A Lair of Bones

by Helen Scheuerer

  ‘Savalise Vinnet.’ A tall, pretty fledgling glided forward, dipped her talon in what must have been an inkpot and signed.

  Roh recognised the next name – Arcelia Bellfast – and craned her neck to see her old lessons master move to the front to sign her name. Though Tutor Bellfast had always been hard on her, Roh had admired her, and despite failing miserably at producing a single note of her deathsong, she had always strived to impress her.

  Cyrens by the names of Zokez Rasaat, Darden Crezat and Miriald Montalle followed. They all did as they were told without flourish or fanfare. Roh decided she respected that approach far more.

  ‘Estin Ruhne.’ Not even Elder Colter’s gravelly drawl could dull the importance of that name. Roh held her breath as the renowned bone architect broke away from the other competitors and approached the Council of Elders with a low bow. Roh stared after her. It had been Estin Ruhne’s designs that had first ignited her passion for architecture. Roh had even reviewed some of Estin’s earlier work with Ames, not that the famous architect would know it. Holy gods, Roh gushed to herself, only tearing her eyes away from the cyren as she found her place once more in the group.

  ‘Neith.’ There was an immediate change in the atmosphere as Elder Colter started on the lowborns, the competitors whose birth status warranted only one name, not two. They lacked the honour of a family name, showing the lair that they belonged to no one.

  Her shaking limbs clearly evident, Neith went to the table to sign, forgetting to bow to the council and only remembering after her signature was scrawled across the parchment. She gave a messy curtsy and Roh cringed inwardly; she’d never known cyrens to curtsy on any occasion. Neith practically ran back to the group, like a terrified mouse fleeing the pursuit of a viper, only to realise it had been herded into a nest.

  Finn Haertel and Zokez Rasaat mimicked Neith’s failed curtsy. The sound of their stifled laughter flooded Roh’s cheeks with heat.

  A kitchen hand by the name of Ferron and a cleaner named Lillas were called, and before Roh knew it …

  ‘Rohesia.’

  Forgetting Neith and the others, she tried to hold her chin high as she approached the council, but every pair of eyes went straight to the gold glinting around her head. She was not just a lowborn here; she was the offspring of a criminal. She only prayed they didn’t know which criminal. She felt their stares like a brand on the back of her neck as she bowed to the elders. Inwardly, she warred with herself, pitting the part of her that wanted to remain invisible to these cyrens, hidden away in the Lower Sector, against the part of her that wanted to rule over them, to be the most powerful cyren in all of Talon’s Reach. When she reached the table, the sheer number of pages in the contract made her stomach squirm. But … no one else had read through them, no one else had so much as glanced at the terms outlined beneath the list of names. She wouldn’t be the outlier of the group. Not this soon. Making a quick decision, she dipped her talon into the inkpot and signed her name, trying not to wince at her messy scrawl compared to the numerous lines of florid penmanship above. As she withdrew from the parchment, she managed to smudge her name, and she silently berated herself as she returned to the competitors.

  ‘Thank you,’ Elder Colter said blandly. ‘Now …’ He turned, drawing their attention back to the covered structure in the centre of the platform. ‘There is one more element to Her Majesty’s Tournament.’

  ‘Gods,’ Neith murmured beside Roh, loud enough that a few heads turned.

  Roh fought the urge to reprimand the water runner; the last thing they wanted was to publicly disrespect the council. Instead, she kept her eyes ahead, hands clasped together tightly. From the tales Ames had told her and the others, she knew that whatever lay beneath the fabric would not be good news for her. Is it some sort of torture device? A beast we have to battle? A weapon we must wield —

  With a flash of his long talons, Elder Colter reached for the cloth and pulled.

  Roh was hemmed in by the silence; trapped by the force, the heaviness of it as she stared at the monstrosity that had just been revealed: a cage. Not just any cage, but the cage of bones she herself had helped design.

  And inside it were humans. Live humans.

