Bone Crier's Moon

by Kathryn Purdie

  I roll back to my heels from my toes. “Yes, I know.” The music of the bone flute also opens the Gates on ferrying night, which in turn opens all the other Gates around the world. Wherever people live, people die and must be ferried. And without the bone flute, none of the dead, near or far, can move on to the afterlife.

  Odiva gives the smallest shake of her head, as if I’m still the impossible child who ran around Château Creux badgering each Ferrier to let me try on her grace bones. That was years ago. I’m fully grown now, fully competent, with three bones of my own. I’m prepared to make my final kill.

  She steps closer, and my sixth sense hammers. “Have you decided whether or not you will try to bear a child?”

  Heat scalds the tips of my ears. A quick glance at Sabine reveals she’s just as red in the face. This conversation has taken a mortifying turn. My mother never discusses intimacy with me. I’ve learned what I know from Giselle, who spent one passionate year with her amouré before she killed him. Unfortunately, that year never produced another daughter Leurress—or a son, for that matter, although conceiving a boy is unheard of. The Leurress look at Giselle differently now, like she’s a failure or someone to be pitied. She takes it in stride, but I don’t envy her.

  “Of course I will,” I declare. “I know my duty as your heir.”

  Sabine fidgets beside me. I’ve told her the truth. I have no intention of providing another successor in our line. My mother will be forced to accept my decision after I’ve killed my amouré on the bridge. And when the day comes that I am matrone, I’ll choose an heir among our famille. I’ll be the first to break the chain of my mother’s ruling bloodline, but the Leurress will go on. They’ll have to, because the thought of getting to know a young man—for surely Tyrus and Elara wouldn’t summon me an old one—and possibly falling in love with him, then killing him, is a cruelty I can’t face. I’ll do what is necessary. I’ll sacrifice my promised lover, nothing more. Like all Ferriers before me, my rite of passage will be my oath to the gods, my promise to sever my last ties of loyalty to this world and dedicate myself to ushering souls into the afterlife. If I can resist my amouré, I’ll have the strength to resist the ultimate siren call—the song of the Beyond.

  My mother’s hands fold together. “Then heed my advice, Ailesse. Conceive a child without forming a lasting attachment to your amouré, no matter how handsome, clever, or amiable he turns out to be.” Her eyes look through me, lost to somewhere I can’t follow. “You cannot escape the consequences of time spent in passion.”

  Is she thinking of my father? She never mentions his name. When she does speak of him, it’s indirectly like this.

  “He won’t break me,” I reply, steadfast in my answer. One day I will rule this famille with Odiva’s fierceness and dedication, but I’ll also show each Leurress deep and unconditional affection. Perhaps my mother once intended to do the same, but killing my father built a wall around her heart. She isn’t the only Leurress who suffers from the loss of her amouré. It may be the real reason Hyacinthe cries at night. After playing the siren song on her wooden flute, she whispers the name of her beloved.

  Odiva hesitates, then places a hand on my shoulder. I startle at the contact. Her warmth tightens my throat with a surprising rush of emotion. “Without the Leurress,” she says, “the dead would wander the land of the living. Their unmoored souls would wreak havoc on the mortals we are sworn to protect. Our task is to keep the balance between both worlds, the natural and unnatural, and therefore it is our privilege to be born a Leurress and our great honor to become Ferriers. You will make a fine one, Ailesse.”

  My mother’s serene face swims in my tear-blurred vision. “Thank you.” My voice is a croak, barely an utterance. It’s all I can manage. All I want is for her to fold me in her arms. If she’s ever embraced me, I’ve lost the memory.

  I’m about to shift closer when she abruptly pulls back. I blink and collect myself with a quick swipe under my nose. My mother turns to Sabine, who hangs back a step, uncomfortably present during our conversation. “You will be Ailesse’s witness at her rite of passage.”

  A small gasp escapes Sabine’s mouth. “Pardon?” I’m equally stunned. The elder Leurress always serve as witnesses.

  Odiva lifts Sabine’s chin and smiles. “You have proven unwavering loyalty to my daughter, even in the face of death. You have earned this right.”

  “But I’m not ready.” Sabine shrinks back. “I only have one grace.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” I say, my stomach fluttering with excitement. “You just need to watch me. Witnesses aren’t allowed to intervene.” I must be tested on my own.

