The Bone Roses

by Kathryn Lee Martin

  It envelops the tin cup’s rim and wipes completely around it a few times. Flipping my wrist over to the sleeve side that nothing touched yet, I dip it into the water until it soaks up enough to wet the material.

  I wipe the rim again a few times before I’m sure the cup is safe to drink from. It shakes, spilling a little bit over its dented rim before touching my chapped lips. Lukewarm water pours over my tongue and soothes my parched throat.

  Colton opens his mouth and holds up a finger. His brow furrows in a mixture of surprise and soldier intrigue. “Where did you learn to do that?”

  I finish the water and set the cup back down, offering only a challenging glare despite the headache.

  “Fine, don’t tell me.” He reaches back into the cage and retrieves the cup. More water pours into it. “But don’t you dare let Henny know you’re that smart.”

  My eyes follow the bone roses.

  “Traitor.” I manage to slur the word after emptying the cup again.

  “Really? I don’t see it that way. Just because you’re stuck in an enemy cage, bruised and beaten up does not mean I broke any promises or even betrayed you.”

  “I was struck down in my own house.” My voice rasps. And you stole from me.

  He grimaces. “Aye, yes, about that. I really tried to prevent them from hitting you. Didn’t go so well, obviously, mostly because you’re so damn wild, but they didn’t have much choice. They wanted to shoot you.”

  “You kidnapped me.”

  “But you’re not dead,” he says as if kidnapping young blued-eyed girls is no big deal. “Or stuck in Rondo. Bruised up, yes. Angry. I’d be surprised if you weren’t. But if you’ll just listen to me for a second . . .”

  I curl my lip into a snarl. The tin cup sweeps into the mesh.

  “Where are they?”

  He closes the door, hiding behind it like a coward. “Don’t snarl at me. I didn’t order Rondo under martial law ahead of schedule. Hunter did that.”

  “What happened to my family?” I lunge for the chicken-wire mesh. With God as my witness if they’re dead, I’ll hunt down every last K. C. member until there’s no one left in the Kingdom to hurt anyone else.

  Our eyes meet across the wire battlefield.

  “How much are you willing to risk to find out?” He snaps the bone roses against his palm, fingers hiding them like a one of those shifty Hydra street magicians. “After all, you were willing to take a hell of a beating back at that house to save them from Lawrence, who got the worst of your wrath just so you know. I wonder how far you’re really willing to go to keep them all alive and save them from purification.”

  The shaking gets worse. Rage flares alongside the pain. Wire mesh bends but doesn’t break.

  He gives the bone roses an arrogant look not too unlike Henny. The lock engages with a sinister click and the look in his eyes is downright terrifying, reminding me that he is part of their side, not ours. How could I be so foolish?

  “W-what do you want from me?”

  “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours, Frost Flea. I’ll make you a deal you’ll like even better—time to get your family out of Rondo alive before it’s purified. Of course, I could always just leave you in that cage too and let you be skinned alive before the cheering traitors who turned to Hyperion in Rondo.”

  “Don’t hurt them.” I stop short of pleading. “Please. I’ll do what you want, just please let them live.” Tears sting my eyes, longing for my family’s safety, while terror battles deep within at the thought of dying like those people in Hydra.

  Colton smirks. “Even before the farmhouse, I knew you were a soft one, Frost Flea. See? I’m not all that bad now and really am on your side, even if you think otherwise. Besides, I’m curious myself on how great Rondo’s rustlers really are when it comes to showing off their escape skills.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I cling to the mesh, feeling terrible. “Why would you help me?”

  “I’m a negotiator, not a soldier. Let’s just say that Henny and I can’t dirty our own hands on personal matters regarding Hunter while Hyperion is watching. But a rustler trying to save her condemned family, however . . . Now that’s a broadcast. And with the entire Kingdom listening to Rondo’s purification, imagine what could happen if you actually succeeded.”

  He winks and holds up my rustling satchel. “Not that you’ll succeed, but I believe everyone gets a choice in the matter and while I know Henny wouldn’t approve, you’ve certainly convinced me that if anyone deserves that foolish chance, it’s you.”

