The Bone Maker

by Sarah Beth Durst

  Some of the words were guesswork, albeit based on years of research and experience. None of it had been tested, though.

  She held her breath, ignoring the pain in her hand and arm, and watched as her finger dissolved into Zera’s body. Her blood stained Zera’s nightshirt, the only trace left behind.

  Then Kreya felt the venom flood her body, darkening her sight.

  Before she plunged into pure darkness, she called out to Jentt, “She will wake!” She meant to add, And so will I, but she couldn’t be certain her mouth had formed the words before she lost all grip on the world.

  “I hate you,” Kreya heard Zera say.

  Eyes still closed, Kreya smiled.

  “Hah, you’re awake. Knew it.” Raising her voice, Zera called, “Jentt, she’s awake! Just faking it now to mess with us.” Her voice sounded brittle.

  Squinting, Kreya tried to open her eyes. Sunlight stabbed them, and she closed them again. She’d seen enough to know a figure loomed over her, probably Zera, which meant she wasn’t dead. “It worked,” Kreya croaked.

  “If you mean you almost killed yourself, then yes, it worked.”

  “You’re alive.”

  “I know I’m supposed to say thank you,” Zera said, “but I’m too pissed at you. There was no guarantee you’d survive the venom a second time. You were unconscious for days. Again. Idiot. Selfish, stubborn idiot.”

  Her hand didn’t hurt, she noticed. Someone must have stitched up her wound and bound it properly. Her body felt like it had been flattened with an enormous rolling pin, but she could feel it, which had to be a good sign. “You’re welcome.”

  She heard footsteps nearby and cracked her eyes open again. Zera was beside her, in a chair, and Jentt now filled the doorway. She managed a smile at him. “Are you going to yell at me too?” She was aware the question sounded pathetic.

  “No,” he said.

  But he didn’t come closer than the doorway.

  “You’re angry.” It wasn’t a guess. It was an obvious fact. “I’m sorry I risked myself, but Zera was on the brink of death, and I knew—”

  “You didn’t even wake me. Much less talk to me first.”

  That was true. But she’d been afraid of what he’d say, that he’d try to talk her out of it. Not talking it over first allowed her to be brave. “I thought you’d tell me not to do it.”

  “I could have helped you,” he said. “Instead I woke to you bleeding and unconscious. And missing—” He sucked in air as if trying to compose himself. “You used my knife, and you didn’t wake me. We’re supposed to be a team, Kreya. All of us, remember?”

  She closed her eyes, not wanting to see the pain in his face.

  “I know you’ve been on your own for a long time, but I’m here now—”

  “And that means I could lose you again.” She opened her eyes, looked at Jentt, and then looked at Zera. “I could lose all of you. Nearly did. I can’t bear that.”

  “And what if we lost you?”

  “I—”

  Amazingly, it wasn’t something she’d ever thought about.

  Zera patted her hand, the one that still had all five fingers. “I love you too, idiot.” Leaning over, she kissed Kreya’s forehead. “Get some more rest.”

  She left the room, and Jentt stepped back to allow her to pass. He lingered in the doorway for a while, looking as if he had more to say but pressing his lips together so he wouldn’t say it.

  Exhaustion pulled on all of her muscles like a heavy weight. “Do you forgive me?”

  He was silent for a moment. “No.”

  Fine. She deserved that. “Will you forgive me?”

  This time, he didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  Good enough.

  It took another three days before Kreya felt up to her usual strength. By then, Zera was able to shuffle around without aid, and Stran seemed determined to prove he was as good as new, spending their recovery days chopping as much wood as possible.

  The surprise was Marso.

  In the wake of Kreya and Zera’s recoveries, he skipped through the farmhouse as if each day were suffused with sunlight, and he rained smiles on everyone. He played with Stran’s children, helped with nighttime feedings for the littlest one, took over cooking for the majority of the meals, and made the farmhouse sparkling clean.

  Finally, when she felt sufficiently like herself again, Kreya planted herself in front of the kitchen sink and asked, “What is going on with you?”

