Crown of Bones

by A. K. Wilder

  I blow out a shaky breath, glancing over at the window. “Or maybe,” I say to no one, “it was just the wind.”

  Not even I believe myself.

  I finish my meal alone, have a cup of soporific tea to help me sleep, and dive back into the translation work while I wait for it to take, keeping the fire poker handy. In no time, my eyelids are heavy. I go to the door and check up and down the hall. Empty. I close and lock it again, have a wash, and put on a warm winter sleeping gown. As I crawl into bed, my thoughts turn to Baiseen. We’ll be traveling home again soon, Marcus and Belair wearing yellow robes, I am certain. They have both come so far. But what then of Kaylin? Will he come, too? We haven’t talked about it for weeks.

  I have no answers, so I blow out the bedside candles and snuggle under the covers, the room bright from the fire.

  Outside, the wind howls. I try not to think of long fingers on the sill and hollow eyes peering in, but there they are, in my imagination, rising to the surface to fill my mind. I close my eyes and shut them out. Slowly, the images fade away, but the wind rages on.

  49

  Kaylin

  The snow swirls like doves taking flight, my feet sinking ankle-deep into the frost-white powder on the rooftop. Howling wind drowns everything but the barest whisper of waves hitting the coastline far below. I gaze south into the storm, toward Baiseen. Will I see it soon, with Ash? We’ve not been a day apart since that late afternoon when the Sea Eagle was the only ship left in the harbor. Whatever the cost, I can’t let them know…

  “Let who know what, brother?”

  My mind slams shut. “Salila.” There’s a flash in the shadows on the other side of the roof and I am there in a bound, her pale wrists locked in my hands. “Are you the one haunting Ash?”

  “Hello to you, too, and ouch!”

  “Tell me the truth.”

  “I’m not haunting her!” She pulls out of my grip. “I came to help.”

  “Don’t need it.”

  “Really? Then you already know High Savant Tann is south of Lepsea? Perfect time to get your job done, if you ask me, under the cover of his arrival.” She crosses her arms. “You’re welcome, again.”

  “Stay out of it.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  “Go, Salila, before you’re seen.”

  “Don’t you think I blend in?” She lifts one shoulder and turns from side to side.

  I bark out a laugh. “A six-foot-tall woman leaping rooftops in the dead of a stormy night? You know you don’t.”

  “As a phantom, though? Couldn’t I get away with it?”

  I lean in to her face and growl. “Stop your games and go, or I’ll toss you off this roof from where you stand.”

  “You used to be fun.” She flips her hair and walks away. When she reaches the edge, she looks over her shoulder at me, smiles a little too wide, and jumps. A moment later, I hear her laughter in my head. “It’s a phantom, by the way, the shadowy, tap-tap thing you are after.”

  “Who does it belong to?”

  “I’m supposed to do all the work? Find out for yourself.”

  I press my lips into a tight line. The snow continues to fall around me, a white blanket covering my shoulders. If she’s right, it could make sense. Phantoms are drawn to Ash, but could it really be acting without its savant’s knowledge? I doubt it, so what is their motive? I check the other three directions from the rooftop and return down the stairs. Instead of going back to Ash, I retrace my steps to the empty foyer and back out into the storm. I will keep vigil from now on. Around the Isle, around the sanctuary. Around my beautiful Ash.

  50

  Ash

  “Wake! You were meant to be up!” my inner voice cuts through my dreams.

  I’m jolted by a knock at the door that quickly turns into pounding. My eyes don’t open, and my arms and legs are dead weights. “Come in,” I speak into my pillow.

  The pounding continues.

  I lift my head. “Come in!”

  “It’s locked.”

  B’rack the bones, it is. “Hang on.” I swing my legs over the side of the bed and wiggle into sheepskin-lined boots. It’s freezing in here. Over my nightdress goes my winter coat and I head for the door, glancing at the window. There hasn’t been a hint of the shadow all week and thank the old gods for that. My recording duties, with the shortened time on Aku, have accelerated, and so has the research. I was up late last night, delving deeper and deeper, but hit a wall. It’s exhausting. Kaylin’s been gone every night—I’m not sure he ever sleeps—which has been disappointing, but still, no nightmares, no tapping.

