“All you have to do is watch for now. This is my part of the dance. When it’s your part, I’ll guide you.”
He swallows. Rakes his hand through his hair. Clears his throat. “Got it.”
His pensive expression draws a smile out of me, but he doesn’t smile back. Are all boys this focused? One day I’ll find out what it takes to rouse Bastien’s laughter. I’ll make a game of discovering all the ways to lighten his mood. I’ll . . .
You’ll do nothing, Ailesse. Not in this life. He dies at the end of this dance.
My stomach sinks, but I straighten my shoulders. I glide in circles around Bastien. My arms rise in the elegant arcs and patterns Giselle taught me. I’m representing life through the elements. The breath of the wind. The currents in the sea. The energy of the earth. The heat of flickering flame. The everlasting soul. Bastien’s sea-blue eyes follow my every move.
Do you think it’s cruel to tempt a man with life when you’re inevitably going to kill him? Sabine asked last night, riddling me with questions about the danse de l’amant before we went to sleep. Would you play with a hare all day before you ate it for supper?
You wouldn’t eat a hare, anyway, I said, and poked her stomach. It’s just a dance, Sabine. Just another part of the rite of passage. When I’m done, I become a Ferrier. That’s all that matters.
That’s all that matters, I remind myself as I twist and turn and show Bastien every angle of myself. I stroke my face and brush the back of my hand down my throat, my chest, my waist, my hip. You’re offering your body, Giselle explained. The shape of your figure, the beauty of your face, the strength of your limbs.
I gather my hair in front of my shoulder. I comb my fingers through it so Bastien can see its length and auburn color, its shine and waving texture.
Fire burns in his gaze, and my breath trembles.
It’s just a dance, Ailesse.
I close my eyes and force my mind away from here. I see myself wearing my same rite of passage dress, but I’m standing on the soul bridge, not Castelpont. I hold a staff in my sure grip and take my post alongside my sister Ferriers. At the end of the bridge, in front of the Gates of the Underworld and Paradise, my mother plays the bone flute and lures the dead. I lead the willing souls, and I fight the resistant. I ferry with just as much strength and skill as Odiva, and when the last soul crosses the bridge and the Gates close, she turns to me. Her eyes shine, warm and loving and proud, and she smiles and says—
“Are you finished?”
My eyes fly open. My mother is gone. Bastien is staring back at me. He fidgets in his fine clothes like they itch him. “You said I had a part to play,” he prompts, and darts a quick glance around us.
Is he nervous or eager? The breeze tousles his dark and glossy hair. My fingers twitch, longing to touch the wild strands that grow long and shaggy over his ears and the nape of his neck.
“Will you show me?” he asks, his voice treading between gruff and soft. “Will you . . .” He looks down and scratches his sleeve. Even under the night sky, my graced vision captures the flush rising in his cheeks. His gaze crawls back up to me. “Will you take your time?”
My blood quickens. I begin to understand why the gods chose Bastien for me. Beneath the tame sea of his eyes lies a tempest, a strength to match mine.
I sweep my hair back so it conceals my knife harness again. I take Bastien’s hands and place them on the circle of my waist. I arch my brow at his tentative hold, and his fingers settle and tighten, seeping warmth through the cloth of my dress.
I lift my palms to his face and trace the bones in his cheeks, jaw, and nose. Every movement carries rhythm, every touch a part of the dance. I’ve shown myself to Bastien, and now it’s my chance to consider what he can offer me.
My falcon vision focuses, and I see every green and gold fleck buried in the depths of his blue irises. He even has a tiny freckle in the lower rim of his right eye. My gaze drops to his lips. I’m supposed to touch them right now, study their shape and texture, as if my fingers can tell me what it would be like to kiss him.
The sixth sense from my tiger shark thrums like a second heartbeat from all this nearness to Bastien. It pounds harder as my hand floats to his mouth and my fingertips skim across it. Bastien shuts his eyes and releases a breath of quivering heat. It takes all my ibex grace to keep me balanced. I want to kiss him, not just imagine it. Kissing isn’t a part of the danse de l’amant, but Bastien wouldn’t know that.
Sabine would.
She’d think me cruel to cross that line of intimacy, when I mean to kill him on this bridge.
I lower my hands to Bastien’s neck and chest, and his eyes open. My nerve endings stir at the hungry look he gives me. My body flashes hot then cold.
Can any part of him sense how this will end?
My bone knife. His heart. My proof to the gods that I’m ready to become a Ferrier.
Keep dancing, Ailesse. Keep dancing.
