Odiva had made a deal with the god of the Underworld two years ago: her firstborn daughter’s life in exchange for the man she loved. Not her amouré, but Sabine’s father. The pact was supposed to resurrect him, but it didn’t because Odiva didn’t keep her end of the bargain. She never killed Ailesse. She sacrificed herself instead.
“But you’re still alive—you’re still her heir,” I say, trying to comfort her.
“I know,” she murmurs, but her eyes stay empty.
Footsteps echo from the dungeons’ corridor. The guard is returning. Ailesse startles and grabs her crutch. I reach through the bars and help her to her feet. “I’ll come back soon—later tonight,” she rasps. “I’ll bring a proper lockpick.”
She starts to turn, but I tug her back and kiss her mouth. She pulls away quickly, shrinking into herself. She shakes her head apologetically. “I—I have to leave.”
“Wait.” I try to pin what I’ve done to offend her. There’s a new rift between us that wasn’t there a moment ago. “Sabine brought a bone knife.” I hurriedly explain where I hid it. “Please, just think about what I said. You may not get another chance to be near Casimir after we leave Beau Palais.” I wish I could kill the bastard for her.
She hobbles backward on her crutch. “Bastien, I . . .”
“Please, Ailesse.”
She presses her lips together and glances toward the sound of the approaching guard. She finally nods, pivots on her crutch, and rushes into the shadows past the torchlight.
I blow out a shaky breath. What I’ve asked her to do is a betrayal to my father’s memory, but I’m still desperate for her to do it and kill Casimir to save herself.
7
Ailesse
THE HILT OF THE BONE knife digs into my spine. I slipped it under the laces of my dress after I snuck it out of the flower garland, the hiding spot at the entrance of the great hall Bastien told me about. I managed to retrieve it without having to return to the celebration and without anyone seeing me. Now my long hair conceals the blade, but my heart still beats a frantic rhythm.
Calm down, Ailesse. Just because you took the knife doesn’t mean you’re really going to kill Cas.
But you should, another voice speaks to me. It has Bastien’s lower register, though when it echoes again, it sounds like Sabine. My closest friends care about me—of course they want me to live—but they don’t know Cas. It’s easier to say someone should die when they’re a stranger.
I hobble down the corridor as quickly as possible. The occasional guards on the third level of Beau Palais don’t trouble me. Neither do the servants who are still awake. They bow and curtsy like I’m a princess. They don’t know who I really am. They don’t realize that when I wear a crown it will be made of bones.
I’ll be the one to lead my famille on the next ferrying night, even though my mother named Sabine as her heir. I’m supposed to be matrone. Sabine knows that in her heart. My famille does, too. They’ll find me worthy and restore me to my rightful position . . . won’t they?
My stomach clenches. I curl into myself for a moment, the way I did with Bastien in the dungeons. I don’t know what’s the matter with me except I suddenly miss my famille more than ever. That divide feels like a physical tear through my body. I’ve been gone too long. After I free Bastien, I need to return home.
I stare down the long corridor. My room is still several doors away. I curse my shattered knee and slow pace and missing grace bones. My peregrine falcon could be giving me speed right now, my tiger shark strength and endurance, my alpine ibex agility and balance on this crutch. I exhale, trying not to think of what I don’t have. Instead, I make a mental inventory of the items in my room. Is there anything Bastien could use for a lockpick?
I take another step just as a faint sound reverberates though the castle. A woman’s laughter. It’s wild with abandon, but eerie in a way that raises the hair on my arms. I glance behind me and see no one. This stretch of the corridor is empty.
“. . . wish you could have met her.”
Cas? I look in the other direction. His voice I recognize. It comes from within the nearest room, beyond a tall and ornate door that has been left wide open. King Durand’s chambers. I have to pass them to get to my room.
I cautiously press forward, trying my best to be quiet. If Cas finds me, I’ll have to explain why I lied about having to leave the feast early.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I know you need to save your strength. We’ll find another way for you to meet Ailesse.”