  I close my eyes and feel the cold gnawing at me. Damn him. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

  “Nice to know you’re onboard. Henny will be pissed, but you let me worry about that. After all, I find it admirable that Rondo’s rustler is willing to trade herself for her family.”

  Before I can say another word, he’s gone, leaving only frigid snowflakes swirling across the floor as he steps into the cold.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “The truth hurts, doesn’t it, Ragamuffin.” I look up with a start to find Henny standing with his arms crossed and an arrogant “I told you so” smirk about him. Snow dusts his long blond hair and cinnamon flight jacket. His amber eyes cut straight through the chicken-wire barrier.

  My fingers tighten around it. He’s right there, and I can’t reach him.

  “What’s the matter? Matthew forget to mention he’s one of us? That he carried a rifle just like this one once.” He sweeps his ebony Damascus from the floor and holds it, making sure I see the elaborate golden vines.

  I growl.

  “You’re a lot like him.” The sly words taunt as he moves eye level with me. “Rebellious, angry, thinking you can change your fate—a murderer just like us.”

  The word’s barbed tone lashes harder than a whip ever could.

  Don’t show weakness. Don’t let him get to you. Stand your ground. He’s the murderer here.

  “Not so strong now, are you, Ragamuffin. Locked in a cage like a common stray. Barely able to move. Hungry. Cold. Scared.”

  I grit my teeth at the rifle in his hands. “I’m not scared.”

  “Bold words but you don’t even believe them. I see it in your eyes. That anger struggling to mask the terror.” He holds the rifle up until the barrel levels between my eyes.

  I swallow and try to control the shaking. My heart races. His finger rests against the trigger. Sweat dampens my brow. I watch the barrel and struggle to move to the man behind it.

  “I-if you’re gonna shoot, then shoot.” I hold my head higher in anticipation of the bullet that will kill me and don’t look away. If I must die tonight, I will not give him the satisfaction of screaming and pleading for my life like other rustlers.

  The rifle barrel lowers and he steps closer, nose almost touching mine through the wire mesh. His eyes capture mine as if I’m foreign territory for him to conquer. He presses a gloved hand against the mesh. The overpowering scents of hickory and lavender invade the cage around me.

  “That wouldn’t be good enough for you,” his soft voice purrs. “After all, our dear Matthew knew the true value of the Kingdom’s rarest treasures better than even its miserable excuse for a king.”

  Chills sweep through me and fuel the shivers.

  “Even if they’re tarnished by lies.” His fingers overshadow mine, calfskin pressing against bare flesh and steadying my hand. “I can let you out of that cage, Ragamuffin. Give you something to eat, a place to sleep. Maybe if you behave, even a chance for revenge on the one who took our dear, lying little brother away from us.”

  “I’ll fight you right here and now you son of a bitch.” And I’ll make sure I win too.

  Henny scoffs. “It isn’t wise to bite the hand that just offered you a small chance at freedom.”

  “It’s not smart to lie to a rustler either, murderer.” I bare my teeth and challenge his leering eyes.

  “Murderer.” He offers a frown and the word seems to touch a nerve. “The only mu
rder I’m guilty of is one that hasn’t happened yet.”

  The blood in the snow. A horrified, scared look across Matthew’s dying hazel eyes.

  “Liar. You shot and killed him. Two bullets. He suffered because of you.”

  His teeth bare to rival mine. “I wouldn’t need two bullets to kill someone.”

  “You did Sunday.”

  The wire mesh rattles. He pins my hand harder with his own, feral rage in those amber eyes. Several strands of perfect blond hair hang loose down his pale face. If there wasn’t a barrier between us we’d finish this once and for all.

  “I fired no such shots.”

  “Tell that to your supposed brother.” The rifle in his hands catches the lantern light across its beautiful, lethal, polished stock.

  Hostility flares like the sparks from Rondo’s burning square yesterday morning.

