Bone Crier's Dawn

by Kathryn Purdie

  “Stay right beside me,” I tell Cas under my breath. I head left, toward the two oncoming souls. One of them is Chained, but that’s better than our odds the other way. I don’t look directly at them, praying they’ll let us pass without incident.

  The Unchained, a young woman, turns her head at Cas and sneers. “He doesn’t deserve to be so handsome.”

  Cas jerks around. “Did you hear that?”

  The Chained man curls his lip. “Handsome is worth little if the gods spit upon your bloodline.”

  “They should curse him like they cursed his father.” The young woman’s chazoure eyes glitter coldly. “I would have lived to care for my child if the Trencavel dynasty hadn’t brought about the plague.”

  More dissenters, I realize, deceased ones finally able to infiltrate Beau Palais and challenge the monarchy.

  Cas’s nostrils flare. “My father was a devout man. He provoked nothing.”

  “Oh yes? And what about his son?” The Chained man steps into Cas’s path. Cas stumbles into him. “I could have a taste of what the gods really think of you, leech a little of that proud soul and find out.”

  “Stay back!” I prod the Chained away with the end of my crutch.

  He chuckles. “So, the pretty girl can see us. Where is she hiding her bones, I wonder?” He eyes the pouch around my neck and tries to snatch it. I dodge him and grab Cas’s arm. The four other souls are crowding in. We hurry farther down the corridor. The souls keep right behind us. Now the gaunt-faced man from the king’s chambers has joined them.

  Cas and I reach a place where a varnished railing overlooks a velvet-draped sitting room below. My nerves jump. At least seven more souls are wandering about down there. They can’t all be dissenters. Two are dressed like servants and silently follow living servants who have cautiously returned to their duties. But the other five catch sight of Cas and make their way toward the staircase leading to this floor.

  “There are too many,” I gasp. Why did I ever think I could protect him here? I had no idea the dissenter movement was gaining such momentum in Dovré. If this many have already died, weakened from losing Light, there must be several times more still living. “We have to leave.”

  “Leave?” He frowns.

  “I can’t keep you safe here.”

  “But I’m king.”

  “Exactly!” I swipe my crutch at a Chained lady who comes close to him. “And the dissenters don’t want any Trencavels on the throne. They’ll try to kill you, and I can’t kill them. They’re already dead.”

  I tug his arm to keep him moving, but he resists. “No, Ailesse. The castle has just been attacked, and it’s already under threat again. I can’t begin my reign by running away.”

  His bravado is infuriating. “It would only be until the next ferrying night.” Just two weeks away, if I dare to use the fragile cavern bridge again.

  “I have no idea what that means.”

  The gaunt-faced man leers nearer. “You think a fine weapon engraved with Belin’s sun will prove your worthiness, boy?” He strokes a symbol on Cas’s jeweled dagger. “You can’t just look the part. You have to be truly anointed by the gods.”

  I shove him back. “Come with me,” I plead with Cas. “Trust me.” I’ll take him underground—hide him, like I hid with Bastien.

  “Trust you? You won’t even explain what you are.”

  The other souls press closer, mocking him. They smell his hair, touch his rich clothes, whisper like a swarm of chittering insects. My sixth sense crawls with them. Cas struggles to hold still, keeping his eyes fast on me. Perspiration flashes across my skin. I have to tell him. “I’m a Bone Crier.”

  “That tells me nothing.”

  The four Chained circle him like tiger sharks. Adrenaline pounds through my veins. I reach up my sleeve and draw my bone knife. We don’t have any more time to argue. My amouré is more stubborn than I am.

  With falcon speed, I swing the knife and set its sharp edge against Cas’s neck. “I’m the girl who’s supposed to kill you.” My voice lashes like a whip. “And if you don’t come with me now, I swear to you I will.”

  11

  Sabine

  I NERVOUSLY SING A GALLISH folk song as I stare at Beau Palais from Castelpont. Or is it Castelpont? The riverbed beneath this bridge should be dry—it has been so for over a decade—but now it flows with sparkling water. Meadow vipers slither through its currents like eels. More bask on the bridge’s stones, which are beginning to warm in the morning sunlight.