  “Ailesse is my heir,” Odiva adds. “The gods will protect her.” Warmth surges through my limbs, even though my mother doesn’t look at me. “Your role is to bear sacred record, Sabine. You might find the ritual inspires you to finish earning your own grace bones.” My friend’s strained expression says she seriously doubts that. Odiva releases a quiet sigh. “I have been patient with you, but the time has come for you to accept who you are—a Leurress, and very soon a Ferrier.”

  Sabine tucks a loose curl behind her ear with trembling fingers. “I’ll do my best,” she murmurs. Earning graces, completing a rite of passage, and becoming a Ferrier are supposed to be choices, but the truth is they’re expected of us. No one in our famille has ever dared to shun the life we lead. Not unless she dies along with her amouré, the way Ashena and Liliane did.

  Odiva stands taller, looking back and forth at us. “I want you both to prepare for the full moon in earnest.”

  “Yes, Matrone,” Sabine and I answer as one.

  “Now take that shark meat to the kitchen and tell Maïa to prepare it for supper.”

  “Yes, Matrone.”

  With a skeptical arch in her brow, Odiva leaves us. I wait, lips pressed together, until she’s deep in conversation with Isla on the other side of the courtyard. Then I turn to Sabine and release a squeal of happiness. “You’re my witness!” I grab her arms and shake them. “You’re going to be there with me! I couldn’t wish for anyone better.”

  She grimaces as I rattle her. “Far be it from me to deny anyone the chance to watch you slaughter the man of your dreams.”

  I giggle. “Don’t worry, I’ll make it clean and quick. You’ll barely see it happen.” I shove the image of the de-finned tiger shark from my mind.

  “What if your amouré is more than you bargained for?” Sabine squirms. “I’m not convinced you’ll be able to resist him. You swoon at even the ugliest boys we spy on the roads.”

  “I do not!” I slug her arm.

  She finally laughs with me. “Your amouré will probably be a foot shorter than you and smell of sulfur and bat dung.”

  “That’s better than the scent rolling off you.”

  Her mouth falls open, but then she smirks. “That was low, Ailesse. It was your idea to harvest the shark meat.”

  I grin and heft up the sack from the floor, ignoring the flare of pain in my hand. “I know. Come on.”

  She begrudgingly joins me as we walk toward the east tunnel to the kitchen. “I hope that rope cuts your wounds wide open.” She nods at the handle of the sack, then bumps my shoulder with hers. We both giggle again.

  As we trail away into the tunnel and out of earshot of the other Leurress, Sabine slows her footsteps. “Are you sure you don’t want to bear a daughter? What if you grow old and regret your one chance?”

  I try to picture becoming intimate with a man. How much could my graces help me? And then to feel his offspring growing inside me until she’s so large she has to rip out. “I can’t . . .” I shake my head. “I’m just not maternal.”

  “That’s not true. I see how you are with Felise and Lisette. They adore you.”

  I smile, thinking of the youngest girls in our famille. They fight over who gets to sit on my lap while we pluck quail feathers. When the clover blooms, I weave them through their hair. “I’ll be a better aunt. We’re practic
ally sisters, right? Why don’t you have a child one day, and I’ll dote upon her?”

  “I don’t know.” Sabine places a hand over her stomach. “The rite of passage should happen when we’re . . . thirty-seven.” She throws out a random age, well removed from her own sixteen years. “Right now it’s hard to imagine any of that.”

  The word “that” speaks volumes and hangs heavy in the air. “That” is the hardest path a Leurress can choose. If she decides to live with her amouré, she’s given exactly one year from her rite of passage to do so. Regardless of what happens afterward, the man’s life is forfeit. If she doesn’t kill him by the year’s end, they’re both cursed. The magic of the unfinished ritual will cut his life short and hers. It is how Ashena died. It is how Liliane died five years before her. It’s the ultimate disgrace.

  I push my shoulders back. “If I’m going to die, I’d rather do so ferrying the dead.”

  “Like my mother?” Sabine’s brown eyes shine in the darkness.

  I stop and squeeze her hand. “Your mother died a hero.”

  Her expression falls. “I don’t find any glory in death.”