  “I advise you not to cast blame without proof, Ragamuffin.” He drives my fingers into the mesh. Blood oozes over the metal. “Because you have no idea how wrong you are. There are a lot of twisted people in Rondo who would enjoy hearing your screams as this cage burns with you in it when we purify that miserable excuse for a settlement this morning, so think very carefully before you accuse.”

  This morning? How long have I been out? I shift my knees against the straw under me. Bales of the stuff. Enough here to make sure I never have the chance to even consider escape before those flames would turn this cage into a hellish inferno.

  “Consider yourself fortunate that I am more merciful than Hyperion could ever hope to be. And more forgiving than I should be.” He pulls his hand away and turns with a sharp look into my eyes. “I’m giving you one last chance to consider my offer to surrender and join us. And unlike that little stunt you pulled in the square, there is no retreat from Hyperion’s wrath this time. Everyone you know and love will die. Consider your own execution imminent unless I give Hyperion one good reason to spare your life. Think wisely before you choose your side.”

  I sit, the cage’s ceiling less than a few inches above my head, frozen, as he swings the Damascus over his shoulder with the same finesse he had when he first rode into Rondo. His amber eyes linger on me and I see a terrifying, defensive wrath overpower the arrogance like this is all a sick game he’s controlling and has already won.

  Your move, Ragamuffin.

  I throw my trembling body against the wire mesh again and again. The steel bracings quiver but a solid wooden frame absorbs the force and doesn’t budge. My shoulder rams the frame again. Bruises form across my shoulder and the wound from Henny’s rifle they reapplied bandages to sometime while I was out of it.

  Come on. Break damn you. The wood holds fast, if not increases in strength.

  I need to get back to Rondo. If Henny beats me to that settlement, they don’t stand a chance.

  It’s already lost, my inner rustler says. The K. C. have taken it.

  “No,” I whisper and draw back, sinking onto the cotton sheet, quivering and panting. “I can still save them.”

  Time means nothing. No way to measure it. No way to know how much has really passed. Minutes? Hours? Maybe even nothing at all since Henny strode back into the cold and hasn’t come back.

  Quiet surrounds the rippling tent as a sinister wind touches it. The pointed canvas ceiling sags under the snow’s weight. I shudder at the possibility of it caving in.

  Focus, the rustler in me warns. My hands test every inch of the mesh, struggling to find a weakness in the high-quality metal. Whoever built this put some thought into it. I can’t even find where the mesh attaches let alone how to break it.

  The lock is well protected too. Hidden somewhere above me, and while my fingers are thin enough to slip through the honeycomb mesh, I can’t get my whole hand through enough to even take a shot at picking it.

  Darkness lurks beyond the tent flap and for the first time I’m glad it’s there. Darkness means hope and so long as that hope doesn’t leave, Rondo still stands.

  The heater flickers, mocking my efforts. I cast it a weary glare and plant both hands on the sheet, exhaustion reminding me that I’m not exactly in great shape right now. Hunter did a number on me back at the farmhouse and the K. C. made it worse.

  Hunter . . .

  Hot rage sweeps through my veins. I lean against the mesh, pressing a cheek against its chilled surface and let hot, bitter tears fall. How could I let this happen?

  I’m a rustler damn it. It’s my job to protect them, and now I’m in a cage I can’t even break because it’s too damn strong. Like the shackles from the pens. Those were impossible to break.

  I fold my knees to my chest and wrap both bruised and stiff arms around them, burrowing my head against the buckskin.

  A shrill, airy whine from a violin joins my muffled cries. At first it seeps at a distance, crawling into the tent and settling around the mesh before washing back into the cold in a long, drawn out, deep exhale. The strange, high, sawing sound drifts up and down in a long, slow series, as someone draws a bow across phantom strings.

  Back and forth. Rising and dipping before dropping in a somber, eerie weeping that sweeps across the tent.

  I close my eyes and see the gully as it once was. The gentle flowing stream. The beautiful twisted roots from millows curving down around walking deer, each hoof breaking the snow on their gentle migration westward.

  Snow falls around the haunting, beautiful, sad sound caressing my raw, feral soul. My falling tears join the falling snow and I see Rondo. Not the battered and broken settlement with a burning square and trampled bodies but a stout, strong, resilient, little wilderness town that put up one hell of a fight against the Kingdom.

