Bone Crier's Dawn

by Kathryn Purdie

  I shake my head. My thundering heart echoes the sky above. “But how are you—?”

  “Where is your sister, Sabine?”

  I blink. “She’s . . . she’s . . .”

  The Unchained child stumbles into me, sobbing. She’s even smaller than Felise or Lisette, the youngest of our famille. I numbly take her hand and escort her to Elara’s Gate. My mother’s black eyes follow the child. After I ferry her, I drift back to Tyrus’s Gate, unbidden. I feel strangely disconnected to my mind and body. None of what’s happening can be real, yet it must be real. I’d never willingly imagine this.

  “I am trapped here, Sabine.” Odiva places her hand against the Gate of water. “I need my firstborn daughter to set me free. Where is she?”

  “Ailesse isn’t . . .” I press my lips together. I shouldn’t be talking to my mother. I take a backward step and glance around for Pernelle. She’ll tell me what to do. But the youngest of the elders is grappling with two Chained. None of the other Ferriers notice me, either. They’re busy with oncoming souls.

  “Why isn’t Ailesse ferrying as matrone tonight?” Odiva surveys my position at the end of the land bridge. Tyrus’s siren song swells behind her, and its dark beauty loosens my tongue.

  “Her amouré is the prince of South Galle. His father, the king, is dying, so . . . so Ailesse will be soon be queen.” I’ll let my mother believe that if it protects my sister, though I refuse to let Casimir win his way with her. “She prefers a gold crown over being matrone,” I can’t help adding to provoke Odiva, though I’m sure it isn’t true. Ailesse prepared all her life to lead our famille.

  Odiva tilts her head with an elegance uniquely her own. “And what of that crown when Ailesse must kill her amouré?”

  I lift a shoulder, feigning more boldness than I have. “She’ll still be queen.”

  Her lip curls. “Bring her to me, Sabine. All she needs to do is touch my hand, and then Tyrus will release me.”

  I can’t believe her arrogance. “Why would I help you? Why would I want you back, after what you’ve done?”

  “What a god asked me to do, you mean.”

  I scoff.

  “I am not evil, child. Do you see me wrapped in chains?”

  “Only the dead wear chains.”

  Odiva doesn’t acknowledge my remark. She touches the necklace she wears, but not the one with her grace bones. My father, whoever he was, gave it to her—a crow skull with a ruby caught in its open beak. “Your father desires to meet you, Sabine. If Ailesse releases me, I can bring him back, too.”

  “No.” My voice cuts sharper than my bone knife, and my legs start shaking. I finally understand what my mother wants. Her pact with Tyrus is incomplete. The god still requires my sister to be sacrificed before he’ll release my Chained father from the Underworld. “I don’t wish to meet him. And Ailesse will never come here. I’ll make sure of it.”

  Her onyx eyes bore into me. “Will you? Beware the grace you bear, daughter. Tyrus’s golden jackal is cunning. He will prey upon your weaknesses.”

  My stomach gives a hard twist. Tyrus must have told her I have the golden jackal’s grace bone. When she was alive, I had claimed my pendant was carved from a black wolf. “The jackal makes me strong.”

  Odiva’s hand reaches toward me, her palm pressed again to the veil of water between us. “I want to help you, Sabine. I have learned many things in this realm. We can share your grace together.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Not for me. Not anymore. I can teach you how to reach your potential with the jackal. Without my guidance, its power will consume you.”

  I swallow. Could a grace really be that dangerous?

  Tyrus’s siren song grows louder, faster.

  Growls of the Chained close in behind me. I need to ferry them, but I can’t look away from my mother’s penetrating eyes. “Come to me, daughter,” she says. Her raven hair swirls. Her midnight-blue dress sways about her ankles. “All you have to do is touch my hand.”

  “Sabine, what are you doing?” Pernelle shouts. “Ferry them!”

  I gasp. My hand is just an inch from the veil. I don’t even remember lifting a finger. I jerk backward and spin around. I can’t see Pernelle. Two Chained are in my face. One swipes for me. The other reaches for my neck. He startles when he sees my necklace.

  I dodge them both and rush the opposite way down the land bridge.