  She could practically smell their terror. No doubt they had been told stories of Saddorien cyrens’ cruelty, just as she had been told tales of humankind’s weakness. From her lessons on the Age of Chaos wars, she knew humans bore a resemblance to cyrens, but had swapped delicate scales and fierce talons for blandness and fragility. She started to count, if only to get her mind working again. Silently, she worked through the huddle of bodies, ignoring the eyes staring back, wide with horror. There were twelve of them. Each clutching a piece of timber with a number carved into it. Each bearing the marks of struggle: torn clothes, bruises blooming across sallow skin, bloodied lips and missing shoes. Roh forced herself to exhale steadily through her nose as she took in their varying ages and sizes. Humans, alive in Saddoriel. What is the council playing at? The only humans allowed in Saddoriel were the musicians the Jaktaren captured, those whose music filled the lair.

  Roh trained her gaze on the levers of the cage, wanting to extract herself from the reality before her. She noted that her changes had been implemented, more bones added. I probably cleaned some of those myself, she thought, dazed as she took in the gleaming ivory.

  ‘You will each be assigned a human,’ Elder Colter announced, his drawl tearing through the quiet. ‘Throughout the tournament, you must keep them alive. Your human will be your constant companion. If they die on your watch, you will be disqualified. If they are injured, you will be disqualified. If they are misplaced, you will be disqualified. This is the Queen’s Tournament; it is no place for excuses.’

  Lamaka’s heart … Roh wasn’t the only one looking around in disbelief. As if these trials weren’t going to be hard enough, now she had to keep herself and a fragile human in one piece? Roh couldn’t help but steal a glance at the Jaktaren, well aware that their experience in handling humans gave them an unfair advantage. She traced her scar with a short, black talon and waited.

  ‘Each human has been given an enchanted token,’ Elder Colter continued, holding up what looked like a shell necklace. ‘This makes them immune to our deathsongs and the lure of the lair. They are also able to see Saddoriel for what it truly is, not the enchanted glamour they usually see if they happen to wander down a passage. Each human is given one and only one. Lose it, and they will be at the lair’s mercy. This ongoing task is designed to test your responsibility and your patience throughout the trials. Traits you will need in the unlikely event that you should succeed in this tournament. Should you be eliminated or killed, your human’s token will be taken and they will be turned out into the passages of the lair. Should they find their way out of Talon’s Reach, they will have earned their freedom. If not …’

  Elder Colter’s words cast a dark shadow over Roh. Certain death for the humans, then … And yet, against all reason, she willingly took the number six that was pushed into her hand by one of the elders.

  ‘Whatever number you are dealt correlates to one of these humans.’

  The humans looked pitiful, like stray animals caught for the slaughter, trapped inside the cage she’d helped make stronger. A cage made out of their own kind’s bones. The cruelty of it was inherently Saddorien. Roh’s eyes went to the levers she had advised be reinforced … They mocked her now.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ a cold voice sounded. Bloodwyn Haertel approached the cage and crushed the lock in her hand, sending the door swinging inwards. The humans shrank back, or rather, tried to push each other forward. Roh knew from her lessons as a nestling that those actions were to be expected from the weaker species. That in sea battles long past, men had thrown their fellow crew members overboard in hopes of placating the cyrens. They had no cunning, only fear and selfishness.

  ‘For Lamaka’s sake,’ Finn Haertel muttered impatiently, breaking away from the group and entering the
cage.

  One of the humans screamed. The high-pitched shriek echoed up into the stone galleries of the hall, drowning out the notes of music that still danced between them. Finn ignored the cry for mercy as he approached the humans, yanking at their wooden boards and scanning their numbers until he found the man belonging to him. Finn took him by the upper arm without a word and dragged him from the cage.

  All at once, the cyrens around Roh shoved forward, now suddenly eager. Roh pushed her way into the cage with the rest of them and started to scan the terrified faces and the numbers around their necks for her human.

  Number six. A male. He was tall and lean, not much older than Roh herself, by the look of him. Toffee-coloured hair fell over his amber eyes as she approached, and as he pushed it back from his forehead, Roh noted the fingerless gloves covering his large hands. A mottled bruise of blue and green bloomed around his left eye. When she reached him, she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to touch him, and she certainly didn’t want to drag him out as Finn had done. The human didn’t meet her gaze, but seeing the matching number in her hand, seemed to understand it was in his best interests to follow her out.