  Our farmhouse stands in the snow and my family with it. Frank lovingly tosses a snowball at Sadie, who adjusts her shawl and returns fire. Tracker and Jericho laugh from the cottage porch. Addison leans over his cane while Nigel kicks his heels up in the snow and tries to get Tamblin and Jacobus to join him.

  Matthew takes my hand and leads me to the dead willow. A shrill note drifts through the branches and weaves around us. He gently brings my hand up to the bark. His fingers brush the rough surface and the stripped section where the stag peeled the bark away.

  I trace the words carved deep into the trunk. The sound ripples along each letter until it reaches the first one and drops in a soft free fall before sawing back and forth in a slower note to match the powdery snow.

  Deny all knowledge, but leave no one behind. Never.

  My eyes drift away from the fragile words and to Matthew. He smiles and fades away on a receding note, replaced by the large silvery-white stag with dark-blue eyes.

  He stares into my brighter eyes so close I can almost touch him. The music rises and falls in shorter notes with the soft breeze stirring his mane. He turns and looks back at my family and back to me before bobbing his head and turning away.

  Shrill cries from the instrument sweep the snow high around him but he doesn’t bolt away. Instead he flexes his neck to look at me in a soft cue to follow.

  I step into the elegant sound. My eyes ease open to find myself back in the cage, fingertips ghosting the wire mesh just over my head where the words on the tree were seconds ago.

  Colton’s hands move away from my rustling satchel and he brings a finger to his lips in a gesture to keep quiet.

  The notes linger, each growing longer and repeating the verses. They pull back and shrill upward before fading on somber cries as if whoever is playing them is wracked with the same hopelessness and sorrow over a loss of their own.

  He drifts across the plywood floor in perfect time to the weeping notes until reaching the cage door. A sense of sadness lingers in the once devious smile. The cherrywood Damascus hangs over his shoulder along with his walnut recurve crossbow.

  A small bronze key slips into a metal lock just above the mesh. Even the invisible creak of the cage door swinging open can’t break the musician’s lament.

  Colton steps away and winks. Our little secr
et, the look says as he nods to the table.

  I grip the wooden frame with one hand and ease one unsteady leg from the cage. Both feet splay like a wobbly fawn. I draw a sharp breath and test each step before letting go of the cage.

  I’m out of that cage. He let me out. He actually unlocked that cage as part of his end of the deal.

  What are you waiting for? Those alluring eyes dart to the table. Let’s go.

  Nothing good ever comes from being released by the enemy. For all I know he’s going to march me to my death in the middle of this elaborate base and betray me again. It’s a risk I have to take right now.

  I grab the bone roses from his hands and hug them to my chest.

  A smile crosses his face and he tosses my wolfskin satchel to me. I loosen the rawhide drawstrings and peer inside, seeing my tin snips, Jericho’s hunting knife, and my other raiding supplies still accounted for.

  Tightening those rawhide strings and knotting them in place hasn’t felt this comforting in a long time. I grab my singed buckskin jacket and slip it over my shoulders before slipping my goatskin gloves on. The satchel swings over my shoulder and for a moment it feels like I’m raiding an established Kingdom base and not one I have almost no chance in hell of actually escaping.

  Colton holds out the cherrywood Damascus to me with a stern, warning look that says shooting anyone in this base is off-limits, but outside of it, fair game. I accept it and swing it over my shoulder. Let’s do this.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Pulling back the tent flap unveils a foreign world unlike even Fort Angelus. Canvas, A-framed tents take the place of cement and metal structures. They stretch, pole to pole, in both directions under what fragile light several hanging lanterns offer.

  I look left and then right. The trampled snow signals that soldiers marched through here within the last half hour. Not far from them, tire tracks hide under a crisp, new coat of snow.

  No guards. Of course there wouldn’t be guards. Henny doesn’t need them by his tent no matter how dangerous someone like me can be. The cage really was good enough. That or they’re already holding down Rondo . . .