  “Sabine, come back!” Pernelle cries.

  I can’t. She’ll have to ferry the souls through the Gates for me. I have to get away from my mother.

  The other Ferriers don’t see me until I race past them. I dart around their swinging staffs and the chazoure souls they battle. “Stop, Sabine!” Maurille calls near the foot of the bridge. “The Gates will close!”

  I keep running. She’s not making sense. The Gates stay open as long as there are souls left to ferry.

  I pass Isla last. She tries to grab me, but she can’t reach me with the Chained woman between us. “You’re the matrone!” she says as I leap off the rocks toward the shore. “You have to stay on the—”

  My feet hit the sand.

  “—bridge!”

  The Gate of water crests into a high wave and crashes onto the far end of the bridge. It doesn’t rise again. The silvery shimmer leading to Elara’s realm also vanishes.

  Everyone on the land bridge—Ferriers and souls—comes to an abrupt halt.

  The souls gape at the place where the Gates no longer stand. Cries of confusion ring out. They build into riotous roars.

  The souls flee the bridge. Dive into the water. Run onto the shore. Climb the hidden stairs. Scale the limestone cliffs. The Ferriers and I try to stop them, herd them. But we can’t contain the chaos.

  No, no, no. What happened last ferrying night can’t be happening again.

  The dead are loose, the Chained and Unchained. They’re heading toward Dovré, toward the biggest population in South Galle.

  But this time it’s directly because of me.

  6

  Bastien

  I CURSE CASIMIR FOR THE hundredth time as I kick aside the straw in my dungeon cell and tap the paving stones with my boot. Another prisoner could have hidden something thin and sharp in here. I need it. The soldiers confiscated my lock picks after they knocked me out. I woke up with a splitting headache and an even deeper grudge against the prince.

  Bastard. He threw me in this reeking cell himself. I have a foggy memory of the gloating look on his face when the barred door clanged shut. “Thief,” he called me, like that one word summed me up. I used to take pride in that title. I’ve been a wanted criminal in Dovré for years, but I’ve never been caught until today.

  A thick-necked dungeons guard walks by and catches me prodding at the stones. “What do you think you’re doing?” He crosses his arms.

  I cross mine. “Dancing. Can’t help myself.” I tip my chin at the ceiling. “I blame the party music.” It has to be well after midnight, and from the faint sounds drifting down here, the first feast of La Liaison is still in full swing. “I’m surprised you’re not doing a little jig yourself.”

  The guard scowls. “Careful, boy. We kill the smart-mouthed even faster down here.”

  I hold my grin steady until he stalks away. As soon as he’s out of sight, I exhale and drag my hands through my hair. I have to get out of here. Free Ailesse while I’m at it.

  Thunder rumbles outside. I step up on a stone bench at the back of my cell to reach a small grate at the end of a chute in the ceiling. It let in a little daylight before sunset—not that there was much light to be had. This storm won’t quit.

  I wrestle with the grate to pry it free. Maybe I can use it as a weapon. It won’t budge. I ignore the wrenching pain from my stab wound and keep yanking. Come on.

  “Bastien?”

  My muscles go stiff. That voice. Ailesse. I hold my breath and turn around. She stands five feet past the bars of my cell. Her auburn hair glows red under the torchlight. H
er creamy skin gleams soft and radiant—almost too perfect. I miss her freckles and the natural flush of pink on the tip of her nose. She’s all dusted in powder. It doesn’t matter. She’s still more beautiful than I remember. A green dress hangs off her bare shoulders, and a gold-and-emerald belt droops low from the slender curve of her waist.

  Her umber eyes fill with tears. “You’re alive,” she chokes out. “How are you even . . . ?” She swallows. “My mother stabbed you.”

  “I’m fine.” I can barely speak. She’s really here. “Doing much better now.”

  She looks me over to be sure, then her eyes harden, her jaw stiffens. “You shouldn’t have come.”

  “Ailesse . . .” The tension freezing me in place releases. I’m suddenly desperate to hold her. I jump off the bench and rush to the bars. She moves slower, staggering. Her nostrils flare. She’s angry. I don’t blame her. All I’ve done is complicate everything.

