tide is starting to turn.

  I’m no longer lagging behind my classmates, taking the brunt of oversized phantom jokes and withstanding thoughtless jeers. De’ral and I are neck and neck with the best of them, Destan included, though I’ve yet to beat him in a sparring match. Still, we are not the witless savant-phantom pair that stumbled through the gates of Aku scant weeks ago. Neither are Belair and his sun leopard.

  I take a deep, expansive breath. No accomplishment in my life has ever felt this good. Or more meaningful. “Raw salmon and chile flakes?” Kaylin offers the plate of fillets surrounded by lemon wedges. My stomach growls and he laughs. Seems my taste buds have matured as well, thanks to the dish-of-the-realm custom here on Aku.

  Ash, Samsen, and Piper join me at the table to slice off bits of the fine pink fish, while Kaylin takes his seat by the window and continues sculpting a lure. I’ve already put in a request for half a dozen of various sizes. Finest craftsmanship I’ve ever seen. I can’t wait to try them when we get back home.

  When Belair arrives, we brew another pot of Ochee and Ash calls the meeting to order. She has us in a semicircle, like a proper class, and proceeds to launch into a topic I don’t quite follow.

  Honestly, I have no idea what she’s talking about.

  “Can you repeat that please?” The cycle of the Great Dying? I vaguely recall the palace tutor mentioning it, but that’s all. “How is this relevant?”

  Ash blows hair off her forehead. “Are yo
u paying attention?”

  She sounds like my old tutor as well.

  This is all very instructional if we ignore the fact that she broke into a storeroom and stole these “extremely interesting” books from the library archives. The sailor’s light fingers are rubbing off. I plan to have a talk with her about it when we’re alone. The last thing I need is to justify theft to the High Savant. “Tell me again?”

  “This is written in a language called Retoren,” Ash says. “I haven’t translated much yet, but what we see here concerns all of Amassia and her leaders.” She looks poignantly at me and Belair while holding up the page for us to see.

  I recognize the drawing. It’s the solar system, Amassia and her moon, the third planet from the sun, and seven others expanding farther and farther outward. But there’s something else. A red dot with an orbit that goes right off the page. “You’re saying this is written in the same script as the tattoos you saw on the Gollnar scouts?”

  “Exactly, and the same as the notices at the Clearwater apothecary and Capper Point harbor, too.”

  Kaylin holds up the flyer and points to the overlapping circle symbols. “Recognize these?”

  “The flags flying over the Aturnian camp?” They’re more elaborate but definitely the same shapes. “Whatever this is, you’ve linked it to them?”

  “Yes, though we aren’t sure in what way.”

  “And the red dot?” I indicate that solar system image.

  “Amassia’s second sun.” Ash’s eyes brighten as she taps it.

  “Second, as in there are two?” I ask.

  “That’s right.”

  Sounds farfetched to me. “Don’t you think if Amassia had two suns we’d know about it?” I say. “See the other rise and set? Have endless daylight?”

  “Not when the second sun is so far away. Only a bright star, until—”

  “It draws nearer.” Kaylin seems as excited as her by this discovery.

  “It orbits our sun?” Piper asks. “Like a comet? Is that what the image shows?”

  “Sort of.” Ash lowers the book. “The Sierraks say they are twins—binary stars—that travel around a central mass. In our case, Amassia’s second sun—and I daresay the translation could mean a ‘dark comet’—has a much, much wider eccentricity in its path. This dark sun, or second sun, syncs with our bright sun only once in a great while, and even then, they don’t show it getting very close.”

  “How great a while?” Samsen asks.

  “Every twenty-five-million years, give or take.”

  No one speaks for a few breaths, the silence heavy.

  “How can this knowledge have been passed down for twenty-five-million years?” Samsen asks. “Especially if there was a Great Dying. I assume everything dies?”

  “The reference is the ancient sea scrolls.” Kaylin lifts his brow. “The fossil records preserved in the thousands of petrified tablets found in the last centuries. Some predate several Great Dyings.”

  Ash turns the book to another page and passes it around. It’s a more detailed representation of the planets, including Amassia. All are in orbit around our central yellow star, but out in the far distance is a second, dark red sun, so red it’s almost black. “According to this, the dark sun’s approach heralds the next Great Dying.”

  “Maybe it causes it,” Kaylin says. “Some say as it comes closer, it drags debris behind it.”

  “What debris?” I ask.

  “Stardust, ice, rocks, the crumbs of broken planets and exploded comets. It brings it to our inner solar system, and it falls on Amassia like rain. It…”

  “It causes change,” Ash says. She looks at Kaylin for support and he nods, though where the sailor learned this cosmology, I don’t know. I plan to ask.

  “Changes?” Samsen asks.

  “Ice caps melt, the seas rise, the land heats and then freezes,” he says. “The climate changes as Amassia is bombarded with solar dust that lasts for centuries. Everything dies. So it says.”

  “Everything?” I cross my arms. “How are we still here, if everything dies?” I’m not trying to disparage Kaylin or Ash, but what they’re suggesting seems too far from logic.