  He stopped. His smile was like Stran’s daughter Vivi’s when the rag dolls danced for her. “I was never broken. I was right. And as soon as all of us are well, we’re going to destroy him, finally, permanently, and I’ll be able to sleep the whole night without screaming.”

  “That sounds good,” Zera said, coming into the kitchen. “Except I never want to sleep again. I did enough of that. Hey, Stran!” She called out the window, and the sound of chopping wood ceased. “Come in—we’re ready to discuss our plan of attack!”

  “About time,” Stran said, coming into the kitchen and plopping himself into one of the chairs. It creaked beneath him. “First thing we need to do is plug up those bone-blasted exit holes. Keep the monstrosities bottled up in their tunnels.”

  Jentt joined them, coming in from the back rooms. “No, the first thing we need to do is ask those nice boys and girls on the wall to quit using us as pincushions and aim at the actual enemy instead.”

  “Coordinating with them might be key,” Zera said. “After all, they must have seen something on the plain that shouldn’t be there. We find out what they reported to their higher-ups, and what size army they can raise and how quickly they can be deployed.”

  Sinking into a chair, Kreya listened to them discuss how to approach the wall, how to contact the border guards without alerting Eklor’s forces, and how thorough they intended to be in making sure he was dead and stayed dead this time. She said nothing, watching the faces of her friends as the arguments became more heated: approach openly or covertly, with assistance or without, target only Eklor or eliminate his forces first. She noticed Amurra hovering in the doorway, with Vivi and Jen clutching her legs. Little Nugget was in her arms, chewing on the ends of her golden hair. Kreya met Amurra’s eyes.

  When Stran took a breath to launch into another idea, Kreya said, “No.”

  They all stared at her.

  “Excuse me?” Zera said.

  “No to which part?” Jentt asked. “There are pros and cons to all the approaches—”

  Kreya got to her feet. “No to all of it. Look at us. He kicked our asses when he was barely trying.” With her bandaged hand, she gestured at Stran’s shoulder and Jentt’s limp.

  “He caught us by surprise,” Stran objected.

  “He didn’t,” Kreya said. “I believed he was there. We all acted as if he was. Cautious. Thorough. We did everything right, and we nearly died. We have to face the truth: we aren’t the heroes we used to be.”

  “Sure, we’re out of practice, but the old instincts are there,” Jentt said. He demonstrated by plucking a kitchen knife out of its block and throwing it across the room. It thunked into a knot in a beam of wood.

  Vivi and Jen cheered.

  “It’s time for new heroes to step up,” Kreya said. “We completed our destiny.” Her eyes slid to Amurra. Those had been her words. She hadn’t been wrong. I just wasn’t ready to listen, Kreya thought.

  Zera raised a finger. “A point? We actually failed to complete it. For evidence, I submit literally everything we just witnessed on the plains.”

  “I don’t know how he returned,” Kreya said, “or how he was able to build up his army again without anyone ever suspecting, but this isn’t about unfinished threads that need to be neatened up. He presents a new danger to Vos, and he requires a new solution.”

  Marso piped up. “We won’t make the same mistakes.”

  “You all act as if this is a chance at redemption,” Kreya said. “But it’s not about us at all. It’s abou
t Vos and what is best for the safety of those we love.”

  Amurra silently nodded.

  “We have to do what’s best for the innocent, for those we’ve sworn to protect,” Kreya said. “And what’s best is for us to step away, and let others—stronger, younger men and women—defeat him. Our role is to warn them, advise them, and prepare them.”

  Zera glared at her. “Aw, that’s bullshit. I am not an ‘advisor.’ I am a damn warrior!”

  Stran thumped his chest in agreement, and then winced—he’d hit not far from his still-bandaged wound. Kreya thought that proved her point. Our time has passed. We need to admit that.

  “You’re a businesswoman now,” Kreya corrected her. “I’m a hermit. Stran’s a farmer and a father. Marso . . .”

  Marso spoke up. “Marso wants a second chance to be what he was supposed to be. I want a chance to not fail my friends.”

  “There are no second chances,” Kreya said.