  I don’t understand. The break of dawn should have made the snakes scatter. I glance at the road that leads around the bend to the city gates. Where are Ailesse and Bastien? They should have escaped by now. They were supposed to come meet me here.

  Someone laughs at me. I lean over the parapet and see my reflection in the water. You never told them to meet you here, my mirrored self tells me. You’re dreaming, Sabine. There’s a ring of gold around my brown irises that doesn’t belong there, and a row of knifelike teeth that slide down over my lower lip. Maybe I am dreaming. Graces can’t cause physical changes like this. It’s best you sleep right now, anyway. You should hide from the deaths you caused last night.

  I push back from the parapet. Bile rises in my throat. “I didn’t mean to kill anyone.”

  “I believe you.”

  I startle. The voice that answers me now is silky, and more slippery than the vipers hissing at my feet. “Mother?” I say, though I can’t see her anywhere.

  “I am waiting to bring you comfort. Come to me, my gentle child.”

  At her words, a golden jackal pounces onto the west end of the bridge. He yips at me, but then a rasp-screech comes from the east end, where the silver owl flies in and lands on a post. Both animals beckon, but it’s the jackal I follow. He belongs to Tyrus, and my mother dwells in the god’s dark kingdom. I have to tell her to leave me alone.

  Don’t go, Sabine, and she won’t trouble you.

  I’m speaking to myself again. But I don’t trust myself.

  I bound away with the jackal. No matter how fast he runs, I keep pace with him. His speed is my speed. His endurance my endurance.

  He brings me to the hollow with the stream where I buried him. My mother stands above his unmarked grave. Her raven hair and sapphire blue dress float and sway like they did when she stood behind the Gate of water.

  The jackal comes to sit beside her. She sinks her pale fingers into his golden hair. “My poor daughter,” Odiva says to me. “I warned you the jackal would play upon your weaknesses.”

  I bristle. “Was it weak to send an army of meadow vipers into Beau Palais?”

  “Is rashness strength?” Her bloodred lip curls in the semblance of a smile. “You meant to send a nest of Gallish whip snakes. A Leurress should know better.”

  “At least I have another formidable grace now.”

  “Which was not wise to claim when you had not yet mastered your third grace.” Her fingernails drip blood as she scratches the golden jackal deeper.

  “I am matrone now. I’ll decide what measures need to be taken for the good of the famille.”

  Odiva sighs and kneels on the grave mound. Her raven hair ripples and fans around her shoulders. “If only you and Ailesse could feel the strength of your mother’s love . . .” She starts to dig a hole, scooping up the earth with her hand. “. . . you might understand that I desire the very best for you.”

  “Love,” I scoff. “You don’t know its meaning.”

  Three more scoops of earth. Somehow the hole is already a foot deep. “You sound like Ailesse.” Her voice is light, but her black eyes are cold. “She chided me for the same, even after I spared her life countless times.”

  “She would have chided you worse if she knew all your betrayals.” My sister felt enough heartbreak when she found out Odiva had bargained with Tyrus to resurrect my father. The pact came at the expense of Ailesse’s life. I didn’t know how to tell her that our mother had also sacrificed thousands of souls m
eant for Paradise. A futile attempt to appease the god. I stand taller. “I came here to tell you to leave us alone.”

  The hole is four feet deep now, though Odiva has barely lifted a finger. “But I am the only person who can help you. Let me, gentle Sabine. The jackal is too great a burden to shoulder on your own.”

  “You don’t want to share my grace; you want to steal it. And you don’t want to help Ailesse; you want to trade her life for my father’s.”

  Five feet deep. “It is the jackal that spurs these doubts. Beware his cunning. He will bury you, daughter.”

  It’s then I realize the golden jackal has gone missing from my mother’s side. The sound of flapping wings catches my attention. Just past the stream in the hollow, the silver owl hovers, trying to fly toward me, but she’s caught midair against an invisible force.

  Six feet deep. “Come and see his carcass,” Odiva says.

  I don’t want to, yet my feet slip forward through the grass and overturned earth. I lean over the hole my mother has dug in mere moments. It’s not only deep, but also long. It exposes the length of the jackal’s body. Only it isn’t the jackal.