  The competitors and their humans stood outside the cage now. Roh kept stealing glances at hers; his pulse was jumping in his neck. Her heart sank. Looking around, the other competitors had older, stronger-looking humans. Her eyes snagged on Finn Haertel’s and Yrsa Ward’s – two healthy-looking charges. Typical.

  Roh sought Neith in the crowd then, and was filled with instant gratitude for her own fortune as she spotted the tanned, withered old man at the young water runner’s side. His back was hunched over, as though he needed the support of a staff to walk, and the skin around his eyes and jaw sagged. Was this what it looked like to age? She had never seen the full effects of the process before. It looked awful. In comparison, Ames seemed positively sprightly. Roh’s body sagged with relief; she hadn’t drawn the shortest straw, after all …

  She turned back to her human. ‘I’m Roh,’ she said.

  He shook his head and realisation dawned on her. She was speaking Saddorien. ‘My name is Roh,’ she said in the common tongue of the realms above. His eyes flicked to her in understanding, but he remained silent.

  Roh ground her teeth. Of course, a mute …

  Elder Colter motioned for the competitors to follow him, leaving the rest of the council behind. He led them across another narrow bridge, out through a different exit of the Great Hall and into a vibrant foyer beyond. The Upper Sector residences. Dozens of levels towered above, where cyrens lounged on their balconies, looking down. It was brighter than Roh had ever imagined, and the music … The delicate notes of a fiddle – no, two – danced along her skin, singing to her soul. She took a moment, savouring the sound.

  But Elder Colter did not pause. The open foyer and colourful gardens were a blur to Roh as she followed the group, unable to take in details fast enough: the odd human at her side, the smooth silver-and-bone pulley system, the marble floors, the elaborate torches lining the walls …

  ‘You have one hour to prepare for tonight’s gala,’ the elder was saying, his eyes roaming across Roh and Neith’s dirty tunics and pants. ‘Your presence is mandatory in the Queen’s Conservatory at the twentieth hour.’

  With that he left them, and within moments porters swept in and Roh, with her human in tow, was directed to her quarters. Double doors were opened for her and inside was the most opulent space Roh had ever seen. Her knees buckled as she stepped inside and her rucksack dropped to the floor with a loud thud. The walls were a deep teal colour, and all the furnishings were accented with gold. There were two giant beds with gold lattice headboards and bedside tables with gold clawed feet. A door trimmed with gold foiling led to a bathing chamber beyond. There were gold candle holders and sconces, not to mention the gold-lined plant holders housing rare water ferns. It was … unbelievable.

  The low whistle of breath escaping between her human’s teeth told her he felt the same. But Roh’s hand went to her circlet. Gold … the weakest substance the cyrens possessed. Was it all just an extension of the insult? She flitted between that paranoia and the pangs of guilt in her gut. She had cheated Orson and Harlyn out of experiencing this. If she lost, they might never see such things in all their lives. She wandered around the room, running her talons across the luscious fabrics and valuable furnishings. What she’d done had not been fair. But what did fair matter in a place like this?

  She paused by one of the bedside tables. A place card of sorts had been made. She read the name it displayed in scrawling cursive.

  Odi Arrowood. She looked from the parchment to the human now standing at the window, looking out. ‘What sort of a name is that?’ she muttered, placing the card back on the bedside table.

  She eyed him warily as he reached with his half-gloved hands for the window latch. As he pushed the window outwards, music flooded the room and the chorus of the two fiddles built to a powerful crescendo.

  At last, from across the room, he met her gaze. ‘I know this song,’ he said.

  Chapter Five

  Roh stared at the strange human, all long-limbed and wide-eyed. He stood at the window, leaning out into the melody that drifted from somewhere below, his fingers twitching in time with the music, those ridiculous half-gloves frayed around his hands.

  ‘What do you mean, you know this song?’ Roh demanded in the common tongue.

  Odi’s amber gaze went to her talons and he took a step back from the window, flattening himself against the wall.