  I swing the door wide.

  “You aren’t ready?” Marcus strides in. “We’re late.”

  I yawn. “For what?”

  “Festival day? Don’t tell me you forgot.”

  I most definitely did forget.

  Marcus groans. “Hurry up, Ash. The best spots are already gone.”

  I sweep my clothes off the back of a chair, shuck my coat, and dash to the en suite. “Get my pack, will you?” I come tearing out a moment later, face wet, buttons undone.

  He throws me a towel.

  “Where’s my hairbrush?”

  “Use your fingers. Let’s go.”

  I thump down the steps with only one hand in my coat sleeve, a piece of last night’s bread in the other. “Has it started?”

  “Not yet.” We burst out of the hall and into the crowded street. All of Aku is gathered on the training field, leaving clear a large, raised platform in the center and five wide “spokes” leading to it through the crowd. Most of the audience sits cross-legged on blankets, or lie propped on elbows, chatting to their neighbors, cheering for it all to begin. Food vendors circle the grounds offering all kinds of divine-smelling drinks and snacks, but Marcus won’t slow down.

  I spot Belair’s red hair as he scans our way and waves.

  “He’s saved us places.” Marcus pulls me along.

  I hurry to keep up as a huge gong sounds, followed by clacking bone sticks, warning us that it’s about to start. Every year on Aku, when training is in full swing, they declare a festival, a day of performances called the Spectacle of Realms. For the initiates, it’s mostly about eating way too many sweet cakes, dancing in the drum circles, and playing games of chance and wit, but also, each realm shares their traditional dances, stories, and songs at set times throughout the day and night. How could I have lost track?

  “Perhaps your mounting workload explains it?”

  I guess it does.

  I look around for Kaylin, wondering if he’s watching, but all I see is a mass of colored robes and cowls.

  Yuki steps up to a thunder of cheers, gives a short speech, and instructs us to have fun. Whatever cloud of concern she had when we met isn’t showing in the slightest. I find myself cheering along with the best of them, until Marcus interrupts me.

  “I learned something about her last night,” he says, leaning in.

  “Go on.”

  “The Nonnovan war dance!” Belair points as the performers make their way up the spokes to the raised platform in stylized, exaggerated movements. The only music comes from the women chanting in the background, a fiery chorus. They all wear leather armor breastplates and split skirts of leather and chain, with red and black snakes painted around their bare arms. I startle, pulling on Marcus’s sleeve. Some of the snakes are live, phantom or not, I can’t tell from here.

  Soon bells, whistles, and drums join the chorus, creating a staccato beat that rises to the sky. Even if I was savant, I wouldn’t want to face such ferocity, spears thrusting and stabbing in mock battle.

  I lean against Marcus and whisper in his ear. “Tell me more about Yuki.”

  “You know how you overheard that five messengers were sent when we arrived, not just one?”

  I nod,
eyes on the performance.

  “Those ships are missing. Sunk, they think.”

  “Deliberately?”

  “Five separate ships accidentally sinking within days of one another? Has to be an attack.”

  “By whom?”

  His face darkens. “Don’t know, but Yuki was going to inform the realms of the Gollnar and Aturnian alliance. Now Father doesn’t know anything about it.”

  I let my breath out in a rush. “Worse, Marcus. It means your father doesn’t even know we arrived.”

  The dance finishes and I look over my shoulder toward the harbor. There, far away, a figure stands on the stable rooftop, watching. I know by the regal posture it’s Kaylin. “Always in the crow’s nest.”

  Marcus sees him, too. “What’s he doing up there?”

  “Watching the performance?”

  “Looks to me like he’s watching you.”

  “Hardly.” I let slip a nervous laugh as my face heats.

