The Bone Season

by Samantha Shannon

  His touch had felt strange. Warmer. It was only when I saw his hands that I realized.

  He wasn’t wearing gloves.

  I reached up to my hair, traced the intricate design. Hands as large as his should never have achieved such complexity. “The train will leave at one o’clock precisely,” he said against my ear. “The entrance is under the training ground. Exactly where we stood.”

  I’d waited so long for those words.

  “If she kills me, you have to let the others know.” A thickness rose in my throat. “You have to lead them.”

  His fingers brushed the back of my arm. “I will not need to lead them.”

  My body ran with shivers—but not the kind I expected. When I turned my head to look at him, he tucked a stray curl behind my ear. His other hand came to rest on my abdomen, pressing my back to his chest. The warmth of him was comforting.

  And I could feel his hunger. Not for my aura, but for me.

  He nuzzled his head against my cheek. His fingers traced my collarbone. His dreamscape was close, his aura intertwined with mine. My sixth sense heightened, taking him in. “Your skin is cold,” he said throatily. “I never—” He stopped. My fingers pushed between his naked knuckles. I kept my eyes open.

  His lips moved to my jaw. I guided his hand to my waist. The lure of his touch was excruciating; I couldn’t flinch. I couldn’t refuse him. I wanted this, before the end. I wanted to be touched, to be seen—here in this dark room, in this red silence. I lifted my chin, and his lips closed over mine.

  I had always known there was no heaven. Jax had told me so, many times. Even Warden had said so. There was only white light, the last light: a final rest on the edge of consciousness, the place where all things meet an end. Beyond that, who knew. But if there was a heaven, this was what it would have felt like. Touching the æther with my bare hands. I could never have anticipated this, not from him. Not from anyone. I clutched his back, pulling him up against me. He caught the nape of my neck in his hand. I could feel each callus on his palms.

  His breath was hot. The kiss was slow. Don’t stop, don’t stop. I couldn’t think of anything but those words: don’t stop. His hands ran up my sides, my back, and clasped me. He lifted me onto a crate. I placed my hand against his neck. I felt the thick beat of him. His rhythm. My rhythm.

  My skin burned. I couldn’t stop. I’d never felt anything like this in my life—this rising in my chest, this need to touch. His lips nudged mine apart. My eyes opened. Stop. Stop, Paige. I started to pull my head away. A word escaped me: maybe “no,’’ maybe “yes”. Maybe his name. He framed my face in his hands, traced my lips. His thumbs ran over my cheeks. Our foreheads touched. My dreamscape scorched. He set fire to the poppies. Don’t stop, don’t stop.

  Only a moment passed. I looked at him, and he looked at me. A moment. A choice. My choice. His choice. Then he kissed me again, roughly this time. I let him. His arms came around me, lifting me. And I wanted it. I did. Too much. So much. My hands were in his hair, gripping his neck. Don’t stop. His lips were on my mouth, my eyes, my shoulders, and the hollow of my throat. Don’t stop. He ran his palms over my thighs. Firm, bold strokes, full of surety. Awakening.

  I opened his shirt. My fingers slid over his chest. I kissed his surging neck, and he grasped a thick handful of my hair. Don’t stop. I’d never touched his skin. It was hot and smooth, and it made me want the rest of him. My hands went under his shirt, found his back. Scars under my fingers. Long, cruel welts. I’d always known they were there. The scars of a traitor. He tensed under my touch. “Paige,” he said softly, but I didn’t stop. He made a low sound in his throat, and his lips came back to mine.

  I wouldn’t betray him. Bone Season XVIII was history, and it would not repeat itself.

  Two hundred years was more than enough.

  My sixth sense shook me from the haze. I pulled back from Warden. He kept his hands on my waist, locking me against him.

  Nashira was there, half-hidden in the shadows. My heart squeezed out a sickening thump.

  Run, my numb brain said, but I couldn’t run. She’d seen everything. She could see everything now. My skin, glossed with sweat; my puffy lips, my wild disheveled hair. His hands still clasping my hips. His open shirt. My fingers still trespassing on his skin.

  I couldn’t move them. I couldn’t even shift my gaze.

