House of Blood and Bone

by Kimberley J. Ward

  Uh huh. If you really believed that, then you wouldn’t have acted so guilty when I caught you trying to hide it.

  Nessa glared. “As I said, you caught me by surprise.”

  I had to catch you out. You were acting shifty as soon as Hunter and Orm left us here to go to the village.

  “Shifty?” Nessa mumbled in disbelief, turning her attention back to the book. “I was not acting shifty.”

  Yes, you were. As soon as you thought I was fast asleep, you went straight for that book, just like a squirrel diving for a particularly nice nut.

  “What can I say? After being abandoned by Hunter and Orm whilst they went to get more supplies for our travels tomorrow, and believing that you were out of it, I quickly grew bored. I thought the book would offer some kind of entertainment until they returned.”

  Barely ten minutes had passed.

  Nessa was about to argue, then paused. “Was it really only ten minutes?”

  I’m afraid so. Amused, Aoife added, Impatience makes time move slowly.

  Nessa frowned. “And whilst we’re speaking of time, how much of it do we have before Hunter and Orm come back?”

  They’ve only been gone for an hour or so, and have only just reached the village. They have yet to get the supplies and the horses. They also have to walk back. I’d say they’ll be at least a couple of hours.

  Nessa relaxed a little, knowing that she had plenty of time left to discover the book’s secrets, and she grinned playfully. “Don’t forget that Orm wanted to ‘nip into a tavern to see if there’s any gossip’.”

  Ah, yes, Aoife’s eyes twinkled with humour, he did seem determined to go to a tavern, didn’t he?

  Nessa laughed, remembering Orm’s long list of reasons—excuses—as they had set up camp for the evening, trying to sway a less than eager Hunter before they had set off for the village. Hunter had endured it with sardonic quips during the erection of the tents and the building of the fire, but Nessa was willing to bet that Orm would have worn him down during their walk.

  “I love how his argument for listening to anything relating to Arncraft was the last in his list of reasons.”

  Aoife chuckled and nudged Nessa with her snout. Scoot forward a bit and sit closer to the fire. You’re starting to shiver.

  Nessa did as she was told, having discovered only an hour ago that it was futile to argue with a dragon. At best, as she had found out, you might be able to negotiate with them. Might. If they were in a giving mood. Having just had a quarrel with Aoife about why she had borrowed Chaos’ book, why she had been trying to keep it hidden, Nessa didn’t have the energy levels for another bickering match.

  She shuffled closer to the fire, trying to ignore how the crackle of flames and the dancing light made her feel sick to her stomach, reminding her all too much of the ravaging blazes of Arncraft. She tried to ignore it all, but that wasn’t enough.

  Frightfully forceful, the memories of last night came rushing back. It was as if Nessa was there all over again, reliving it all. The taste of ash filled her mouth, and the scent of black smoke enveloped her, smothering her. She wasn’t sat in a small grove of old trees anymore. She was there, with him and his dragon, and… And…

  Aoife nudged with her nose, almost pushing Nessa over, knocking her out of the vision with a jolt.

  Nessa sucked in a shaky breath and pressed her palms against the cold ground, fighting a wave of dizziness.

  Oh, my little Rider, Aoife said gently, watching Nessa as she struggled to regain her composure, where did you go?

  Somewhere I never want to go again.

  It was only a flashback. I’m sure these things are natural after something so awful, especially so soon.

  Maybe. Or maybe I’m scared of fire now.

  My Rider, scared of fire? Aoife snorted dismissively. I think not.

  Nessa sat up straight and gazed at Aoife with uncertainty, her mind in turmoil.

  Come now, Aoife said, don’t trouble yourself with fears and worries, not this evening. Remember, you only have a week to discover all the secrets that book has to offer before you’re to come clean to Orm and Hunter about it.

  “Are you trying to distract me from my worries?”

  Yes. Is it working?

  “Perhaps.”

  Still stewing over the fact that she hadn’t had much sway during negotiations, only managing to garner a week with the book before having to share it with Hunter and Orm, Nessa drew it closer to herself. “Gathering secrets from it within a week is going to be hard if I can’t even get it open.”

