Bone Crier's Dawn

by Kathryn Purdie

  He punches me hard in the temple. White stars pop around me. I fall back on the platform, wincing. Cas pants. “You’re overreacting, Bastien. Would you like to know how much Ailesse took pleasure in that kiss?”

  “Go to hell.” I spit at him.

  He gives a humorless laugh and wipes his bloodied lip with his thumb. “She enjoyed it so much that she ran away.”

  I freeze. “What?”

  He nods, jaw locked. “She said she would never care for me like I wanted. She said love isn’t written in the stars.”

  I wait for relief to come, but can’t find it. “I don’t understand. Why would she run?”

  He shrugs. “Some far-fetched excuse—a sudden need to help her sister.”

  My mind races. “Tonight’s the full moon.” I picture the fissured bridge and hear Ailesse’s shriek when her knee shattered. “They wouldn’t dare.”

  “Dare to what?”

  I shove past Cas, grab a lantern from the room, and rush back to the ladder. “They’re going to ferry the dead, you fool.”

  After a startled pause, he clambers after me. “On the cavern bridge?”

  “Same one you saw.”

  “But it will break.”

  Now he’s catching on. “How long ago did she leave?”

  “A quarter of an hour, perhaps. You arrived shortly after she left.”

  “Then I can still stop her.” Ferrying doesn’t happen until midnight. If I hurry, I can make it to the cavern by then—as long as the Chained don’t get in my way. Damn, I wish I still had my knife.

  I climb one rung of the ladder, then pause, take a deep breath, and look at Cas. “Sorry I jumped to the wrong conclusions about you.” I still can’t stomach the thought of him and Ailesse kissing, but at least he didn’t force anything on her. I shouldn’t have attacked him.

  He nods, lowering his eyes a moment before meeting my gaze again squarely. “Sorry about your statues and your father’s knife.”

  My jaw stiffens, but what’s done is done. “You coming, then?” I don’t have time to argue with him about staying back. Truth is, between Ailesse and Sabine, I might need his help.

  He answers by following me up the scaffolding and through the tunnels of the mines and catacombs. We reach the cellar, climb the ladder into the chapel, and rush toward the tall doors that open to the street. I pull up the hood of my cloak. The storm is still raging outside. “We’ll have to be quick,” I say. “Stick to the shadows of buildings and alleys whenever you can. And be quiet. The dead are cunning.”

  He gives a tight-lipped nod.

  I bolt outside and launch westward, but Cas races away to the east—toward Beau Palais. Merde. I wheel after him, then force myself to stop. He’s chosen his throne. Fine. I choose Ailesse.

  I turn west again and break into a run. Don’t die, I silently command Cas. Ailesse would want me to stay with him and keep him safe. But I can’t. It’s not just the fragile bridge that has my adrenaline pounding. It’s Odiva, who wants to be freed. It’s the power of the song Ailesse heard in the Underworld. Between her mother and that music, she’s headed straight for a deathtrap.

  The dead shriek and howl above the rainfall.

  I clench my jaw and race faster into the shadows. I imagine I have Ailesse’s falcon speed and her ibex agility on the wet cobblestones.

  I will make it to her before midnight.

  I’ll save her from herself.

  20

  Sabine

  I WALK FORWARD TO THE meadow in the forest west of Dovré until I find the circle of stones, nearly hidden by the wild grass. Moon phases are engraved on them. Within the ring, I point out the long gash in the earth to the three Ferriers who have come with me.

  Pernelle steps toward the edge, watching her footing in the pelting rain. The full moon is hidden behind the storm clouds, but Pernelle’s fox vertebra pendant gives her excellent vision in the dark, and her sea hawk wing bone also helps her see well at a distance. She should be able to focus on what I do—the soul bridge, over a hundred feet below.

  She shakes her head. “How did our famille never know about this place?”

  “We must have, once.” I nudge a broken plank of wood with my staff. Bastien told me he blasted apart the cavern’s patched-up ceiling here. At one time, the soul bridge must have been naturally open to the Night Heavens, but someone—probably our Leurress ancestors—hid it from sight, perhaps when the people of Galle began using the quarries and caves below Dovré as catacombs for their innumerable dead.