7
Sabine
PAST THE ASH TREE IN the forest, I watch Castelpont and the progress of the danse de l’amant. My heart pounds faster. My best friend is that much closer to killing a human being, and I’ve sworn to witness every moment of his death.
Don’t dwell on the horror of this, Sabine. Think of the good that will come from it. Ailesse will be a Ferrier. She’ll help the souls of the departed find their new home in the Beyond. They’ll be at peace—at least the ones destined for Paradise will be.
Ailesse extends one of her amouré’s arms and slowly twirls outward along its length, then inward to his chest. She stops when her back is pressed against him. Her arms rise like wings and fold behind his neck. The boy eases into her movements, becoming one with her. They’re beautiful together. My eyes prick, but I hold back the tears. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry tonight.
I scrutinize the boy who arrived only moments after Ailesse started playing the flute. Did the gods choose him out of convenience, or is he truly her perfect companion? I frown, finding nothing wrong with him. Any flaws at first glance are only virtues in disguise. His awkwardness is charming as she spins around him. His solemn nature reflects a life of discipline.
I begrudgingly accept that the gods chose him well, but my chest aches. Ailesse has always done everything before me, and now she has something far more valuable than another grace bone. She has the promise of love. She has met her amouré. I fear I’ll never have the courage to do what it takes to meet mine.
A flash of black winks out from the fog across the bridge—just enough that I see something creep down to the riverbed. If it’s a predator, it will be drawn to the blood when Ailesse kills the boy. I worry at my lip. I’m not supposed to intervene tonight, but that rule probably means I shouldn’t interfere with Ailesse’s amouré, not whatever it is I just saw.
I hang my friend’s shoulder necklace on a branch, duck under it, and tiptoe to the edge of the riverbank. Ailesse’s amouré doesn’t notice me. He’s watching her walk around him and trail her hand around his torso. I have to hurry. I need to return to my post before the dance is finished. By then, the luring spell of the bone flute will dwindle away, Ailesse will withdraw her bone knife, and I must be back in time to witness her completion of the rite of passage.
The fog churns thick again. I move as fast as possible down the steep bank. At last, I reach the bottom and scan around. I can only see seven feet or so in each direction. The rest of the riverbed is a blanket of white. If I were out hunting, I’d have my bow or dagger, but as a ritual witness, I’m defenseless. The Leurress performing the rite must prove she is adept on her own.
I continue forward carefully. My salamander grace steadies my feet on the uneven ground. It also heightens my sense of smell, an ability I’ve often rolled my eyes at for its lack of helpfulness, but now I’m grateful. I let the scent of leather and wool and light perspiration guide me to the other side, where I hear a small grunt of exertion. It comes again, this time accompanied by faint scraping. The fog parts around a c
rouched figure—a girl. She jerks her head to me, and her hood falls back.
For a split second I’m baffled, unsure why she’s here. Then my blood turns to ice. Her hands are covered in dirt. The earth beneath her has been dug up in one spot. I curse myself. She must have found the place easily due to the crudely overturned soil.
The girl tenses, ready to attack or flee. My heartbeats crash. I struggle to think. She doesn’t have Ailesse’s grace bone yet. Ailesse would have noticed and cried out to me. I still have time to stop her.
I lunge for the girl. She anticipates me and rolls to the side. I whirl around to find she’s already up on her feet, holding a knife. My nerves light on fire, but I swallow my scream for help. Ailesse needs to focus on the boy.
The hooded girl jumps at me with her outstretched knife. I have nothing to shield myself with but my arm. Pain bursts through me as she cuts through my sleeve to my skin. I gasp and stumble backward.
Control yourself, Sabine. You will heal. It’s the one thing you’re good at.
I pick up a rock as large as my fist.
“Do you think you can stop me?” the girl hisses. “I’m ready for you.”
I throw the rock at her head. She dodges it with a mocking grin. She tosses her knife from hand to hand. “You’re only wearing one bone,” she says. “It won’t even be a challenge to kill you.”
She knows about grace bones? I fumble for another rock. “Who are you?”
“The daughter of a man a Bone Crier killed.” She practically spits the words. “Ashena pretended to love him for a year, and then cursed him and left him to die. Slowly. Painfully.”
Ashena? My lips part. She braided my hair once. When my mother was killed, Ashena gave me a pearly seashell. “Ashena loved your father?” It never occurred to me that an amouré could already have children of his own.
“Pretended,” the girl clarifies. “It wasn’t real.”