  Aoife peered over her shoulder. Tilt it this way so I can see that funny, little lock better.

  “Do you think that it might be broken?” Nessa asked. “The last time I was looking at it, something caught on my finger and drew blood, although I can’t see what might have done that.”

  It doesn’t look broken to me.

  “Well, can you see a hidden catch or anything that might pop open? There’s no sign of there ever being a keyhole.”

  I have a feeling that a key would be too simple and easy.

  “Maybe a magic word would open it?”

  Like what? Please?

  Nessa glared. “I mean a spell or something, and you know it.”

  Unlikely, in my opinion. If you look closely enough, the lock has that odd, little indentation, and in that little indentation is a tiny needle. I think that’s what you pricked your finger on the last time you were nosing around.

  Nessa chose to ignore the use of the word “nosing”, and instead examined the indentation closely, trying to spot the needle. She came to the conclusion that Aoife’s eyesight was considerably better than hers, for she couldn’t see anything that could draw blood.

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  Press a finger into it. See if that opens it.

  “What?” Nessa stared at Aoife, not sure if she had heard correctly.

  I’m working on a hunch here. Just do what I tell you to.

  “I’m not going to stab myself with a needle,” Nessa muttered, reaching forwards and picking up a small twig from the ground. “I’ll poke it with this instead.”

  Aoife gave a long-suffering sigh, but didn’t comment as Nessa jabbed around at the little indentation with the twig.

  Nessa was unsurprised when the book remained locked.

  “Well,” she muttered, throwing the twig away, casting it into the fire, “that didn’t work.”

  Obviously, Aoife said dryly. I told you to press your finger into the indentation, not a damn twig.

  “Bu—”

  Just do it.

  Huffing, Nessa placed her thumb into the shallow hollow, wincing as something fine and sharp jabbed into her skin. Even without lifting it, she knew that a bead of blood welled. Nessa could feel it seeping out through the minuscule cut, quickly filling the indentation that now seemed oddly suited for a thumb to rest in.

  Her thumb throbbed dully, and Nessa peeled it back slowly. A delicate coating of blood glistened in the firelight, covering the pad. Grimacing, she wiped it clean on the grass. Dew was already starting to collect in preparation for tomorrow’s sleepy morning, and it was blissfully cool, soothing away the sting.

  Nessa stared at the lock.

  Her blood, startlingly red, clung to the sides of the hollow and spread across it thinly.

  Before Nessa’s very eyes, it started to vanish, seeping into fissures so small they were barely visible to the human eye, a spider web of bloody threads. There was a gentle click and the metal covers sprang apart by a finger’s breadth, the lock loosening its grip.

  “Well,” Nessa murmured, “I’ll be damned.”

  See, Aoife said smugly. I was right.

  “So you were.”

  Maybe that will teach you to question my orders in the future.

  “Maybe.” Nessa quirked a brow. “How did you know that blood opened it?”

  It was just a hunch.

  “But blood, of all things? Blood?” />
  A bit old fashioned, I know, Aoife said with a touch of distaste. But that’s how things were done in the olden days; vows and promises, oaths and pledges, were often written and sealed with blood.

  “But why would a book be opened with blood?”

  Once you open it, I think you come to understand.

  ∞∞∞

  The pages were old and soft, made from parchment and vellum. They’d been slowly collected over decades, perhaps centuries, bound between the book’s metal covers as they’d been written and procured. Many were brown with age, mottled and creased, smudges lining the outer edges from where the pages had been turned countless times.

  Nessa’s fingers gently caressed the pages with a sense of wonder, with a measure of unease, carefully tracing the faded texts and illustrations. Once a stark black, they were now a pale grey, soft and delicate, deceptively elegant despite what they depicted.

  There were so many things written and drawn on those pages, things that Nessa and Aoife looked at with trepidation. There were illustrations of strange plants and odd symbols, pentagrams featuring nine-pointed stars, and intricate sigils and seals. There were images of skulls and bones, some human, some animal, and others that were surely the fanciful imaginings of an artist. A very disturbed artist.