  Warden drew me behind him. “I forced it on her,” he said, his voice thick and rough.

  Nashira said nothing.

  She stepped into the dim light that filtered through the drapes. And there was something in her hands—the bell jar. I looked into it, my ears ringing. Inside was a flower. A flower in full bloom, strange and beautiful, its eight petals wet with nector. The flower that had once been dead. “There can be no mercy,” she said, “for this.”

  For a moment Warden looked at the flower, his eyes aglow. His gaze moved to meet hers.

  Nashira dropped the bell jar. The glass crashed against the floor, startling me from my paralysis.

  I’d just destroyed everything.

  “Arcturus Mesarthim, you are my blood-consort. You are Warden of the Mesarthim. But this cannot happen again.” Nashira stepped toward us. “There is only one way to stop treachery, and that is to make an example of traitors. I will hang your flesh from the walls of this city.”

  Warden didn’t move. “Better there than used for your pleasures.”

  “Always so fearless. Or foolhardy.” She touched her fingers to his face. “I will see to it that all your old companions are destroyed.”

  “No.” I stepped out from behind him. “You can’t—”

  I didn’t have time to move. The blow she gave me knocked me off my feet. The corner of a crate glanced across my head, opening a cut above my eye. My hands went straight into the broken glass. I heard Warden say my name, his voice shot with rage—but then Thuban and Situla were there, her trusted servants, the ones that wouldn’t let him go. Thuban took the end of his knife and smashed it into Warden’s head. But he didn’t fall. He wouldn’t kneel before the Sargas this time.

  “I will deal with your offenses later, Arcturus. I divest you of your position as blood-consort.” Nashira stepped away from him. “Thuban, Situla—take him to the gallery.”

  “Yes, my sovereign,” Thuban said. He grasped Warden by the throat. “Time to pay your dues, flesh-traitor.”

  Situla dug her fingers into his shoulder. Ashamed of her traitor cousin. He didn’t say a word.

  No, no. It couldn’t end like this, not like Bone Season XVIII. He was no longer blood-consort. He was ruined. I’d put out the last ray of light. I sought Warden’s gaze, desperate for something to hope for, to salvage—but his eyes were still and dark, and all I could feel was his silence. Between them, Thuban and Situla dragged him away.

  Nashira walked through the broken glass. I stayed where I was, on the floor, in the wreckage. Bitter heat rose to my eyes. I was such a fool. What was I thinking? What was I doing?

  “Your time has come, dreamwalker.”

  “At last.” Blood seeped from my head wound. “You waited long enough.”

  “You ought to rejoice. From what I understand, dreamwalkers crave the æther. Tonight you can join with it.”

  “You’ll never have this world.” Now I looked up, and my body was shaking—with anger, not with fear. “You can kill me. You can claim me. But you can’t claim us. The Seven Seals are waiting. Jaxon Hall is waiting. The entire syndicate is waiting for you.” I raised my chin and stared her in the face. “Good luck.”

  Nashira pulled me to my feet by my hair. Her face came close to mine. “You could have been more,” she said. “So much more. As it happens, you will soon be nothing. Everything that you were will be mine.” With a push of her arm, she flung me into a Rephaite’s iron grip. “Alsafi, take this bag of bones to the stage. It is time for her to surrender her spirit.”

  I didn’t stop to think as Alsafi walked me up the steps. A bag was over my head. My lips were s
ore, my cheeks were hot. I couldn’t breathe or think straight.

  Warden was gone. I’d lost him. My only Reph ally, and I’d let him get caught. Nashira wouldn’t just kill him, not when he’d stooped so low as to touch a human with his bare hands. It was more than betrayal. By kissing me, holding me, the blood-consort had debased his entire family. He was no longer a worthy candidate. He was nothing.

  Alsafi kept a firm grip on my arm. I was about to die. In less than ten minutes, I would join with the æther, like all the other spirits. My silver cord would break. I would never be able to return to my own body, the body I’d inhabited for nineteen years. From then on, I would have to serve Nashira.

  The bag came off my head. I was at the side of the stage, watching the end of the play. Two Rephs—Alsafi and Terebell—stood on either side of me. Terebell leaned down to my level. “Where is Arcturus?”