  It’s me.

  I’m in my white ferrying dress, but it’s ripped with bloody claw marks. My olive skin has turned the color of brackish water, and my black curls are choked with dirt. Worms crawl out of my nose and mouth. Worst of all, my eyes are open and coated in a film of grisly white. I stumble backward, my hand pressed to my stomach. I’m going to be sick.

  “Do you see now?” My mother rises to her feet. Her dress floats around her ankles. “This is the fate I wish to prevent. All you need to do is bring Ailesse to me on the next ferrying night. It can be done on the full moon. You can open the Gates on the cavern bridge.”

  “Why do you need her so you can help me with my jackal graces?”

  “Is your sister not at the very heart of your weakness?” The silver owl screeches, but my mother doesn’t regard her. “Think of all the terrible things you have done in the name of saving her.” My mother tilts her head. “Perhaps you and I have more in common than you are willing to believe, Sabine.”

  “No.” I step back.

  “All Ailesse must do is touch my hand to set me free.” She comes closer. I shrink away. The silver owl screeches relentlessly. “Then I can help you bear the jackal grace. I can save you.”

  She reaches to stroke my face. “Get back.” I recoil. “I don’t need saving. I can bear this grace on my own.”

  I whirl around and sprint into the forest. My mother doesn’t chase after me. I glance over my shoulder and catch a flicker of her victorious smile. My jaw locks. She’s been toying with me, showing me gruesome things that aren’t real, spinning lies so I’ll sacrifice my own sister. She must be mad.

  The silver owl swoops in front of me, finally free. She rasps in my ear, and I bat her away. I don’t need her telling me what to do, too. I race faster, past a copse of trees, then down a gulch, through another stream, and up a hill. I’m hunting, I realize. I need a fifth grace bone, something to give me power against the jackal’s influence. The meadow viper only agrees with him, and the nighthawk and salamander are too timid.

  I’m in the forest now. The spruce-and-pine canopy is so thick it crowds out the sun. A flare of light dashes by on my left. It’s too warm to be chazoure. It must be my new heat vision. Meadow vipers use it for hunting. The light I just saw was an animal.

  I veer for it and pick up pace with nighthawk speed. A spear with a ritual bone tip appears in my hand. Have I been holding it all this time?

  You’re dreaming, Sabine, I remind myself. That knowledge unleashes an inner savageness. If I’m dreaming, I’m allowed to be vicious and raging.

  I scream a guttural cry. Release my fury at my mother. Yell at the elders of my famille who don’t believe in me, at the silver owl who never explains enough, at the Chained who can’t be killed. I shout at Jules for losing so much Light, at Bastien for getting arrested, at Ailesse for breaking her leg and being better than me at everything. My throat burns from cursing Casimir. If he were my amouré, I would have killed him already.

  I keep chasing the glowing heat of the animal. Whatever it is, it’s large and fast. I smell its heady musk, its robust dominance. I want it all for my own.

  I shut out the voice at the back of my mind that pleads, Be cautious, Sabine. Be patient. You told yourself you’d select an animal more wisely.

  I can’t. I need more graces now. I shake from the irresistible urge to make this kill. Whether the reason is the jackal’s bloodlust or my own desperation for more power against him, I can’t tell.

  The animal leaps over a deep crag in the earth. I leap, too. It darts back and forth, zigzagging around trees and blazing a fiery path for me. I follow until the forest abruptly thins into a clearing and the animal bounds into the wild grass. Its ruddy hide glistens in the sunlight. I finally have space. I take aim. Hurl my spear with graced strength.

  The animal crashes to the ground. I bare my teeth and bolt after it. I scarcely see what it is, only that it’s still breathing. I yank out my spear and stab again. Terrorized eyes blink back at me. I scream. Cry. Keep stabbing. Die, you beast.

  Tears flood my vision. I hate myself for the thrill of adrenaline in my veins, for the failure I am at leading my famille, for killing each and every creature that has given me their graces: my bone knife through the spine of the fire salamander, my arrow through the chest of the nighthawk, Ailesse’s bone knife through the heart of the golden jackal, Odiva’s sickle to decapitate the meadow viper, and now this spear—is it also my mother’s?—through the side of the red deer.