As I pass the door, I can’t help peering inside. Cas is seated on a chair beside the king’s four-poster bed. Its velvet drapes are drawn closed except for one open panel, through which Cas leans forward, elbows on his knees, and holds his father’s extended hand. I find myself lingering. This is the first time I’ve ever seen King Durand.
He might have been handsome once—his face has a fine bone structure—but his skin is a sickly grayish color, even under the candlelight. And he’s so thin he looks almost skeletal. His light green eyes are his best feature. Perhaps that’s because of the loving gaze he gives his son. He opens his mouth to speak but then starts coughing. Cas quickly presses a cup of water to his lips. It dribbles down his chin as he struggles to drink.
I glance away. Cas wouldn’t want me to see his father like this. I start to creep past the doorway, hoping he won’t see my shadow, but I don’t make it to the other side. The eerie laughter returns. It cackles in my ears and tears right past me, entering the room. But I don’t see the woman anywhere.
Cas turns. His brows pull tight. “Ailesse, what are you—?” He jerks sideways as the bodiless laughter rushes by him. “What was that?”
Icy dread hits my veins. I finally understand. “No, this can’t be happening. Not again.”
“What can’t be happening?”
I sweep my hair aside, yank the bone knife from the laces of my dress, and charge into the room, using my crutch to propel me. “Protect your father, Cas!”
He stands and whips out his jeweled dagger. His eyes rove over the tapestries and shadowy corners of the room. “Who’s in here? I can’t see her.”
“She’s a Chained.” She has to be. Which means Sabine couldn’t open the Gates to the Beyond tonight. The unferried souls are loose again. My famille needs me after all.
“Chained?” Cas repeats.
“Some people call them ghosts.”
His eyes widen. “Pardon?”
“Ghosts,” I repeat. He knows nothing about the dead. He’ll have to learn quickly. I rush around the bed so the king is guarded from both sides. “But she’s a bad one.” I’d be able to see her chazoure color if I had my peregrine falcon vision—or feel her location if I had my tiger shark sixth sense. “Don’t let her reach the king. He’s already weak.”
The window flashes with a bright pulse of lightning. Deafening thunder immediately follows. I can’t hear anything else for a moment.
“—off him, you fiend!” Cas rages.
I throw aside the velvet drapes. King Durand is sitting upright, but suspended at an odd angle. The Chained woman is lifting him.
He weakly bats at his invisible attacker, his eyes round with terror. Cas blindly slashes his dagger, but his blade doesn’t hit anything. He doesn’t dare aim closer to his father.
I flip my bone knife and hold it by the blade. “Cas, move!” He swiftly angles away. I throw the knife. It stops in midair, an inch above the king’s face. The woman’s terrible shriek rings out.
The king drops onto his pillow. The hovering knife yanks back and falls. At the foot of the bed, the velvet drapes billow apart. The Chained woman has burst through them.
Everything goes quiet except the rain pelting the window glass. I strain to hear where the woman went. Cas’s face is in utter shock. He’s never witnessed an attack from the dead. Sabine brought him to the cavern bridge after I’d finished ferrying souls. “How is it that a ghost can be stabbed?” he whispers. He’s standing just as stil
l as I am, his dagger at the ready.
“The Chained are tangible.” I lean on the mattress with my good knee. I pluck up my bone knife. “All souls are.”
Cas nods, though his brow stays furrowed. “And these Chained don’t bleed?”
“Or die.”
He swallows. “Marvelous.”
King Durand starts coughing again. Cas quickly props him up with another pillow.
An awful thought seizes me. “When did your father first become ill?”
“About a month ago.”
“When other people in Dovré also became sick?” The second plague, some call it. They know nothing about the Chained, who are invisible to them. They don’t realize that the reason so many people in the city are still weak and suffering is because the Chained stole Light from them last time the dead were loose and unferried. And stolen Light can’t be replenished.
“Yes.” Cas studies my face in the candlelight. “Why?”
The drapes at the foot of the bed gust apart. I swipe out with my knife, but I’m not fast enough. I’m kicked in the ribs and hurled back several feet.
“Ailesse!” Cas shouts as I topple over. My crutch flies out of my grip. My bone knife spins across the floor.