  As she limps closer, her loose sleeve slips back. A crutch rests beneath her left arm. I stretch out my hand to help her. She’s still beyond reach, just like she was on the soul bridge when she crushed her leg. I was bleeding out and close to dying. I couldn’t stop Casimir from taking her away.

  She hobbles another step, and our fingers touch. Then they’re grasping, pulling. She’s flush to the bars now. There’s just enough space for our mouths to come together. She lets the crutch fall. Her hands grab at my sleeves. Her fingernails dig into my arms. I hold her face. I brush away the wetness on her cheek. I don’t stop kissing her. Damn these bars. She’s not close enough.

  “How did you get down here?” I find ways to speak around her mouth on mine, pulling back just enough to form a few words at a time. “You have to be careful. That guard . . . he’ll return any moment.”

  “He’s preoccupied.” She kisses me harder. “There’s another entrance to the dungeons. I saw Sophie sneak in to meet him.”

  “Who’s Sophie?”

  “Servant girl.”

  I try to muster a reply, but can’t. Ailesse smells amazing. Fresh earth and wildflowers and dizzying life. My hands tangle through her hair. I can’t get enough of her. We slide down the bars until we’re kneeling. She finds a position more comfortable for her broken leg. Some buried part of my brain tells me we should stop, escape first, wait until later to get lost in each other like this.

  Later is hard for me to think through now that I’m finally holding her.

  “Ailesse . . .” I murmur.

  “Mmm?” Her hands crawl under my shirt, and I shiver.

  “Do you have anything . . . sharp?”

  “Sharp?” Her laugh is breathy and warm.

  “And thin . . .” I run my fingers across the smooth skin of her shoulders. “So I can . . . pick . . . the lock.”

  She pulls back and blinks. “Oh . . . um, I think so.” Her lips are puffy and red, and her face is flushed. She paws through her mussed hair, searching. “I can’t believe you got caught.”

  “I’m not exactly in top form right now.”

  Ailesse releases a tight exhale. “You really shouldn’t have come here. You could have been killed.”

  “Tell me you would have stayed behind if our situations were reversed.” Her guilty silence says everything. “That’s what I thought.”

  She glares at me, pressing her lips together against a grin. She plucks a decorative comb from her hair. “Can you pry off one of the teeth?” She passes it to me.

  I apply some pressure, and the comb starts to bend. “I doubt the teeth are long enough. Gold is too pliable, anyway. It usually jams up a lock. Do you have any hairpins?” She shakes her head. I examine her dress. “Any whalebones sewn into the seams of that bodice?”

  She wrinkles her nose. “Women wear whalebones in their clothes?”

  I chuckle. “I can’t believe that shocks you, of all people.”

  She smiles, but then the corners of her mouth fall. She rubs her neck. “I don’t have any bones right now.”

  “Casimir took them?” I scoff. “Doesn’t surprise me.” Another reason to hate the prince. I turn the hair comb over in my hands. “What’s he doing giving you gold?”

  Ailesse shrugs and lowers her eyes. “He’s offered me far more than that.”

  My stomach twists. “The offer can’t be so sweet when you have no freedom . . . can it?”

  “Casimir gives me freedom. That’s not why I decline.”

  “What do you mean, he gives you freedom?” A low roll of thunder echoes through the dungeons corridor. “The prince abducted you.”

  “No, Bastien. I chose to stay here from the beginning.”

  “You call that a choice? You had a broken leg and no grace bones.”

  “I still could have left if I wanted.”

  I don’t believe her. “Why can’t you just admit the prince gets whatever he wants—whoever he wants?” My voice rises. “He thinks he’s entitled to it.”

  “Shh, the guard will hear us.”

  “Then let him.”

  She sighs. “You don’t understand the situation.”

  “Why don’t you enlighten me?”

  “Casimir is a good person. When he brought me here, he asked me to give him a chance.”

  “A chance at what? Winning your heart?” I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Is that what this is?” I wave my hand at the dress she’s wearing. It must have cost a fortune. She’s practically being groomed as a queen. “You giving him a chance?”