  Quietly, Jentt said, “How can you look at me and say that?”

  She opened her mouth and then shut it. Marshaling her thoughts, she glanced down at her bandaged four-fingered hand. “You’re right. You have a second chance. We have it. Which is why I’m not going to allow us to throw it away. I can’t lose you again. Any of you.” She fixed her eyes on each of them.

  Zera broke eye contact with her first. Studying her hands, she said, “You want me to go to Grand Master Lorn. Is that what you want me to do? Convince him to act? What if he won’t? He may choose not to believe me. I have . . . a reputation for theatrics.”

  “We all go,” Kreya said.

  Amurra spoke up. “I’m coming as well. My parents can stay with the children here. But I’m not letting my husband out of my sight again.”

  Stran’s shoulders slumped. “You truly believe we can’t defeat him this time?”

  “I do,” Kreya said firmly. “Our time is over.”

  The others looked at her with a mixture of disbelief, disappointment, and . . . anger. And while she felt all those things too, she knew she was right, and in time, they’d come to understand that, too.

  Chapter Seventeen

  If you had a complaint for the Bone Workers Guild, you went to the guild headquarters on the third tier of Cerre. All the clerks were stationed there, with the bulk of the teachers. The novices lived there as well, in quarters close by for training. But if you wanted to talk to the grand master about important matters, away from the riffraff, you went to the fifth tier, to the palace that served as the grand master’s personal residence.

  If you could get in.

  Zera led the way.

  She knew how to make a production of it. Sweeping into her own fifth-tier palace with all the force of a hurricane, she issued orders right and left, and her followers scrambled to obey.

  When Kreya began to object, Zera cut her off. “You know how you get a powerful person to listen to you? You come to them as equally powerful. Out there, you command. Here, this is my battlefield.”

  Which was the truth. She knew how to maneuver in this stratified world. Choosing to stop in the center of her grand salon, rather than anywhere private, she held her arms out while Guine stripped her, washed her, and garbed her in her finest embroidered silks. She was patient while another painted gold swirls on her skin, decorating her chest and arms. Bangles were attached around her ankles, rubies affixed to her ears. Guine added gold strands to her multicolored hair.

  She saw Marso watching her, eyeing the sparkle. “Same treatment for the bone reader.”

  Stran snorted. “Leave me out of it.”

  “Had no plans to dress you up. You must look like what you are: a warrior who has seen battle,” Zera said. “Only pants. No shirt. No jewels. Can you remove the bandage?”

  “Looks ugly,” he warned.

  “Perfect. Don’t hide your wounds.”

  Quietly, Kreya said, “I won’t wear Liyan silks. That’s not who I am anymore.” She had worried creases around her eyes, and Zera couldn’t tell if they were new or not. She resisted the urge to fix Kreya’s blemishes. It was best if Kreya stayed as she was.

  “Obviously.” Privately, Zera thought that was a trifle sad. And silly. You could be who you chose to be. It was immensely freeing once you realized that you could define yourself, provided you quit handing that power over to other people. “Cleaner would be better, though.”

  She oversaw all the preparations to her satisfaction:

  Marso was decked out in over-the-top finery, with heavy eye makeup, black jewelry, and a silver robe—the picture of a man who saw the world as others did not.

  Jentt was in shadow colors: a black and gray coat that concealed his body. No flash of jewelry for him. He was their runner, and he looked it.

  Stran was a battle-scarred warrior, every wound he’d borne visible and stark against his muscles. His strength wasn’t the same as a young man’s. He did not look as though he’d pushed himself hard to become strong; he looked as though he had always been strong and his body knew no other way to be.

  And Kreya . . .

  She wore her battered, frayed, and faded coat. With her freshly washed hair gleaming like polished silver, she looked every inch their wise leader as she quietly surveyed the others. Zera did not try to hide the exhaustion or the age that Kreya wore on her skin with creams or makeups. Every crease was earned. She left the bandage wrapped around Kreya’s left hand, showing clearly the recent loss of a finger.