The Chained woman laughs. Cas leaps toward the sound, but he grabs on to nothing. Another peal of laughter rings from the other side of him.
I gasp for air. I don’t have any breath to warn him.
He turns and stabs with his dagger, but then his hand stills. She’s caught his wrist.
“Foolish prince,” the woman purrs. “You’ll be just like your father, won’t you, comfortable here in your castle and blind to everyone else who suffers?”
She’s one of the dissenters, I realize. She blames the monarchy for the recent plague.
Cas glares at the spot where her face should be. “Does my father look comfortable to you?”
His dagger hand twists roughly, forcing him to drop the blade. The moment it’s out of his hand, he’s thrown backward. He slams into a stone wall, and his head whips back, cracking against it, too.
Panic overwhelms me. If Cas dies, I die. I drag myself toward my bone knife. I don’t have time to grab my crutch, and no help is coming. The castle soldiers won’t be able to hear our struggle above the howling thunder.
The mattress caves. The Chained woman is on the bed. “The gods are punishing you for cursing the land,” she tells the king. Durand’s head lifts off his pillow, pulled up by her again. He moans, eyes wild. “I’m going to help them.”
“Let him go!” My knife is five feet out of my reach now. I scramble faster. “Cas, help!”
The prince struggles to stand, dazed from hitting his head.
“Your father has already lost too much Light,” I say. The king must have been attacked before, when the Chained were loose in Dovré. “She’ll kill him! She’ll kill his soul!”
Cas’s face turns ashen. “Is that possible?”
“Yes!”
He blanches even paler and fumbles for his dagger. I finally reach my bone knife. I grab it and pull myself up on my good leg. I take aim and throw the blade. It flies near the king’s head again, but this time it sinks into the bedpost just beyond him. I’ve missed the Chained.
King Durand’s eyes roll back until they’re nothing but white. His chest heaves like he’s being sucked dry. Horror floods me. I desperately hop toward the bed. “Hurry, Cas! It’s happening!”
He charges forward. I’ve never seen him so ferocious. He leaps onto the mattress and throws a vicious punch. I hear it connect with the Chained, and the king droops to the bed. Cas immediately grapples for the woman. He stabs her over and over. My stomach turns, even though she’s invisible and won’t bleed. Cas keeps stabbing, but he can’t fend her off forever.
I glance at the window. It’s just like the one in my room, with glass panes that are fitted into shutters. “Cas, bring her over here!” I hop toward the window, ignoring my throbbing knee. “It’s the only way to get rid of her.” At least for now.
He drags her off the bed, continuing to stab while she shrieks. Scratches appear on his face as she claws at him.
I reach the window, fling back the latch, throw open the shutters. The curtains lash wildly in the wind. Rain beats into the room. Cas yanks the invisible woman closer. “Won’t she just fly back in here?”
“Souls don’t fly.”
“Naturally,” he mutters.
I reach to help wrestle her over when Cas’s boot slips on the wet floor. He quickly regains his footing, but his dagger is knocked from his grip. “Ailesse, she . . .” He stiffens and starts to choke and gag.
Then his eyes roll white.
No! I grab at the air. My hands latch onto the Chained woman’s shoulders. I shove and punch, but she doesn’t budge. I curse Cas. “Why did you hide my grace bones? I need them!”
His mouth twitches, but he can’t speak. I yank the woman toward the window ledge. She drags Cas with her. My back hits the sill. The three of us struggle while the rain pummels us. I’m about to strangle the Chained when I start to choke. I don’t understand. The woman doesn’t have me by the neck. The suffocating sensation spreads throughout my body. I buckle to the floor.
My heartbeat thrashes in my ears. I’m losing Light, like Cas. Somehow, the Chained is stealing mine, too. I writhe, desperate to make it stop. My fingers nudge against wet metal. Cas’s dagger.
I grasp the hilt. Summon my last reserves of energy. Aim for what I hope is the woman’s calf. I swing up on my good knee and stab with all my graceless strength. The blade strikes true. The Chained screams and releases Cas. He catches himself on the windowsill. We suck in a ragged breath simultaneously. “Now, Cas!” I cry.