  With a fingertip absently following the blurred lines of a grotesque creature she hoped wasn’t real, Nessa asked, “What is this book?”

  It’s a grimoire, Aoife said breathlessly. An old and powerful one, I'm willing to bet, because of its age.

  “A grimoire,” Nessa murmured, turning another page. “A spellbook?”

  In a broad sense of the word, I suppose you could call it that. Anyone can buy a spellbook. A handful might even be able to get a few of the spells to work. But a grimoire, Aoife’s eyes twinkled with excitement, is so much more than just a book of spells. It’s an heirloom, passed down from generation to generation within a family of spell users. The things mentioned in this book will be unknown to all but those whose lineage it belongs to. Its secrets are for one family alone to know.

  “Secret spells, hey? How very intriguing.”

  Not just spells, but knowledge too. The more knowledge you have, the more power you gain.

  “Oh, the whole ‘knowledge is power’ thing.” Nessa tapped a drawing of a monster made of shadows and darkness. “And what power will I gain by knowing about that, whatever that is?”

  To avoid it.

  “Are you saying that’s real?” Alarmed, Nessa looked closer at the illustration, taking in the broken, jagged teeth, and the eyes that looked as if they burned with fire. “What is it?”

  I’d presume it’s real, Aoife said, given that it has a name and what I presume are the means of summoning it.

  “Name?” Nessa queried, squinting at the long title written across the top of the page in an inelegant scrawl. “That’s its name? How do you even pronounce that?”

  That’s not important right now, Aoife said, urging Nessa to turn the page. See how passages have been scribbled out and rewritten, and how people have added their own notes and advice? This is a glimpse into a world which few can only dream of seeing.

  “And now we get to see all of it. You know, before sharing it with Hunter and Orm soon.”

  Girl and dragon gazed at each other.

  Given the rather unique position we’ve found ourselves in, Aoife said slowly, carefully, I think we should extend our allotted time alone with the book. We wouldn’t want to rush into anything that might have adverse consequences.

  “No, we wouldn’t want to rush,” Nessa murmured in agreement. “And given the size of the book, it may take us quite some time to go through everything thoroughly. It has some heft to it.”

  A fair bit of heft, by the look of things.

  “And given Orm’s current eye-gouging mood towards a certain all-powerful king, we wouldn’t want him to get his hands on a grimoire and start getting any more foolhardy ideas.”

  We certainly wouldn’t want that.

  “It’s really for Orm’s own safety that we should keep the grimoire a secret for a while longer.”

  Aoife and Nessa nodded in harmony, both of them satisfied that they had argued their reasoning quite soundly, and felt marginally confident that keeping the grimoire to themselves wasn’t a selfish move in the least. In fact, they felt that it was very unselfish of them, keeping a friend safe from his own homicidal tendencies.

  Anyway, Aoife whispered in an afterthought, her eyes riveted on the grimoire, they’ve kept things from you, so why shouldn’t you keep something from them?

  Nessa frowned and went to turn to Aoife. What do you mean by that?

  A loose page fluttered free from the book, captured in an autumn breeze. Nessa caught it before it had a chance to get far, and peered down at it, her question abruptly forgotten as curiosity crept up on her.

  The page was, perhaps, judging by the state of it, from the oldest section of the grimoire, torn free from its bindings long ago. The paper was unusually thick, which was probably the only reason that it had survived the level of abuse it had endured. The edges were velvety soft, frayed almost, by centuries of people running their fingers over them, and the corners were rounded, the rips and tears created too long ago for them to still be crisp. Most of the text was faded beyond the point of legibility, especially in the low sunlight of encroaching dusk. What wasn’t faded was concealed beneath a dark-reddish-brown stain that left much of the page badly wrinkled.

  What’s written there? Aoife asked. Can you tell?