  “The Gollnar hunting dance!” Belair waves at the performers running and tumbling with their colorful silk robes and streamers. The music shifts in tempo and sound, the field filled with rhythmic tambourines and lilting reed pipes. Their movements are like bouquets of flowers bursting into the sky and raining down on us.

  Marcus is back in my ear again. “Ash, don’t get me wrong. I’m glad Kaylin is here, especially when I can’t be, and I know you’re friends…”

  “But?”

  He hesitates.

  “There’s been no breaking of the initiate journey rules of conduct, if that’s what has you worried.” I think about the kissing and clear my throat. “We did, um. I mean, there was a moment, or two…in the library.”

  He waves it away. “I don’t care that you broke in. The information you gained is important, and you’ll put it back, right?”

  “We’re going to, yes, but what I wanted to say is, we kissed.” I wait, but he doesn’t speak. “It will not happen again. Nothing in all of Amassia would keep me from my task as your and Belair’s recorder.”

  “I’m a task, am I?” The audience applauds the dancers on stage like a thunderstorm.

  I punch him in the arm, and he grunts. “Marcus, I promise you, I am pledged to my—”

  “Duty?”

  “Privilege!” My eyes well. “Your friendship has always been that to me, ever since our first day on the training field. You’re my champion.”

  He nods like an overlord. “And don’t you forget it.”

  I’m about to cry when I see it. His eyes, they sparkle. He’s laughing at me! I laugh back and punch him again just for making me worry. We chuckle until a hush comes over the training ground. Extraordinary music strikes up, slow at first but building until every hair on my body stands out.

  I close my eyes and drink in the harmonies. “They’re playing the whistle bones.”

  When I look again, black-robes advance up the spokes. The novices with shaved heads beat bone drums and the elders with long, decorated locks play the whistle bones. They float to the stage in a dance that has the whole crowd enthralled. In their long robes, it appears their feet never touch the ground. They play and chant, their phantoms undulating around them like curtains of light, evoking the distant stars, the folds in the sea before sunrise, and the secrets hidden in the deepest parts of the forests. I can’t pull my eyes away.

  There’s a breath-holding silence when they finish, followed by deafening applause. I look down, realizing I’ve gripped Marcus’s arm like a vise. The Baiseen Bone Throwers seldom perform in public, at least not in any events I can attend. It’s extraordinary. I hope they will do it again tonight.

  They exit down the spokes with a livelier tune and the Sierraks take their place on stage, brassy horns blaring as they perform the Dance of the Four Elements. I know this one and cheer. The performers for each element wear brilliant colors—red for Fire, green for Earth, yellow for Air, and blue for Water. When they enact the water story, a romance between the sea and a river nymph, I lean forward, taking in every sound and nuance.

  “This is better than I even thought it would be.” Belair cheers with us when it’s over. “What next?”

  “Breakfast!” I beam a smile. “As your dutiful recorder, I think you two should buy a big one for me. There are pancakes today, I hear.”

  “I’ll get you a stack two miles high,” Belair says.

  “And apple butter? Melted on top?”

  “Anything you like.” Marcus stands first and helps me up.

  I smile and squeeze his arm again. But we hold each other’s gaze and slowly the corners of my mouth turn down.

  Five ships lost. Messages not delivered. One more week for us here on Aku, and much still to be done. What more could possibly go wrong?

  51

  Marcus

  This is it. We’ve made it. At least, I hope we have. There’s nothing more to study. No new exercise to learn. No more laps or drills to perfect. Not after today. We’ll be awarded our yellow robes at the ceremony tonight, if we earned them, or not. I’ll know soon enough. Zarah said she’d announce it at the end of this final morning class.

  I think I might be sick.

  The newly laid grass crunches underfoot as I stand at attention between Destan and Belair. In moments, I’ll be hot and sweating, but for now, gooseflesh rises on my arms. I glance at Belair and he gives me a smart nod. We’re ready, and this time, I know it’s true.

  Destan salutes us both. “May the best savant win.”

  He means the High Initiate award, yet another part of training we hadn’t known about, but one I’d move mountains to win, if only to see Petén’s face when I tell him. I don’t know if Belair and I are even in the running, though, but I’m sure Destan is. We tap our fists to our chests and repeat his words. “May the best savant win.”

