The Bone Witch

by Rin Chupeco

  Lady Hami surveyed me critically for a few seconds. “Return here tomorrow wearing the plain white robes you see and none of your ornamentations. Your mistress will be familiar with my other requirements.”

  There was a commotion outside of the room and a surprised cry. At the same time, I could feel Fox’s presence draw closer, and from our link, I felt something much like consternation on his end.

  Lady Hami led me outside. A group of asha circled a figure on the ground. It was my brother.

  “Incidentally,” Lady Hami continued mildly as Fox pushed himself back up, “your familiar will be allowed to stay and watch during your lessons but will be discouraged from interrupting, as you see here. I understand that the rapport you share means that he feels your distress and would want to act accordingly, but I will not have your training disrupted by these attempts. Do I make myself clear, my good sir?”

  “As crystal.” Had blood still been running through his veins, I was sure Fox would have blushed.

  Six bezoars remained on the table, identical in every way but their colors.

  “What do you intend to do with them?” I asked.

  “I would think it obvious, considering my experiment with the taurvi. This is a bezoar retrieved from the head of an hawklike daeva called the indar.” She picked up a bezoar the color of sapphires; up close, it resembled a fossilized ostrich’s egg. “See how it glitters so? It can detect truth from the lies its holder tells.” She moved down the line, touching each piece as she went. “This emerald stone was taken from a nanghait and can make anything grow on barren soil, exempting only runeberries. This peach-colored bezoar once belonged to a zarich; it can ease hunger and give back strength. Mix the bezoar of a savul into any metal and it will be impenetrable to most weapons. An aeshma’s bezoar is said to heal even mortal wounds. And I’m sure this will be familiar; it is from the same taurvi Lady Mykaela once slew.” The yellow stone glinted its venom at me, promising malice.

  “And this is my greatest achievement.” She held up a large stone, plain and milky white. “The strongest of the daeva, one who can transport you from one place to another faster than even the wind. Its bezoar protects against all runes but the Dark. Such is the power of the azi.

  “Do you want to know what I intend to do with them all? I have seen the toll these creatures have taken on Lady Mykaela through the years. I have seen the deaths they cause, the grief they bring. Whenever a Dark asha raises one from the dead and banishes them to the grave, they only give the land a few years’ peace. They only delay the inevitable. It is a matter of time before there will be too few Dark asha to carry out these tasks. This is what the enemy wants, but few people are willing to change such traditions.” She stepped back to survey her collection.

  “After all,” she mused, “who would deliberately break all eight kingdoms only to save the lives of Dark asha?”

  14

  This was how a typical day went during my time as an apprentice in the Willows of Ankyo:

  I woke up at the same time I had as a maid in the Valerian, when the tower bells rang at six, mostly from habit. Breakfast would not be served until half-past seven, but I took the opportunity to practice the dances I had learned the previous day or study the books I was given to read for my history lessons. Sometimes, if I had nothing else to do, I would sneak downstairs and help either Kana or Farsi with their chores. I knew Mistress Parmina disapproved, but she was never an early riser, and if Lady Shadi knew, she never told. If there was one thing about my new position that I was thankful for, it was the food—instead of the gruel that marked my servant days, I was given Lavash bread and cheese, with jam specially prepared for us by a nearby confectionery. Some days it was marmalade or fig or sour cherry, but my favorite was always quince. I had sweet gooseberry tea with my meal and two runeberry slices.

  Mistress Parmina often woke when I was done, and together with Lady Shadi, we would make a small offering of water and bread to a small shrine set up in the main room we received our guests in before two abstract idols that symbolized Blade that Soars and his lover, Dancing Wind. Mistress Parmina had never shown any inclination for the old gods or for the Great World Spirit or for any of the other major devotions in the months I lived at the Valerian. Lady Shadi explained to me that this was done at every asha-ka regardless of their affiliation, out of tradition and respect for Vernasha, the Willows founder, who had also been a devotee of Dancing Wind.

  After the offering, we went our separate ways. Ula usually arrived after breakfast, and she and Mistress Parmina would retire to her room to sort out the asha-ka’s financial accounts and tally up any expenses and earnings House Valerian took in from the day before. Lady Shadi would leave for the dancing hall to rehearse for upcoming dances. Sometimes she would accompany me to one of the studios whenever she had her own lessons to attend. “We never stop learning,” she said, “and to dance or sing or play an instrument, we must always seek to improve and be better, never too stagnate. Asha will continue to take lessons from instructors throughout the course of their careers, until they become masters themselves or retire. There is always something new to discover every day, no matter how skilled you are.”

  Lady Shadi would know. Though she never boasted of her own merits, she was one of the best dancers in Ankyo and was frequently asked to star in one of the several performances always taking place in the Willows, especially during the spring and early summer when they were common. She was guaranteed a role in the upcoming darashi oyun, the most popular dance in Ankyo, performed during the spring equinox, which is around the same time most kingdoms conduct their heartsglass ceremonies. This was also the dance that Zoya had been envious of Lady Shadi for, the reason she had used me to cause embarrassment to the Valerian.