  “Maybe not in the way he meant, but yes. He’s my amouré and—”

  “So have feelings for him now?”

  Her eyes narrow. “I was thinking of you when I made my choice not to kill Casimir.”

  My mouth goes slack. I can’t even speak for a moment. “You . . . what?”

  “What if I had killed you when we first met at Castelpont? What if your father had been given a chance and hadn’t been killed so rashly?”

  A vivid image of him being stabbed by a Bone Crier grips my mind. “Don’t compare Casimir to my father.” My jaw muscle tenses. “That isn’t fair.”

  “I’m trying to make you understand.” Now her voice grows louder. “Your father deserved to live. So does Casimir. That’s why I can’t kill him.”

  “But you’ll die with him.”

  “I’ll find a way to break the soul-bond, the same way you and I—”

  “We were dreaming, Ailesse. We were deluded.” What’s the matter with her? She knows this. She already lived through it once. Why can’t I make her understand? “There’s no way to break the soul-bond.”

  Her lips purse stubbornly. “You can’t be sure of that.”

  “Ailesse, please . . .” I reach past the bars and hold her arms with shaking hands. “Don’t argue with me about this. I can’t—” My voice cracks. I’m suddenly a child again, holding my father’s dead body. “I can’t lose you, too.”

  Her eyes shine, and the anger fades from them. She slips closer to me. “You won’t, Bastien.” She strokes the side of my face. “We’ll figure this out, I promise. We have time. I planned to leave here after my leg healed.” She lifts a shoulder. “I was actually going to leave tonight—it’s ferrying night.”

  My stomach sinks. “But then I came.”

  Her mouth flickers into a small smile. “But then you came. And I couldn’t leave knowing you were locked up down here.”

  My head droops forward against the bars. Merde, I’ve made a mess of things.

  She combs her fingers through the back of my hair. “I snuck away from the feast as soon as I could. I told Casimir I didn’t feel well.”

  I look up. “You left a dinner with the prince and the king that easily?”

  “King Durand couldn’t come after all. He was too ill. And Casimir drank his disappointment away with several glasses of wine. It wasn’t so hard to excuse myself.”

  I exhale heavily. “Sabine is going to be sick when she finds out I’m the reason you stayed here tonight.”

  Her eyes widen. “
You’ve been talking to Sabine?”

  “She was here today. Planned this whole break-in with Jules, Marcel, and me.”

  Ailesse gasps. “Well, is she all right? What happened?” She grips my hand. “Bastien, tell me everything.”

  I sum up the last two weeks in as few words as possible, including today’s adventure with the black powder. “Hopefully Jules and Marcel abandoned the castle well,” I say. “The soldiers will be searching for the way we broke in.”

  When I explain what happened with Sabine—her run-in with Casimir and how she bolted from the castle with no explanation, Ailesse crinkles her brow. “Maybe you didn’t hear everything they said.”

  “Maybe,” I admit.

  “Sabine had to have a strong reason to leave so suddenly like that.”

  I rub my jaw. “She did ask me to tell you something.”

  “What?” Ailesse leans forward.

  “Apparently Sabine knows the siren song to open the Gates.”

  She draws her head back. “What? How?”

  “She didn’t say. She was too busy staging the most dramatic exit possible.”

  Ailesse grows quiet as she thinks over everything. She seems . . . upset. Understandable, given how overprotective she is of her sister.

  “Sabine will be fine,” I reassure her, kissing her palm. “She has a working bone flute. It’s how she lured Casimir when she brought him to the cavern bridge—some kind of proxy ritual, she said. So you don’t have to worry about the ferrying tonight. She’ll lead it just like she’s been leading your famille all this time you’ve been away.”

  Ailesse’s eyebrows shoot upward. “She’s been leading the famille? As matrone?”

  I don’t understand why she’s so worked up. “Just until you come back.”

  Her shoulders sag.

  I brush the back of her hand with my thumb. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, it’s just . . . my famille wouldn’t let Sabine take charge like that unless my mother had already declared her as her heir. She must have done that when I was with you.” Ailesse forces a grin, but the look in her eyes is hollow. “It was all part of my mother’s plan to sacrifice me to Tyrus.”