  A thrill rushed through Roh. So he should be scared – he was in the heart of Saddoriel, with a cyren as his keeper.

  ‘I mean …’ he stammered. ‘I mean I’ve heard it before.’

  Roh paused, frowning as she listened to the long, mournful notes of the fiddles. The music was a seductive call to her cyren instincts, beckoning the ancient magic within her to escape its confines, to play. She shut it down. ‘Where?’ she asked.

  Odi’s dark brows furrowed. ‘It’s a well-known song, it’s played all over.’

  Just as Roh was about to interrogate him further, there was a knock at the door. Two porters entered, carrying boxes and hangers of clothing. Without a word, they laid out the items on the beds. Roh watched them, unnerved by their silence. She knew they were called porters, but there was no hiding what they really were: servants. Not for the first time, Roh considered the inner workings of Saddoriel, baffled. Here in the Upper Sector residences, they had ‘porters’, but these porters were not lowborn. She had never seen their likes in the Lower Sector. So how did it work? Were there hierarchies within hierarchies? And if so, how did they feel, tending to the likes of her? She shook her head as she closed the door behind them.

  ‘Everything looks different to when I first got here,’ Odi told her.

  ‘How?’

  Odi considered her question and their opulent surroundings. ‘It … it looked like a nightmare. More than just the bones. Everything was so dark and wet.’

  ‘Saddoriel is enchanted to look barren and haunted to outsiders. Cyren rulers have always insisted that the strength and prosperity of our territory remain unknown to the realms above.’

  Odi remained on the far side of the room with his back pressed to the wall. Roh ignored him as she went to the beds to examine what the porters had left. Her fingers found silk – the skirt of a long, flowing dress made in the fashion of the Upper Sector. The fabric slid over her palms as she picked it up; she had never touched something so fine before. There was a jewelled belt to match and a pair of tan leather sandals, just like the nobility wore. She touched the supple leather of the shoes, smelling the high quality, and noting the workmanship that had gone into detailing the straps. Someone had made them with pride. Again, she found herself puzzling over the hierarchy of the lair, wondering where a cordwainer might fit … In the Mid Sector? Or perhaps even the Upper Sector if they supplied the nobles with high-quality products such as these.

 
‘What’s that?’

  Roh nearly jumped, having forgotten the human was there. Suppressing the desire to throttle him, she looked to where he was pointing. A necklace lay on the bed. It was a large piece, created with dozens and dozens of fragments. She lifted it from the quilt, immediately recognising the smooth surface and delicately balanced weight. It was a necklace of bones. It rattled softly in her hands.

  ‘Are they human?’ Odi murmured, crossing the room to examine the jewellery. His face had gone deathly pale. He didn’t take his eyes from the necklace draped between her talons.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Roh told him truthfully. ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘This whole place is made of bones.’

  ‘Some of it,’ Roh corrected, still studying the elaborate piece.

  Odi met her gaze, his amber eyes wary. ‘The bones at the entrance, in the giant archway. Those are human.’

  Roh undid the clasp of the necklace and brought the ends around to the nape of her neck, latching it together, letting the white pieces rest against her own collarbone. How could something so beautiful be so horrifying? ‘Yes,’ she told him. ‘We have a history with your kind.’

  ‘A history?’ Odi scoffed. ‘That’s putting it lightly. Your kind went to war against us. You tried to take every coastline —’

  ‘That,’ Roh spat, scooping up the clothes and turning towards the bathing chamber, ‘was a long time ago.’

  It had been over eight hundred years ago, to be more accurate, during Asros the Conqueror’s reign. Roh and the other fledglings had learned about it in their lessons. Asros had wanted dominion over all seas and coastlines of the realms and had waged war against the humans for decades. After some time, the humans devised talismans to repel the cyrens’ lure, not unlike the token that hung around Odi’s neck now. But more than that, the humans developed contraptions capable of capturing a hundred cyrens at a time. The losses were unfathomable, but even so Asros had pushed on, consumed by greed. Asros had used the bones of the victims of war to build upon Saddoriel and Talon’s Reach. It had become known as the Age of Chaos.