  Zera wondered if Kreya had any idea of how powerful she looked. She didn’t look as if she’d become someone else. She looked like she’d become more of herself.

  At last, they were all ready.

  Lorn isn’t going to know what’s hit him, Zera thought smugly.

  “Remember: we are the Heroes of Vos,” Zera said. “The world owes us a debt it can never repay. But we are here to demand payment, nonetheless. We will be listened to. We will be heard. We will be believed. Also, we look amazing.”

  “Can we go now?” Kreya asked impatiently.

  Zera rolled her eyes at her.

  Stran kissed his wife and told her she’d be safe here, in Zera’s home. Zera’s servants would pamper her in any way she wanted—a fact that Zera confirmed. Amurra clearly wasn’t pleased to be left behind, especially after leaving her children and accompanying her husband here, but none of them invited her to come. Not even Stran. Not for this. This was for the Five to do, and the Five to do alone.

  Zera marched them out her front door, and they mounted the polished white stones that carried them skimming over the streets of the fifth tier. She knew the way to the guild master’s palace, though she’d had little occasion to visit him. Even Guild Master Lorn came to her when he wanted to purchase one of her talismans.

  For him, she’d brought a gift: a new flight bone, carved from a shard of river lizard. She’d wrapped it in red velvet, and Guine carried it in a gilded box. She took the box from him when they reached the guild master’s door. Her followers would not be joining them inside.

  “Announce us,” she told the guard at the door.

  “Your names?” the guard said.

  Zera fixed her with a look. “You know us.”

  A second guard whispered to her, and the first guard’s eyes bulged. She yanked the door open, and Zera and her friends swept inside as the guard shouted their names.

  Inside, the palace of the grand master was opulent in the extreme. Every massive marble pillar upholding the vaulted ceiling had been carved to resemble a skeleton, the floor was inlaid with diamonds encased in gold, and the walls were a mosaic of rubies as red as blood.

  “Makes your house look tasteful,” Kreya murmured.

  “He got the idea for the skeleton pillars from me,” Zera whispered back. “Shall I take the lead?”

  “Yes, until we reach Lorn. Then he’s mine.”

  A servant was bustling up to them. The look on the man’s face was a cross between terror and awe, which Zera found gratifying. Always nice to see their
reputation still carried weight, even after all these years.

  “You’ll take us to speak with Grand Master Lorn now,” Zera said in her most imperious I-will-not-be-denied tone.

  The servant bowed so low that Zera thought his head was going to bop on the floor. “Forgive me a thousand times, but Grand Master Lorn is currently busy—”

  “There is nothing he could be doing that is possibly more important than the news we bear,” Zera said. “Unless he’s dying. He’s not dying, is he?”

  The man swallowed hard. “Ahh, no, Your Greatness.”

  “Delightful,” Zera said. “Then tell him to put his pants back on and greet us.”

  As the servant scurried away, Stran shifted uncomfortably. In a low voice, he said, “I thought you were going to be diplomatic.”

  “Whatever gave you that idea?” Zera asked.

  Jentt defended her. “She did allow him a warning to put on pants.”

  She swept forward, following the servant. The others fell in behind her, except for Kreya, who matched her pace. She knew Kreya did it instinctively, but it was exactly right.

  “Anything I should know before we go in?” Kreya murmured. “Has Grand Master Lorn changed at all?”

  “Everyone changes,” Zera said, “but I believe in essentials you’ll find him much the same.”

  “Pity,” Kreya said.

  And then they were standing before two massive brass doors, carved with scenes of battle, specifically their battle, when they first confronted Eklor and his army. Zera reflected that she should have perhaps warned the others about this choice of décor. Marso in particular looked a bit green. She hoped he held it together. On the other hand, if he breaks down shrieking, it could underscore our point. She had no doubt that a bone reader freak-out could be spun appropriately, with a little effort.

  The servant expected them to wait at the door, she knew. But Zera was not the type to wait. Those days were long over. She pushed through and heard the clack of the mechanism at the top of the door—a construct was employed to make the doors swing as lightly as if they’d been made of hollow wood instead of solid metal.