  Sabine’s sadness is a dull knife sawing through me. I’m desperate to cheer her. Her mother died two years ago, but the pain is still fresh and strikes without warning. The departed soul of a wicked man—a Chained soul—killed Sabine’s mother on the land bridge leading to the Gates. The nearness to the Beyond turned his spirit tangible—a form all souls keep for the rest of eternity, where they are rejoined with their bodies, and a form they can use to fight Ferriers. Only the Chained attempt to do so, resisting their punishment in the depths of Tyrus’s Underworld, unlike the Unchained, who will live in Elara’s Paradise. “That settles it, then,” I say brightly. “We’ll never die.”

  Sabine sniffs and cracks a smile. “Deal.”

  We walk into the darkness, our shoulders pressed together. “Let’s pray that Tyrus and Elara send me a ghastly man,” I say. “Then even you won’t regret his death.”

  Sabine’s silent laughter shakes me. “Perfect.”

  3

  Bastien

  NINE DAYS UNTIL I KILL her.

  I climb into the rafters in the blacksmith’s shop, the best place to practice when Gaspar has spent a late night in the tavern. The old man will be sleeping off his ale for at least another hour.

  Nine days.

  I steady my feet on a sturdy center beam and throw the hood of my cloak over my eyes. When I meet her, the moon will be full, but the night could be cloudy or rainy. Dovré and the surrounding parts of South Galle can be fickle like that.

  I pull two knives from my belt. The first I stole right under Gaspar’s nose as it was cooling from the forge. The second is unremarkable. Cheap. The hilt isn’t balanced with the blade. But the knife was my father’s. I wear it for him. I’ll kill with it for him.

  Half-blind, I lunge forward. Dust meets my nostrils as my feet strike the beam. I parry back and forth, my knives slashing the air as I begin my exercises. I’ve done these formations a thousand times, and I’ll do them a thousand more. Being too prepared is impossible. I can’t leave anything to chance. A Bone Crier is unpredictable. I won’t know what animals she’s stolen magic from until I meet her. Even then, I’ll only be guessing. She might have twice my strength, probably more. She could leap right over me and stab me from behind.

  I pivot on the beam and adjust my grip on both knives. I throw one after the other, and hear a satisfying thunk, thunk. I race to my target—a vertical crossbeam—and grab the hilts. I don’t withdraw them yet; I use them as handholds and climb to a higher rafter.

  I picture a bridge and the girl I’ll kill there. Any Bone Crier will do. They’re all murderers. I’ll take what they stole from me, my father’s life for one of their own.

  Nine more days, Bastien. Then my father will be at peace. I’ll be at peace. I can’t imagine the feeling.

  I drop to my hands and wrap my legs around the rafter. I swing upside down and tuck into a flip. My hood flies back as I land squarely on the lower beam.

  I can surprise a Bone Crier, too.

  A steady clap, clap, clap breaks my concentration. Gaspar is early. My muscles tense, but the voice I hear is throaty and female.

  “Bravo.” Jules. She leans against the blacksmith’s unlit forge. Her straw-blond hair glows in a dusty beam of light from the open window. She flips a coin on her thumb.

  “Is that real gold?” I wipe my wet brow on my sleeve.

  “Why don’t you come down here and find out?”

  “Why don’t you come up here?” I walk back to my lodged knives. “Unless you’re afraid of heights.” I yank the blades out of the crossbeam and sheathe them.

  Jules snorts. “I jumped from the butcher’s roof to steal that goose last week, didn’t I?”

  “Was it the dead goose who squealed?”

  Jules’s eyes narrow to slits, but she rolls her tongue in her cheek to keep from grinning. “Fine, Bastien. I’ll come up there if you want to play with me.”

  Not exactly what I meant.

  She saunters to one of the supporting posts, grabs the hooks for Gaspar’s tools, and climbs. Her snug leggings show off the lean muscles of her body. I look away and swallow.

  Fool, I chide myself. If I can’t keep my head around Jules, how will I manage being near a Bone Crier? They’re breathtaking and irresistible. Or so the legends say. My one run-in with a woman in white is proof enough. Even though I was terrified—even though I came to hate her—I can’t forget her rare, unsettling beauty.