He shoves the space where the Chained woman should be. At the same time, I grab her invisible legs and sweep them off the ground. Together, we hurl her out the window.
Her unearthly shrieks rage out, then fade as she falls three stories to the ground. The storm muffles the sound of her crash.
Cas releases a huge exhale. He slides down to the floor beside me. We sit with our backs against the wall, panting side by side, completely soaked from the rain.
“What . . . just happened?” he asks.
“I think we lost some of our . . .” I swallow. “Our souls.”
“We?”
My teeth chatter. “You’re my amouré.” I know he heard that word at the cavern soul bridge, but I never explained what it means. “We’re linked by a soul-bond. What happens to you also happens to me.” I’ll leave it at that. I can barely comprehend the revelation myself. I had no idea I could lose my soul if he did.
Cas nods slowly, his gaze losing focus as he struggles to accept this reality along with every other strange truth he’s learned tonight. “Are we going to be all right?” he asks. Rain drips from his thin circlet crown. “Our souls, I mean.”
I think back on what happened to Jules. She wasn’t just attacked like us. A Chained soul actually possessed her for a few hours. “We should have only lost a small portion of Light,” I reply. “We were lucky.”
He looks to his father’s bed and springs to his feet. “I should check on him.” He hurriedly brings me my crutch, then goes to tend to the king.
I stand and close the window in case the Chained woman decides to scale the castle walls. I’m fastening the latch when I hear a broken sob. I turn around.
Cas is quietly weeping. His hand is on the side of his father’s brow. King Durand’s eyes are closed. I hobble nearer, but once I see the king’s face, I stop. He’s utterly changed—not only lifeless, but terribly hollow, although his features look the same. There’s nothing inside him now . . . somehow, that’s apparent. His soul isn’t dormant in his body, awaiting the call of the next ferrying night. His soul is gone forever.
“Oh, Cas.” My throat tightens. What’s just happened is horrific, almost beyond comprehension. Souls are sacred, meant for eternal life. I can’t imagine losing a loved one like this. I walk
around the bed on my crutch and place my trembling hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
He hangs his head. He looks smaller somehow, like an abandoned child. “I’ve lost all my family now.”
A male servant with graying hair appears at the open doorway. He holds a tray with several tinctures and herb potions. His eyes grow large as he looks at the king, and he sets down his tray on a table, bowing deeply. “My sincerest condolences, Your Royal Majesty.”
Cas lifts his head. “What did you say?”
“My sincerest—”
“No, what did you call me?”
I realize what Cas is stuck on, what he’s struggling to accept. The servant didn’t address him as Your Highness, the honorific of a prince.
“Your Royal Majesty,” the servant repeats, and prostrates himself even lower. “Long live King Casimir.”
8
Sabine
RAIN LASHES INTO THE OPEN cavern under the ruins of Château Creux. I stand with three of the elder Leurress at the edge of the space we call the courtyard. Here, the rainfall can’t pelt us. “I’m sorry,” I say for what must be the hundredth time. “I was never taught that the matrone needed to remain on the soul bridge.”
“You weren’t taught many things.” Nadine sighs, refastening the eel skull comb in her hair. Her chestnut locks are still dripping. We’ve returned home to warn our famille, while the rest of the Ferriers are still out in the storm, trying to herd what souls they can. “Ailesse was raised to be Odiva’s heir, not you.”
Her tone isn’t scornful, but it still stings. “I’m very well aware of that.” I bite my trembling lip. Hunting, fighting—every skill prized by the Leurress—came more naturally to Ailesse. “I didn’t ask to be matrone.”
“Of course you didn’t.” Pernelle touches my arm.
Chantae rubs her ebony brow, impatient. “What happened tonight, Sabine? I saw you fight when the Chained were loose last time. You were far more adept.”
I shake my head and squirm backward, my chest squeezing in a vise. I can’t even draw strength from my jackal pendant to help me push past my anxiety. I don’t know how to explain that my mother is alive, even though I saw her in the Underworld. Then I’ll have to explain why she’s there to begin with—how she’d had a lover besides her amouré and a second child with him. Me. It’s enough to spark anarchy. I can’t handle a rebellion right now.
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