  I see him for what he is now. A stag. Majestic, with sixteen tines on his antlers, surely the king of this forest. And now he’s dead, nearly gutted from my attack. Do not weep, Sabine. I am not my mother’s gentle child or Ailesse’s fragile sister. I’m more than second born, second best. I’m matrone. And I deserve to be.

  I cut my palm, scarred four times now from claiming my other graces. I press the red deer’s antler to my blood. A swell of new graces, bold and proud, course into me . . . and they’re what break me.

  A low keening rises from my chest, and I fall to my knees. I’ve stolen a life, a powerful and noble one. I’ve sacrificed, just like my mother sacrificed thousands of souls.

  I look down at myself. I’m barefoot and still wearing the ferrying dress I fell asleep in at Château Creux. It’s streaked and splattered with the stag’s blood.

  But you’re only dreaming, Sabine. You’re only dreaming.

  I open my eyes—no, they were already open—and everything is just as it was. I’m kneeling beside a slaughtered deer, and my dress bears the guilty crimson stains.

  I swallow a sick burning in my throat. Perhaps I was dreaming when I spoke to my mother. But now I am very much awake. And I’ve made my fifth kill.

  For better or worse, I’ve claimed my five grace bones.

  12

  Bastien

  I RUB MY ACHING BACK and duck into a narrow alleyway. My stab wound is on fire, my lungs burn for air, and I’m dizzy from my viper bite. Merde, I miss the old me. I’ve trained most of my life to fight powerful Bone Criers. Now I can barely outrun two run-of-the-mill soldiers.

  “He went into that alley!” one of them shouts.

  I groan. I have to get them off my tail. They were near the castle well, patrolling the mines. I only scraped past them when I jumped down a shaft. I didn’t expect them to follow me all this way, but they’re more dogged than a horde of Chained.

  I jump onto a barrel and climb three tiers of washing lines. I cut each down with my sword as I clamber higher. Wet clothes and ropes flop down on the soldiers. They bat them away and curse me.

  I swing inside an open window, nod at an old woman kneading dough, and race through her apartment. A rickety staircase in the hallway catches my eye. I race up it two steps at a time, practically wheezing. The soldiers yell from below. They’re already in the building.


  I kick open the door at the top of the flight. I’m on the roof. The crumbling spires of Chapelle du Pauvre are in sight, less than a quarter mile away. I bolt for the church ruins. I have no time to wheel back for Birdine’s apartment. The soldiers have chased me in the opposite direction of the brothel district. I’m in another poor district now, this one on the west side of Dovré.

  The soldiers emerge on the roof. I race faster and gauge the distance to the next rooftop. I’ll never make the jump. I scan around for a plank of wood or length of rope or—a flagpole. I shove my sword into my belt, veer for the flagpole, and yank it out of its stand. I don’t bother tearing away the tattered sun flag of Dovré; I run to the edge of the roof, ready to catapult. On second thought, I’d rather live.

  I lay the pole down like a bridge between the rooftops. I hang from the pole and haul myself across, hand over hand. It takes more strength than I bargained for. My arms throb. My grip shakes. The pole rolls left and right. Come on, Bastien.

  The guards’ boots pound nearer. I’m almost to the neighboring rooftop. The pole jostles. They’ve grabbed the other end. I quickly swing for the roof and let go of the pole. They kick it into the alley. My body slams against the edge of the building. I grab the lip of the roof. Clamber onto it, panting.

  The soldiers shout curses at me. I drag myself up and flourish a bow. “It’s been a real pleasure, boys. Better luck next time.”

  As soon as I turn away, my grin vanishes. I prod my back and grimace. My wound is wet, and my fingers come away with blood. Merde.

  I keep heading for the disused church. The rooftops leading to it are spaced closer than the last two, thank the gods. I need somewhere to rest.

  Once I slip inside the chapel, I make my way to the alcove behind the altar. The frayed rug is buckled, but the hatch door beneath it is still hidden. I smother a prickle of unease, throw back the rug, and go down through the hatch.