  Nessa held the ruined page as close to the fire as she dared, not wanting to accidentally set it alight as someone had clearly done in the past. The small singed hole in the top right-hand corner was evidence to that. Nessa’s guess was that someone had held it too close to a candle flame once.

  The flickering firelight helped her to see, but not by much.

  “It’s hard to tell, but I think it’s a family tree.”

  It must be the family to which the grimoire belonged.

  “Do you think so?” Nessa began flicking through the book, searching. “It was loose, so it could have come from anywhere.”

  Maybe, maybe not. We’ll see.

  It wasn’t until they were at the back of the book did they find that a small section was missing; a few pages had gone astray. The binding was shredded, a few strands of thread hanging free from the yellowed glue, evidence that they had been torn from the book. A small sliver of one page still remained, the edge ripped jaggedly. Speckles of a brownish mark peppered the surface, similar to that on the family tree. Nessa brought the pages together, trying to match the torn edges. Whilst they didn’t correspond perfectly, Nessa felt more confident that the family tree did belong in the grimoire and hadn’t been added accidently.

  “It looks like it probably came from this part,” Nessa concluded, trying to smooth out some of the page’s wrinkles.

  So it does.

  “I can just about make out the last couple of names.”

  They’ll be the last few generations, right?

  “Right.”

  Nessa’s eyes scanned over the bottom of the page, where the text was more legible, the black ink fresher, more vivid, not quite drowned out by the stain. One name stood out to her, ringing loud and clear like a peal of a dainty bell.

  Ysandre.

  Mouthing the name silently, Nessa traced the letters with a fingertip, almost in reverence, like there was a mysterious tie connecting the two of them together.

  Aoife’s gaze was locked onto Nessa’s finger, her violet eyes strangely bright.

  An unusual name, Ysandre, Aoife mused.

  “There’s something about it,” Nessa whispered.

  I know, Aoife murmured, I can feel it too. There’s a strange form of familiarity about it, a hidden bond linking the three of us somehow.

  “But what kind of bond, I wonder?”

  One that we’ll have to puzzle out later, Aoife said with a sigh. Hunter
and Orm are nearing.

  Surprised that they were returning so soon, Nessa hastily flipped the grimoire shut and looked around, searching for a place to stash the book. It was only then that she noticed the sun had long since dropped beneath the horizon and that the woods around her were only illuminated by moon and firelight.

  Nessa quickly came to realise that she and Aoife had been looking through the grimoire for hours without knowing it.

  Chapter 20

  Nessa and the chestnut-coloured horse stared at each other with hesitation and uncertainty. Neither knew what to make of the other, or indeed, what to do next. The horse, which apparently went by the name Bryan, was saddled, his reins held by an expectant Orm. Eyeing the gap between the ground and the stirrup, Nessa tried to figure out how she could get onto the saddle without making a complete fool of herself.

  “Are you sure I’ve ridden a horse before?” Nessa asked. “Because I’m having some serious doubts.”

  “Of course you’ve ridden a horse before,” Orm laughed. “Why would we make up such a thing?”

  Nessa shrugged. “I’m not sure about the reasons behind half the things you say or do.”

  “You’ve ridden before,” Orm chuckled, taking another drag from his peculiarly flaky cigar, making the tip flare green.

  Hunter, already perched on his horse’s back, sitting with such ease that it was clear to Nessa that he was no stranger to riding, glared down at his friend with disapproval.

  “You’ve ridden a horse before.” Hunter turned to Nessa with a curiously tight smile. “It’s just been a while, that’s all. All you need to do is get on up there, and good, old Bryan will do all the hard work for you.”

  “Hard work?” Nessa scoffed. “I don’t think poor, old Bryan here as done such a thing in years.”

  Bryan snorted lazily, as if in agreement.

  Hunter waved a hand, batting away her words. “That means the old chap has plenty of energy saved up.”

  “Bryan looks like he’s falling asleep,” Nessa remarked.

  “He isn’t falling asleep. No, wait. Maybe he is.” Hunter scowled at the horse. “Bloody animal. No wonder he was free when we bought the others.”