  “They took him to the gallery. Thuban and Situla.”

  “We will deal with them.” Alsafi released my arm. “You must delay the blood-sovereign, dreamwalker.”

  I’d known Terebell was one of Warden’s collaborators, but not Alsafi. He didn’t look like a sympathizer, nor did Warden.

  The Overseer fled the stage, his costume drenched in artificial blood, leaving his knife behind him. His screams for mercy echoed through the Guildhall. The emissaries cheered as a group of actors chased him out onto the street, all wearing Scion uniforms. The applause was deafening. It continued as Nashira walked up the steps, back onto the stage.

  “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your kindness. I am pleased you enjoyed the production.” She didn’t look pleased. “I am also pleased, to end the evening, to give you a brief demonstration of our justice system here in Sheol I. One of our clairvoyants has displayed such disobedience that she cannot be allowed to live. Like the Bloody King, she must be banished beyond the reach of the amaurotic population, where she can do no more harm.

  “XX-59-40 has a history of treachery. She hails from the dairy county of Tipperary, deep in the south of Ireland—a region long since associated with sedition.” Cathal Bell shifted his weight uncomfortably. A few of the emissaries murmured. “After coming to England, she immediately became embroiled in the crime syndicate of London. On the night of March the seventh, she murdered two of her fellow clairvoyants, both Underguards in the service of Scion. It was a cold-blooded, cruel affair. Neither of 40’s victims died quickly. On that same night, she was brought to Sheol I.” Nashira paced across the stage. “We hoped we could educate her, teach her to control her gift. It pains us to lose young clairvoyants. It also pains me to admit that our endeavor to reform 40 has failed. She has repaid our compassion with insolence and brutality. There is no option left for her but to face the judgment of the Inquisitor.”

  I looked past her. There was no scaffold on the stage; no gurney, no block. But there was a sword.

  My blood stopped in my veins. That was no ordinary sword. Gold blade, black hilt. That was the Wrath of the Inquisitor, the sword that beheaded political traitors. It was only used when clairvoyant spies were discovered within the Westminster Archon. I was the daughter of a prominent Scion scientist. A traitor in the ranks of the naturals.

  Alsafi and Terebell disappeared beneath the stage. I was left facing Nashira. She turned her head.

  “Come forward, 40.”

  I didn’t hesitate.

  There was a hush as I emerged from behind the drapes. “Traitor,” Cathal Bell called, followed by some booing from the emissaries. I still didn’t look at them. It was rich of Bell to call me a traitor.

  I walked with my head held high, forcing myself to focus only on Nashira. I didn’t look at the emissaries. I didn’t look at the gallery, where Warden had been taken. I stopped a few feet away. Nashira circled me, slowly. When she wasn’t in my line of vision, I looked straight ahead.

  “You may wonder how we deal out justice here. With the noose, perhaps, or the fire of ancient days. Here is the Inquisitor’s sword, delivered from the citadel.” She indicated the Wrath. “But before I swing it, I wish to exhibit something else: the great gift of the Rephaim.”

  There was a murmur.

  “Edward VII was a curious man. We know all too well that he meddled in things that should not be meddled with. He tried to control a power beyond human knowledge. A power we Rephaim know very well.”

  Birgitta Tjäder was staring at the stage, her brow furrowed. Several of the emissaries looked at their SVD bodyguards, Bell among them.

  “Imagine the most powerful kind of energy on Earth.” Nashira held out a hand toward a nearby lantern. “Electricity. It powers your lifestyles. It lights your cities and your homes. It allows you to communicate. The æther, the Source—the life force of the Rephaim—is rather like electricity. It can bring light to the darkness, knowledge to ignorance.” The lantern glowed with a sudden light. “But when used incorrectly, it can destroy. It can kill.” The light went out.

  “I have a gift that has proved very useful over the past two centuries. Some clairvoyant humans display particularly erratic abilities. They channel the æther—the realm of the dead—in ways that can result in madness and violence. The Bloody King had such an ability, resulting in his tragic killing spree. I am able to take those dangerous mutations of the gift away.” She motioned toward me. “Clairvoyance, like energy, cannot be destroyed—only transferred. When 40 dies, another clairvoyant will eventually develop her gift. But by holding it inside me, I will ensure it is never used again.”