  “Not every single thing,” Ash says.

  “What then?” I ask.

  “For each hundred species that die, five will live on, but in a different way. All must adapt to survive, or they perish from the path forever.”

  I stare out the window. It’s a lot to consider, be it true or false.

  “The stargazers of Sierrak plotted the course of the second sun,” Ash goes on.

  I rub my forehead. “Let me see if I have this right. Amassia has two suns, and the second, dark one, has an extreme orbit, returning into view only once every twenty-five-million years, dragging space dust behind it, which rains down on us and triggers the next Great Dying.”

  “Correct.” Ash beams at me.

  “And you gathered us for this discussion because…?”

  “There’s more, about a Crown of Bones.” Ash turns to another page.

  Belair leans in for a better view. “Whistle bones?”

  “Not just any whistle bones,” she explains, “but the original twelve carved from the skeleton of Er. Apparently, long ago, when under threat of war, the black-robes took apart the crown and sent each piece to one of the Sanctuaries for safekeeping.”

  “The honored whistle bones that hang in the Sanctuaries? They form a crown?” I smile. “Must be for a huge head.”

  Ash tsks me. “The crown could be a metaphor, Marcus.”

  “Fine, fine.” I mull it over. “So now the crown is dismantled, one whistle bone in each sanctuary?” Well, I know that part is true.

  “If we’re translating right, yes, but for now, we need to decide what to do with the knowledge.”

  “Tell Yuki,” I suggest, rising. “Or Brogal, when we return.”

  “But can we trust our High Savant?” Ash reaches for my sleeve to hold me back. “Brogal put me off the path when I asked him about this language. And Yuki’s orange-robes would have seen the notices at Capper Point, and these texts are in her archives. She must know about the Great Dying and the Aturnians’ sudden interest. Huewin tried to hide it from me, too.”

  “If they know or not, what does it matter?” I pull away and head for the door. “I mean, it’s an interesting discovery, Ash. Maybe even extremely interesting. But once every twenty-five-million years?” I shrug. “You can spend the rest of your life working it out.”

  “That’s just it, Marcus. I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “According to the notices, Amassia’s second sun is nigh.”

  48

  Ash

  The fire blazes in the hearth, sparking as I grip the long poker in the palm of my hand. The logs burn hot, and sweat prickles my skin, and not just from the heat. How dak’n long does it take to dash to the kitchen and back with dinner?

  My mind has been whirling all evening. Marcus and the others didn’t share the enthusiasm Kaylin and I have for our discoveries about the second sun. Maybe it is all myth? But no. It’s documented, spread across the pages of multiple books and images for anyone to see.

  The Great Dying is coming. Soon, if the notices are to be believed.

  But that isn’t the only troubling thing… I tighten my grip on the poker.

  When Kaylin finally sweeps into the room with a tray full of food, my body relaxes. “You’re back.” I try to keep the strain out of my voice.

  “Did you miss me?” He closes the door then sees my face. “What happened?”

  I swallow, my throat still constricted. “The shadow thing…tapping at the window.”

  “Again?” Kaylin puts the tray on the low table. The scent of cornbread and stew fills the room. Southern Gollnar fare tonight.

  “Didn’t see,
but I feel it, like someone’s constantly watching me.” My shoulders tighten back up again. “Especially when you aren’t here.”

  “I’m here now.”

  I’m glad for it, but it’s not just that. I hang the poker next to the hearth broom and join him at the table. “Things aren’t adding up.”

  He gives me his full attention, something I like very much about him.

  “Did you notice? Aku’s first whistle bone isn’t displayed over the mural anymore.”

  He goes back to dishing up the food. “Maybe they take it down to polish it?”

  “Then why not say so? I’ve asked everyone I can, and no one knows what’s happened.”

  “You’re worried?”

  I can tell he isn’t. “Finding out the original whistle bones once formed a crown, and knowing crowns denote power and control, honor and wealth—”

  “And sometimes immortality.”

  I suck in my breath. “You mean, the old gods?”

  He shrugs. “Why not?”

  “Well, given all that, yes, my curiosity is piqued, and maybe some worry, too.” The first whistle bone’s disappearance is yet another thing to add to our growing list of oddities: the tapping, the warnings about the Dark Sun, the next Great Dying, Yuki purportedly sending out five messengers when we arrived, not the usual one, then pretending Destan is from Southern Aturnia when we all know he’s from the banned North, the seemingly unified Aturnian and Gollnarian troops…

  Kaylin serves me a bowl with a large square of cornbread in the center and rich meat stew ladled over it. In spite of all the questions, my stomach growls, very loudly, and we laugh.

  “Thank you.” I pick up my fork and attack my food. When I turn back to him, he’s staring at me and I’m lost in the depths of his eyes. They are a deep violet in the candlelight—all traces of sea-green gone. As I draw breath to speak, there is a snick at the door. Kaylin leaps to the side and I find my feet.

  He throws open the door so fast I half expect an eavesdropper to stumble into the room, but no one is there.

  “Lock this behind me.” Kaylin shuts the door and is gone.