The Bones of Broken Songs: A Historical Mystery Romance (Mortalsong Trilogy Book 2)

by J. M. Stredwick

  Mary looks to each person on board.

  “We have to finish this. It is what Vermora herself asked of me,” she says. No one speaks. Everyone is contemplating what she says, half filled with awe, half disbelieving.

  “Vermora spoke to you?” Kriath chuckles darkly. “I don’t believe it for one second.”

  I don’t know what to believe. All I can do is take what she says as truth. Glancing to Claire and then Benjamin, I think that this is all madness. That our world is perhaps a dream, and nothing I’ve experienced is real. But it must be. I feel the clarion sting of it. It’s like a song of drudged up bones, unearthed and spoken in such a way that is undeniably true. We will speak of so much more later. We have…I hope, time.

  “And you Benjamin?” I fix the question on him. “Who were you to me?”

  His hands are at his waist, and he can’t help the smile that slips onto his mouth. I can see that he tries to fight it.

  “Can we talk…alone?” he asks.

  I don’t see why not. I see an impatient huff come from Idalgo and Claire, but Mary turns away to ignore us. Kriath is standing at the head of the ship, and as we disband, Claire, who was once my sister, goes to stand beside him. I wonder if she thinks of Alphonse. If she worries for him. Everyone has been through so much. I recognize this and want to hear everything they have to say in due time. Now, I need to square off with Benjamin.

  He takes me to the other side of the ship. I feel my nerves tingling.

  “Tell me. You’ve held back from me long enough. Tell me now,” I say to him.

  He turns, wrapping his hand around my neck quickly, drawing me close. Our lips meet. He is warm and generous in the way he moves. His hands are always tender, caressing me as if he is worried I will break, touching lightly so that he knows I am real. I draw him near and when we break apart breathlessly, he looks down at me.

  “You’re my lover. We were married before…”

  He goes on to explain everything. How we met. What we spoke of. The way we were thrust into our marriage quickly. How we talked to one another. The times we spent together. My fears. How young we were, and then, that we ran away. The tricks that were played on us. Ultimately, my death. He explained what happened afterward, how he was stuck in the cave with her. How he held my dead body until there was no scent of me left. Then he explained how he escaped and killed his father.

  “Why did you come back?” my voice is shaking. “Why?”

  Something about his explanation is so thorough I cannot deny it. The words ring like little bells in my head, signaling honesty. Signaling that they’re as real as this day today.

  “It is a fair question,” he nods. “I’ve said before, and I will say it again. I wanted to be alive to find you. I did not want to die. If I died, I would have no knowledge of you, of this…” he lifts a hand and then sighs. “She was the only sure way I could still be living. I tried my hand at trading and even worked as a dockhand for a while. It wasn’t exactly for me.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  His eyes flash.

  “I’m too…dominant?” he smirks. “In any case, I knew that there was nothing else I could do. This was the only way I could be here for you. I knew that they would look for you, reborn as you are now.”

  “You thought you’d settle in then? Get nice and comfortable? Build yourself a city?” I snap, crossing my arms. “You killed people to maintain your inability to die.”

  Benjamin inclines his head and shrugs. “I would do it again. I’m not sorry. If I hadn’t I don’t know that I would have found you. We wouldn’t be here now. Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for this? The only reason I am not too forward is that I don’t know you as well as I knew…Giselle.”

  I raise my brows at him.

  “Too forward? What would that look like?” I ask.

  “When I first saw you on that ship…” his eyes flutter as he recalls it. “I wanted to take you into the cabin on my ship and make love to you. I wanted that ever since I saw you. I still want it…”

  He comes near to me, grabbing a bit of my dress fabric. “I’ve missed you. God, it feels so good to say it. I never wanted to live in this world without you.”

  I am so confused. There’s a fizzing in my mind. I feel the heat rise in me, that ignoble enticement. But why? Attraction is natural. You can feel it for any random man you find pleasing to the eye. But this…this is so much deeper. The way we speak to one another. The way we interact. The way his personality teases mine into a deeper understanding of myself and causes me to think beyond comfortable limits…has anyone felt this way? Or is this some accident of nature? There is something so much more important about our connection, a million eons deeper than the initial physical attraction one might have to a stranger. With him, I feel that I am home, free, and drunk on his mind.

  “Why do we feel this way?” I ask. “There has to be a reason. What did you say, that we both created her…the Bone Woman?”

  “I didn’t know this until tonight. I never knew…”

  I can tell that he is frustrated.

  “Sylph,” I say, and smile coquettishly. “And Succubus.”

  “Seems an odd pairing, doesn’t it?” he laughs, relieved to find amusement.

  “Did you know that was what she was?” I reference Mary.

  He shakes his head. “Not at all. She was working as a harlot in Nassau when I met her.”

  Jealousy spirits out from my heart and I attempt to rein it in. I think that he notices my expression because he tilts his head, smiling darkly.

  “What?” He asks me.

  But I cannot be jealous. He is not mine. But perhaps, now that I know everything, that the truth, as insane and uncomfortable as it is, is here, we will be able to once again revel in one another.

  “Nothing. I think it is time you get to know me…the real me. Not her.”

  Of course, I mean Giselle. Whoever she was. She is no longer what I am. He will have to enjoy me for who I am now and be patient to remind me of what was before.

  I want to know it all.

  I wrap my arms around his neck, and our foreheads join. We breathe in the scent of the ocean and the night, resting in the nearness of the other’s body and the comfort it brings. Even if we are both blessed and damned.

  About the Author

  J. M. Stredwick is an emerging author of young adult fantasy. Find her at jmstredwickauthor.com!