  I sit on the rafter, one knee drawn to my chest while the other leg dangles. Across the beam, Jules pulls herself to her feet. Her chest heaves above her bodice. She’s been lacing it tighter for two months, ever since I put an end to kissing her. “What now?” She rests one hand on her hip, but her legs shake. “Are you going to make me walk over to you?”

  When I don’t answer, she bargains, “How about you meet me halfway?”

  “Hmm.” I drum my fingers on my chin. “Nah.”

  She scoffs and flashes her coin at me. “I was going to share this, but now I think I’ll keep it for myself. Maybe buy a silk dress.”

  “Because that comes in handy for a thief.” I can’t imagine Jules in a gown. She’s the only girl in Dovré that dresses the way she does, and if any boy gives her grief about it, she blackens his eye. If he goes a step further and calls her “Julienne,” he’ll walk away doubled over with his hands between his legs. “Come over here.” I beckon with a lazy hand. “The ground is just fifteen feet below. If you fell, what’s the worst that could happen? A cracked skull? Broken neck? A nice chat up here is worth it, don’t you think?”

  “I hate you.”

  I grin and lean back against the post. “No, you don’t.” Everything between us feels right again. I’m goading her, annoying her, just like old times . . . before I made the mistake of kissing her. Jules and her brother, Marcel, are like family to me. I was wrong to mess with that.

  Her braid falls in front of her shoulder as she eyes the ground. “So, is this officially a dare?”

  “Sure.”

  “What do I get if I make it across?”

  “You mean if you live?” I shrug. “I’ll let you keep your coin.”

  “It’s mine, anyway.”

  “Prove it.”

  She takes another glance at the ground and purses her trembling lips. In a knife fight, Jules would best me any day. But everyone has a weakness. She inhales a long breath and shakes out her hands. Her hazel eyes take on the gleam of the Jules I know best. The Jules who will follow me anywhere. She and Marcel will be with me in nine days. Together, we’ll find vengeance. My friends lost their father, too.

  I never knew Théo Garnier. I was twelve years old and ready to pickpocket an apothecary when I first heard his name and learned of his fate. I overheard the apothecary speak of a strange illness he’d failed to cure three years earlier. He’d never come across anything so unnatural
as the mysterious bone disease. It was the last tragedy Théo was destined to suffer after being abandoned by his wife and then his lover.

  Suspicious that a Bone Crier might be involved, I spent the next month tracking what became of Théo’s two children. According to the apothecary, there was no family to take them in. I finally found Jules and Marcel in another district of Dovré, scavenging the streets like me to survive. We pieced together the puzzle of our fathers’ deaths and realized we had a common enemy. Together, we pledged to make the Bone Criers pay for what they took from us.

  Jules stows the coin between her teeth and spreads her arms wide. She takes her first step.

  My smile fades as I study her technique. “Look ahead, not downward. Focus on the distance in front of you. Find a target there and stay locked on it.” She exhales and does as I say. “Good, now keep your pacing even.”

  I didn’t dare Jules just for fun. I’m helping her. If she can rise above her fear of heights, she’ll be unstoppable. She’ll scale the rooftops of Dovré. She’ll leap from one to the next with the ease of an alley cat. The perfect thief.

  She’s halfway across the beam, her face flushed with victory. Then her brows twitch, her confidence cracks. She’s only halfway across.

  “Steady, Jules. Don’t think. Relax.”

  She holds her breath. Veins pop at her temples. Her eyes lower.

  Merde.

  She pinwheels sideways. I lunge, but she falls too fast.

  I dive for her arm, and the beam smacks my chest. Our hands scramble to connect. Her weight yanks me, but I anchor myself to the beam. She flails and releases a tight-lipped cry.

  “I’ve got you, Jules!”

  She grabs my wrist with her other hand. By some miracle, the coin is still in her mouth.

  “The anvil’s right below you,” I warn. “I’m going to pull you back up, all right?”

  She nods with a whimper.

  I squeeze the beam with my thighs and lift her slowly, hand over hand. She finally makes it upright, and we straddle the beam, face-to-face and panting. Her arms fling around my neck. She’s trembling all over. I hold her tighter, cursing myself for daring her in the first place. If I lose anyone else . . . I close my eyes.