  “You like making things up, don’t you, Nashira?”

  I said it before I’d registered the thought. She turned to look at me. Her eyes flared.

  “You will not speak again.”

  Her voice was soft.

  I risked a glance at the gallery. Empty. Below me, Michael slipped a hand into his jacket. He had one of the guns.

  At the back of the Guildhall, a door opened. Terebell, Alsafi, and Warden. I met his eyes over the heads of the emissaries. The golden cord trembled. I saw a picture of the knife, the one on the floor, the one the Overseer had left behind. It lay a few feet away from Nashira. As she turned back toward the audience, my spirit shot across the space between us. With every ounce of strength I could muster, I broke into her hadal zone. She hadn’t been expecting the attack. I pictured myself with a massive dream-form, a behemoth, big enough to break down every barrier.

  The æther reverberated. Spirits flew across the Guildhall, coming at Nashira from all angles. They joined me at the edges of her dreamscape, breaking down her ancient armor. The five angels were trying to defend her, but now twenty, now fifty, now two hundred spirits had descended on her, and the walls were starting to give. I wasted no time. I hauled my way through the shadows and threw myself into the very heart of her dreamscape.

  I could see through her eyes. The room was a whirling blur of color and darkness, light and fire, a spectrum of things I’d never seen. Was this how Rephs saw? There were auras everywhere. I was sighted—but now I was blind, and her eyes were refusing to see. They didn’t want me to see. These weren’t my eyes. I forced them open, looked down at my hand. Too large, gloved. My vision clenched. She was fighting me. Hurry, Paige.

  The knife. The knife was there. Hurry. I reached for it. Just moving my hand was like trying to lift a barbell. Kill her. My ears rang with screams and strange new sounds, voices, thousands of voices. Kill her. My new fingers curled around the handle.

  The knife. It was there. I drew back my arm, and with a single stab, drove the blade into my chest. The emissaries shouted. My vision tunneled again. Everything flickered. I twisted the knife with my new hand, grinding it into whatever the hell it was that made Nashira’s body. No pain. She was numb to the bites of an amaurotic blade. I stabbed again, this time on the left, aiming for where the heart would be on a human. Still no pain. But when I raised my arm a third time, I was thrown out of her body.

  Spirits scattered across the room, extinguishing every candle. The Guildhal
l descended into chaos. When my vision returned, I couldn’t see a thing. My ears were full of screaming.

  The candles came back to life. Nashira lay across the boards. She didn’t move. The knife was embedded in her chest, right up to the handle. “Blood-sovereign,” a Reph shouted.

  The emissaries had fallen silent. My hands shook as I dragged myself across the boards to Nashira. I looked at her face, the eyes devoid of light. The spirits of Bone Season XVIII still hovered around her, as if waiting for her to join them in the æther.

  Then a dim glow filled into her eyes. Slowly, her head turned. I felt myself shivering uncontrollably as she rose to her full height.

  “Very clever,” she said. “Very, very clever.”

  I kept moving, my fingers scraping on the boards. As I watched, she pulled the knife from her chest. There were gasps from the audience. “Show us more.” Drops of light fell like tears. “I have no objections.”

  With a flick of her hand, the knife was in the air. It hung there for a moment, as if on an invisible thread—then it came flying toward me. It caught my cheek, leaving a glancing wound. The candles guttered.

  One of her angels was a poltergeist. It was rare that they could actually lift physical matter, but I’d seen it happen before. Apport, Jaxon called it. Spirits moving objects. A film of cold sweat coated my skin. I shouldn’t be afraid. I’d faced a poltergeist once. Now my spirit was mature, I could defend myself.

  “If you insist,” I said.

  This time I couldn’t catch her unawares. She threw up every layer of armor she had on her dreamscape. As if two giant doors had slammed in front of me, I was launched straight back into my own body. My heart stirred. The helmetlike pressure on my head intensified. I heard a familiar voice, but it was lost to a long, high-pitched sound in my ears.