  The rim of the training field is packed with cheering support. Everyone on the island must be watching. The recorders sit farther into the field from the sidelines. Ash smiles and waves. She’s bundled in a knee-length sheepskin coat, knit cap, and high, fur-lined boots, ready with her writing board in her lap.

  “Today we will give her something worthy of the records,” I say to De’ral.

  “Raise your phantoms!” Zarah’s breath turns to fog as her voice carries over our heads.

  I lunge forward and drop to my knees, touching the hard ground for less than a breath before I’m up again, running. In front of me, De’ral erupts from the earth, dirt and turf flying, but not in my face. Not anymore. It all happens too fast for that now.

  “Perimeter,” Zarah shouts. “Four laps.”

  I take the lead, knowing the execution is flawless. That Zarah doesn’t find fault is the highest praise. She’s like Father that way. The closest the Magistrate ever comes to a compliment is a momentary absence of criticism, which used to get under my skin. Today, it doesn’t bother me at all. I can feel my worth.

  I set a strong pace, De’ral pounding along by my side. At the first lap, my breath blasts out in white puffs, the biting cold in my limbs replaced with hot, rushing blood. I catch the grin on Ash’s face and shoot her a quick wink. De’ral turns to Ash as well and pumps his fist.

  “Please stay focused.”

  He turns back to me and keeps running.

  “Line up!” Zarah makes a note as I finish the final lap in first place.

  Destan runs in on my heels, his phantom like a black shadow with a carnivorous face, its tongue rolling out. Following him is Belair and the red sun leopard everyone has grown to admire. I suspect Belair can outrun us both, but the most he’s ever done with me is tie. The redheaded Tangeen, who annoyed me to the bone when first taking Larseen’s place, has become a friend and ally. No doubt what the Magistrate had in mind all along with the substitution. It looks like we’ll both have a powerful position in our realms someday. Unless th
e next Great Dying comes beforehand.

  I frown. It’s no disrespect to Ash, but a second sun bringing mass devastation? Next thing she’ll tell me Mar are real.

  “Face your partners for battle moves.” Zarah waves us into lines.

  In three rows of three, we go through a series of punches, lunges, and kicks. Our group performs as one, in sync, phantoms mirroring savants in the way most appropriate for their form. De’ral punches and lunges in unison with me, as does Destan’s phantom. Belair’s leopard jumps and snarls and swipes the air, not randomly anymore but in full focus and control. We all march forward then turn around and repeat the moves back to the start. Ash watches me intently, and my chest expands.

  “Marcus, Destan, Belair, and Cyres.” Zarah calls the names of each contestant, and I want to shout my victory. I’m in the first group! “Choose your swords, spears, and shields.” She points at the weapons rack. “Take the north end of the field and prepare to spar. The rest of you, to the obstacle course.”

  The four of us jog to the far side of the field, phantoms by our sides. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ash pick up her things, along with one other recorder, a young man who’s here with Cyres, and follow along. Again, I wonder why Destan doesn’t have a recorder following him; is it a matter of coin as Ash suggested? It must be nice not to have every single mistake put down in a book, but the records hold our triumphs, too, and I’m finally feeling like my good days now outweigh the bad ones at the start.

  Our group squares off, ready to go through basic battle tactics while we wait for Zarah to referee the matches. Destan steps up and shouts out the commands and we alternately attack and defend in the prescribed moves. It doesn’t take Zarah long to appear, and she actually smiles at us. “Well done.” She moves to the center of our group. “Now let’s see what you’ve really got.”

  I stand tall, shoulders back, chin up, warmth rushing through me. “Be ready, De’ral.”

  “You’ll have one minute to disable your opponent by putting their phantom to ground.”

  It’s all I can do to keep from thrusting my fist in the air. Full contact! This is it, but suddenly the air goes out of my lungs as the images of smashed scouts rise up from their graves. Will I be able to keep control or will this end in another massacre?