  Maurille touches my shoulder, and I meet her deep brown eyes. They’re full of a mother’s concern, because that’s who she has tried to be to me since Ciana died. The two of them were best friends. I wish Ciana had been my real mother. “Are you sure you’re ready this time?” she asks me.

  A tremor runs through my hands, but I shake it off. The weight of my antler crown is nothing next to the press of the golden jackal pendant on my brow. The burden is a privilege, I tell myself. And I will tell my true mother the same. I don’t need her help bearing these graces.

  “Yes.” I contrive a reassuring smile.

  I start humming to calm my nerves, and advance to the hatch that leads to the underground stone staircase, another relic of our people. It’s made of limestone bricks that zigzag downward through a hollowed-out passageway.

  I lift the hatch door and take the lead, my heart pounding. A flood of memories rushes back. Cas walking these same stairs with me, my skin flushed to be so near him. Then holding him at knifepoint and asking Ailesse to kill her true amouré. Watching my mother stab Bastien, seeing Ailesse almost die when part of the bridge broke away. Finally, losing my mother when she ran through the Gates of the Underworld, and losing Ailesse when Cas stole her from me, a terrible blow after how long I’d fought to save her.

  My sister still needs saving. She’s still locked in a soul-bond and in danger from our mother. But maybe she won’t come here. Maybe Bastien was able to persuade her to stay away.

  The stairs end. I stop humming, realizing I’ve slipped into the melody of the sacred siren song. Roxane chastised me for doing so last ferrying night. I’m not supposed to hum or sing it, only play it on the bone flute.

  The three Ferriers and I walk out a tunnel to a ledge that’s a few feet wide and extends halfway around the perimeter of the thirty-yard pit. The natural stone bridge crossing that gaping hole leads from our ledge to a dead end on the other side, where there is no ledge, just a massive curving wall of limestone. It stretches up a hundred feet, where it meets the open gash in the ceiling above.

  I study the strength of the Night Heavens pouring in, along with the torrential rain. Elara’s Light is heady enough, but we could still use more illumination—especially considering that Chantae doesn’t have keen vision in the dark like me, Pernelle, and Maurille. “Light the torches,” I tell her, since she’s carrying our only lantern. I point out all the sconces on the back wall of our ledge.

  Soon warm light fills the space and flickers over the long cracks and weak spots of the bridge. It’s five feet wide and five feet thick. Below that bar of limestone is only air. The pit must be unfathomably deep. With a shiver, I remember when part of the bridge broke away. I never heard the large chunk hit the bottom.

  I pull the bone flute from my dress pocket. My hands are clammy. Chantae murmurs a prayer and strokes her boar jawbone choker. She advances past me to take her place on the bridge. “No.” I catch her arm and look at the others. “You three need to stay back on the ledge.”

  Chantae lifts her chin, her bronze skin shimmering in the torchlight. “We’re accustomed to ferrying on wet rock, Sabine.”

  “I know, but this bridge is fragile. The souls will only add more weight. It’s better if you guard the foot of the bridge instead. Try sending me only one soul at a time.”

  Chantae exchanges a tense glance with Pernelle. Out of all the elders, they’re the two I trust most, but I’m still far from earning their trust. “We shouldn’t
be attempting this without more Ferriers,” Chantae says. “Roxane would never have—”

  “Roxane isn’t matrone,” I snap, then flex my hands to control my temper. It still flares easily from my golden jackal grace. “Our duty is to protect the living from the dead. We have to take this chance.”

  Chantae sighs. “Very well.”

  I steady my legs and take my first tentative steps onto the soul bridge. The rain beats down on my head, and I twist the bone flute in my hands. Should I wait another moment in case Ailesse comes? What if she can’t come? What if she wasn’t able to fight off the Chained attacking Cas, and they both died? My stomach clenches. I should never have let her go back for him on her own.

  “It’s midnight, Sabine.” Pernelle looks up through the gash. I’m not sure how she can judge that without seeing the lodestar past the storm clouds, but I believe her.

  I can’t wait for Ailesse. She’s safe, I tell myself, and safer away from here. I would feel if something terrible had happened to my sister.

  In the middle of the bridge, I raise the bone flute to my mouth.