  My first lesson for the day was my meditation class, where Instructor Kaa taught me breathing exercises designed to soothe any volatile thoughts and focus my mind for the day ahead. She even taught me to temporarily block out Fox’s presence in my head, giving me my first real privacy since raising him. The first time I succeeded, Fox came hammering at the doors of the studio, alarmed, demanding to know if I was all right.

  After my meditation sessions ended, I visited Instructor Merina, who taught me the more refined arts. These included flower arrangements, reading and composing poetry, color coordination, and formal court etiquette.

  My singing lessons came next, which I was terrible at. While my teachers have praised my ear for music, nothing I did helped me modulate my voice to follow the melody I did hear. Instructor Mina was understandably disappointed in me and soon deemed me unsuitable for important singing engagements. But the lessons were a requirement of asha training, and I had to attend her classes anyway. Fortunately, she placed me in a class with other apprentices and made us all sing in chorus, and so my poor attempts at warbling were not as noticeable.

  I returned home for lunch, the heaviest meal of the day. The Valerian had no cooks, and so a nearby restaurant prepared food catered to our tastes. A typical fare may include a savory eggplant and tomato stew they call the bademjan or slices of grilled lamb and beef garnished with onions, lemon juice, and saffron or pomegranate-walnut soup. They were almost always accompanied by rice—sour-lime biryani one day, perhaps fried basmati tahdig or jeweled rice at another—served with nuts and an herb salad. Asha and apprentices do not normally eat large suppers—they believe the feeling of fullness that comes after makes one languid and unable to entertain visitors in their best capacity. I felt bad for Kana and Farhi, who still had to make do with gruel and a bit of fish. But as Lady Shadi ate very little, I secretly gave them what she’d left untouched. I knew what it was like to go hungry. Farhi sometimes refused her portions; I think she didn’t want to be constantly beholden to a group of people her devotion disapproved of. The food never went to waste, for Kana was only too eager to dispose of what Farhi turned down.

  My musical training continued after
lunch, where Instructor Teti taught me how to play the setar, the most basic of the stringed instruments and the most popular choice among asha. I fared better at this than I did at singing and could play the simplest songs after only a month. I also showed some promise with the tar, a drum you held in one hand while beating it with the other.

  My combat training was next, and that was easily the most difficult part of my day. Instructor Hami was a hard taskmaster and gave me no quarter despite my lack of experience. She put me through the most grueling exercises. I had to run the length of the hall several times, made to jump with heavy stones chained to my feet, and pulled myself up thin metal bars that connected one wall to the one across from it. Soon I had a wooden practice sword to call my own, though I wound up getting hit more often than I hit opponents.

  Sometimes Instructor Hami trained us in a group, where we went through a series of fighting forms at her command. It was hard work, and I always felt as limp as a rag when my lessons ended, but I would often stay behind after classes and watch the more experienced novices perform. Dark asha could not use any other runes, but most asha have no limits selecting the kinds of elements they were good at and specializing accordingly.

  Many of the mock fights that took place were educational to watch and almost always entertaining. To the untrained eye, it resembled dancing; some students drew runes with large, overarching gestures; a few kept their movements close to their body, sketching out the symbols in the air in quick succession; some did a combination of both. Fire runes appeared to be the easiest to call among the apprentices, and many a session was interrupted because of a few stray fireballs. Once, an overly enthusiastic student set the whole room on fire, but before anyone else could panic, Instructor Hami whipped up a hand, crooked a finger, and sent a huge wall of water cascading down onto the flames, leaving everyone but her soaked to the bone.

  Despite all the mishaps, I could not help but feel envious. It looked like so much fun!

  My history lessons gave me a short respite from all the hard training. With a dozen other apprentices, I learned more about the geography and politics of not only the eight major kingdoms but also of the city-states of Yadosha and the major cultures and prominent rulers of each. I learned of how the kingdom of Yadosha had once comprised the entire continent, and that bickering among the royal descendants led dissenters to form Odalia and, eventually, Kion. I learned of the Five Great Heroes, the first warriors to confront and successfully defeat daeva. I also learned the Runic language, to recognize the two hundred kinds of runes that asha used for combat and magic.

  Next came my dancing lessons, and they quickly became my favorite part of the day.

  Mistress Parmina had enrolled me in what was called the Vahista school, and Instructor Yasmin was its current head. The Vahista was the first among many already-prestigious academies in Ankyo that specialized in training asha to dance; while some schools did teach outsiders, the Vahista taught only those who could draw runes.

  That I would love dancing was something I never expected. There were slow dances, where every movement was made with exaggerated gravity and every gesture had to be placed just right. There were fast dances, where I had to be agile on my feet, spinning and leaping despite the heaviness of my hua. Most asha learned about two or three hundred dances, while those who sought to master the craft learned at least seven hundred. I loved the way the silk of my robes whispered and rustled every time I moved, the sense of proud accomplishment whenever I finished a difficult routine.

  I loved dancing and fighting, but I didn’t always have the patience I was expected to have when it came to my other lessons. I didn’t always practice and consequently started to let some of my setar playing slide. I was restless when a history lesson went slower than I wanted, and I didn’t pay as much attention to learning the language of flowers. I was able to skip classes once, after a dozen more students had been added to my instructor’s class and my absence was easier to overlook. I used the extra time to practice my sword fighting with Fox, who nonetheless disapproved of my skipping class and told me rather pointedly not to do that again.