  I play the siren song flawlessly, though I feel none of its beauty. I’m guarding all my emotions against what’s to come. Tyrus’s siren song. My mother watching me through his Gate.

  The moment it ends, a blast of onyx dust shoots up from the pit. My dress and hair whip in the strange wind that gathers the dust together like unseen hands. It forms into an arched doorway of glittering black at the dead end of the soul bridge. For a moment, I can’t breathe. I’m shaking, expecting to see my mother’s midnight-blue dress, her bone crown, her chalk-white skin through that dusty veil. But so far nothing but the dark of Tyrus’s realm stares back at me.

  I glance at the three Ferriers on the ledge. Their eyes are round with awe and fear, but they stand tall, their staffs ready. Soon enough, the dead will be upon us.

  I advance to the end of the bridge, my pulse beating in double time as the dueling siren songs rise above the rainfall, Tyrus’s brooding melody and Elara’s hopeful descant.

  Stay focused, Sabine. Think of Paradise, not the Underworld.

  My gaze travels right, and I catch a glimmer of the goddess’s near-invisible Gate and silvery spiral staircase.

  When I reach the end of the bridge, I turn around to face the foot of it. The dead will pour in through the tunnel we came through. But when the first flare of chazoure appears, it shines down a shaft beside the tunnel opening. I’d forgotten about that entrance; it’s how Jules and Marcel arrived when they came for Bastien.

  The soul drops through the shaft and advances toward the bridge. A teenage boy with shaggy hair and wide-set eyes. Unchained. Maurille steps out of his way with an encouraging smile. He looks to me, and I nod with a smile of my own, though I tap my toe. I risked ferrying tonight to rid South Galle of the Chained, not the Unchained, although I expected them, too.

  When the boy is halfway across the bridge, my keen ears pick up a swish, scritch from above. I look up, but Maurille yells, “Behind you!”

  I whirl around. Several yards above the Gate of dust, a flash of chazoure streaks down the cavern wall with unnerving speed. A man with a prominent square jaw and spindly fingers. Chained.

  I backtrack to make space to fight him, but when he pushes off the wall, he jumps past me, leaping overhead with impossible strength. He’s stolen Light. Great quantities of it.

  He lands on the bridge right next to the boy and grabs him hostage by his chazoure collar. “Let me into Paradise,” the Chained demands, glaring at me while the boy thrashes to free himself.

  “It’s too late for redemption.” I stride toward him. “Tyrus has already claimed you.”

  The Chained’s eyes flicker to my golden jackal pendant, and his chazoure color pales a shade. He cries out in rage and throws the Unchained boy off the bridge. I gasp as he plummets into the darkness with a shuddering scream. What will become of him? I look to Maurille, but she shakes her head, horrified. She doesn’t know either.

  My shock passes. My fury ignites. I spring for the Chained. He races toward the ledge, but each step comes slower than the last. He can’t resist the lure of the soul bridge.

  I catch up to him and kick him hard in the back. His stomach slaps the wet limestone. I flip him over so I can see his rain-splashed face. “You will be punished for that,” I say. The Underworld holds many places for sinners. A scalding river of blood that boils off flesh. The scorching Perpetual Sands, where murderers eternally thirst. I step on the man’s neck and dig my heel into his windpipe. “The worst sinners burn forever in the Furnace of Justice. That will be your fate. Tyrus will wear your ashes.”

  “Sabine.” Pernelle’s voice sounds distant and tinny, despite my jackal hearing. I glance up at her. She looks sickened. “Just ferry him. It does not fall upon you to place judgment.”

  I blink twice and swallow hard. The Chained man beneath my heel writhes, his chazoure eyes rolling back in his head. Lack of breath can’t kill him, but Pernelle is right. I shouldn’t be torturing him like this.

  My cheeks burn. I quickly release his throat and drag him up to his feet. He fights me as I haul him toward Tyrus’s Gate, but I manage to keep him in tow, using the breadth of my red stag and golden jackal strength. It’s the jackal grace that’s the problem. It flows through me unbridled and exacerbates my worst tendencies. I didn’t know I had it in me to be so cruel. But perhaps a matrone needs to be this formidable.