  “I’m here to fight daeva. Why do I need to learn everything else?” I demanded.

  “Duty means doing something not because you like it but because you’re supposed to,” he reminded me. “You chose to be an asha. That means doing everything that comes with it.”

  It was hard to argue with Fox; the disappointment I could feel through our bond was enough to make me cry.

  Before arriving home from my lessons, I would always take a walk with my brother, and I would tell him about my day. We would first visit Chesh’s zivar shop and browse, also an excuse to visit Likh, with whom I had quickly formed a close friendship. Then we would take a walk around the marketplace in Ankyo, and we would purchase a few snacks to eat, such as feta cheese drizzled in a spicy sauce or salty watermelon seeds or crunchy carrot and zucchini slices we could eat with chickpea dip. Fox was evasive when I asked him about his day and would only say that Instructor Hami had been assisting him in training as well. But when he showed up one day sporting fresh cuts on his arms, I couldn’t wait.

  “Have you been getting into fights?” I demanded. “Are you doing something illegal? Don’t make me look into that stubborn head of yours!”

  Fox laughed and raised his hands. “I’m not doing anything the asha haven’t approved. It’s combat training with army soldiers, Tea. You can’t expect me to get out of every fight blemish free.”

  “But your wounds aren’t healing!”

  “I don’t feel the pain, and I don’t bleed. Another perk of being dead.”

  My brother wasn’t taking it seriously, so I tried appealing to Lady Mykaela. “There is a remedy for Fox’s physical injuries,” she told me gently, “but you are both not yet ready for it. When the time comes, I will teach you myself. Trust me, Tea.”

  I did, so I grudgingly acquiesced.

  It was a foolish thing to hope for and unrealistic given my circumstances, but I always kept hoping to run into Prince Kance, though I never did. I had not seen him since my mishap at the Falling Leaf, and I’d been wanting to find him and apologize, even if I knew I was using this as an excuse for something else. But the prince did not return to Kion, and I forced myself to abandon such unreasonable hopes.

  It was late in the afternoon by the time I arrived back home, and I would often lock myself in my room and practice the dances I had learned that day until supper was ready—usually a savory stew and bread and some yogurt sweetened with honey. I studied my lessons, practiced both my combat and dance training, and went to bed early to begin the cycle all over again the next day.

  • • •

  “Out with it, Likh.”

  “What do you mean?” Fox and I had brought along some sweetly chilled paloodeh as a gift for Likh. Clients were few at this time of day, and Chesh was kind enough to give him a half-hour break. We three made a strange sight, sitting on the side stairway, watching the long row of stores and the different customers who trooped in and out of the shops, browsing and bargaining. Likh looked tired. He was noticeably thinner and only picked at his food.

  “There’s something wrong with this.” I reached over and tapped at his heartsglass, which stuttered between red and pink.

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

  “I may not be an asha yet, but I know heartsglass. I am good at reading heartsglass, even when you do your best to hide it under your shirt whenever we meet. And yours don’t make sense.”

  Now he looked nervous. “I have the same heartsglass as everyone else.”

  “No you don’t, and that’s my point. I thought there was something unusual when we first met, but I didn’t think much about it. But your heartsglass repeats that same rhythm over and over again regardless of what you’re really feeling. It’s not natural. No other human heartsglass does that. What is it?”
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  “Tea,” Fox interjected. “This is a personal matter.”

  “No, it isn’t. You don’t have a life-threatening condition I’m aware of. You’re nervous and worried, but your heartsglass never changes color to reflect that. I don’t know how else to explain it—unless you’re not human at all.”

  “I’m as human as you and Fox! Well, maybe not Fox…”

  “Thanks,” my brother said.

  “Then what’s wrong? Likh, you know you can trust us.”

  “Fine.” The boy took a deep breath. “I’ll tell you.” He turned so that his back faced the street and removed one of the pins in his hair. His heartsglass changed immediately—into a brilliant silver sheen.

  “Likh!” I gaped. “You’re a—you’re a—”

  “I can draw runes,” Likh said bitterly. “And you know what that means. Nobody knows because no one really looks at a shop’s assistant, but when my Heartsrune day arrives next year, they’ll find out. I’ll be forced to become a Deathseeker.”

  “You can’t,” Fox said, alarmed. “It’s a hard life. You’re lucky they haven’t found you yet, or you’d be at a training camp by now.”

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  “Does Mistress Chesh know?”

  “Yes, this was her idea. But she can’t do anything about it. It’s the rules.”

  “Why not be an asha?”

  “I’d want that more than anything.” Tears rolled down his face. “But you know I can’t be one. I’m the wrong—well, I’m the wrong everything for it. Just not where it counts most.”

  I felt terrible for him. Likh was easily more beautiful than many other asha I’d seen. He was light on his feet and graceful. I also knew that he would not be able to survive Deathseeker training. He would make an exceptional dancer if only…

  “Why not?”

  It was Likh’s turn to stare at me. “Why not what?”