  The Gate of dust billows as we come near, as if it’s conscious of our presence. I try not to think of it and quickly hurl the Chained man through. When I do, I glimpse black eyes and a flash of bone white from the other side. My ribs constrict against my lungs.

  “You came, daughter.” Odiva elegantly sidesteps the Chained man and draws flush to the Gate. Her raven hair floats about her in an eerie underwater way. “You are ready to let me help you.”

  “I didn’t come here for you.” I force myself to breathe. “You sacrificed innocent souls to Tyrus. I’ll never release you from your fate.” I turn my back to her and put ten feet between us.

  The other Ferriers don’t notice their former matrone. They’re busy with four new souls. Chantae shoves a Chained woman onto the bridge while holding another—her twin—back. As I run toward the first sister, aware of how she resists me, a fissure cracks wider on the bridge. I dart away from it and use my staff to prod the woman forward. Another Chained attacks Chantae, and the second twin gets past her. She bounds onto the bridge, and the fissure snakes longer by three feet.

  “Go back!” I shout at her. “The bridge is too weak.”

  “Let me be with my sister,” she pleads, though she doesn’t have chains.

  I fumble, wrestling with the first twin. “You would go to the Underworld with her?”

  She nods. Chazoure tears spill from her eyes.

  “You see, Sabine.” My mother’s whisper is spun of spider silk. It sticks to my ears and draws my unwilling gaze to her. “What I did was not so terrible. Not all of the innocent wish to be rewarded by Elara. They would rather be with their loved ones. And each of us loves at least one of the damned.”

  My heart drums with greater warning. I can’t listen to her. She wants to distract me.

  The bridge groans as another Chained soul bolts onto it. I throw the Ferriers a desperate look. “Hold them back! There are too many.”

  “We’re trying!” Maurille’s staff whirls left and right. She’s herding three more souls while Pernelle and Chantae grapple with four each. “You have to be faster.”

  “I could help you.” Odiva’s voice spins a tighter web. “Let me do my part, daughter.”

  My muscles lock in resistance. With seven quick strikes of my staff, I bring the Chained twin back to Tyrus’s Gate. I plunge the end of my staff into her stomach, and she’s cast into the Underworld. This time my mother doesn’t step aside. She catches the soul’s arm and effortlessly flings her into the depths behind her.

  “Lucille!” Her Uncha
ined sister races forward through the rainfall.

  “Let her come, if she is so insistent,” Odiva says.

  I take a defensive stance. The remaining Chained soul on the bridge is also running toward me, but his eyes are fixed on Elara’s Gate, where he doesn’t belong.

  “Sabine, watch out from above,” Maurille cries. I trust her dolphin echolocation and swing up my staff. It thuds against flesh. Another Chained falls onto the bridge. Crack.

  I kick him away, then jab back the Chained bolting for Paradise. I throw both souls into the Underworld. The Unchained twin leaps through after them while I’m preoccupied. No! I instinctively reach for the black dust. My mother reaches back for me.

  “Sabine, I’m here!”

  My breath catches. Ailesse.

  I turn around. She’s on the ledge. She throws off her wet cloak and squirms past the busy Ferriers. She springs across the bridge on her crutch. The limestone fissures slightly, but holds. Worry, determination, and ferocity dance over my sister’s face. Most of all, I see her deep love for me. It’s shining in her umber eyes and trembling through her chin. She leans toward me, willing herself to move even faster.

  When she reaches me, she flings her arms around my neck. I hug her back fiercely as the rain washes over us. She’s alive. She didn’t lose all her Light. And she came like she promised. Why did I ever think I could do this without her?

  She pulls back and kisses my cheek. “Promise to trust me and don’t worry,” she says. I know that tone of voice. With that same gentle strength, she’s told me many things. . . .

  You don’t have to kill the fire salamander if you don’t want to.

  It’s all right to weep over death.

  Let me, Sabine. I’ll boil the flesh off his bones.

  It comes as a comfort at first, an assurance that I don’t have to push myself; Ailesse will do the hard work for me. Then she sets her jaw, and my heart jumps up my throat. No, no, no!

  “Ailesse!” I reach for her.

  Her peregrine falcon’s speed is greater than my nighthawk’s.