“Maybe it was. Ashena didn’t kill her amouré, not directly.” She confessed that much to our famille when she returned to Château Creux. If she had killed him with her ritual blade, the magic of the soul-bond would have spared her life. “Ashena died for loving him,” I add, my throat tightening. It happened in an instant, one year from her rite of passage.
The hooded girl’s eyes shroud, conflicted and confused. “That doesn’t matter. Ashena’s death doesn’t right the wrongs done to my father.”
“What will?” I’m stalling for time as my fingers close around the rock. I already know her answer.
“Your death.” She sneers. “And the death of your friend.”
“You could never defeat Ailesse.”
“Yes, we can.”
We?
In one swift motion, she dives for the overturned earth. I throw my rock. It crashes against her shoulder. She grunts, but the pain doesn’t stop her.
She pulls her hand from the dirt. In her tight fist, she holds Ailesse’s falcon wing bone. I remember the day Ailesse shot her arrow and plucked the bird from the sky. She gave me its longest feather.
Anger blazes like a wildfire inside me.
I charge at the hooded girl. My heart pumps pure rage.
At the same moment, Ailesse releases a cry of terror.
“Sabine!”
8
Ailesse
MY LIMBS GROW HEAVY. I drop to my heels from my toes. The violet tinge of my vision fades, along with its crispness. I wrest out of Bastien’s arms, and my hand flies to the base of my throat. My falcon wing bone is gone. Not from my necklace, but—
I race to the parapet and look over the ledge. I can’t see the riverbed through the fog below, but I hear the sound of a struggle.
Something is terribly wrong.
“Sabine!”
I listen, but only hear muffled thuds and grunts. Then my friend cries, “Ailesse, run!”
I freeze. My knuckles clench the half wall. I can’t run. Sabine is in danger. But I also can’t leave the bridge. Not yet. The ritual magic is alive. I have to choose. About Bastien. No, there is no choice. I have to kill him. Now.
My muscles scream to help Sabine, but I force myself to turn and face Bastien. “I’m sorry.” I shouldn’t apologize. It’s an honor to be my amouré. An honor to die. I reach for the bone knife at my back.
He reaches behind his back. “I’m not,” he says.
I withdraw my knife. He withdraws two. My eyes widen. “What is this?”
“This”—every tender, conflicted expression on his face contorts into a vicious grimace—“is revenge.” His blades slash out for me.
I jump back. I haven’t trained for a knife fight. Killing an animal with one is entirely different than this. “Why?” I ask. Hurt nicks my pride after the dance he and I just shared. “What have I ever done to you?”
His nostrils flare. Rage beats off of him in waves. My sixth sense vibrates up my spine, alert for his next move. “Your kind killed my father,” he growls, speaking of the Leurress as if we’re less than human. “I was a child. I watched him die. A Bone Crier sliced his throat and bled the life out of him.”
My stomach gives a sickening lurch. “You—you shouldn’t have been there. You weren’t supposed to be there.”
“Is that your apology?” Bastien scoffs, his nose wrinkling with hatred. “My father died. A good, kind, unforgettable man died because he crossed the wrong bridge on the wrong night.”
I wasn’t there. It wasn’t me! Weak words I won’t say. “It wasn’t a coincidence. He was chosen by the gods.”
“Oh, yes?” He strides closer. “Tell me what sort of gods you worship that would tear a man from his family and allow him to be sacrificed by a woman he’s never known?”
The jibe strikes my heart and the sanctity of amourés. Without that mandate from the gods, the Leurress might as well be murderers. Blasphemy. I refuse to believe— “You know nothing!”
“I know more about your black soul—and those of your cult—than I care to.”
Bastien leaps at me, and I barely dodge his knife. I lost the edge of my speed when I lost my wing bone. He grins. His eyes say I’m easy. I’m Sabine’s salamander, no sharp teeth or claws. He’s wrong. I curl my lip. Raise my knife arm. I’ve scaled icy mountains and slaughtered a great ibex. I’ve plunged into the sea and conquered a tiger shark. Bastien is nothing. Only a boy with two knives. A boy who is meant to die, anyway.
I strike out. He blocks my blow with his knife. His other blade arcs for my side. I grab his wrist—my tiger shark speed is plenty fast when I focus—and kick him hard in the chest. He flies backward ten feet and rolls to the ground.
His eyes flash wide. I exhale with satisfaction. “Jules!” he calls. “She’s still powerful!”
“I know!” A female voice. Winded. She’s below the bridge, fighting Sabine.
“Did your friend steal my wing bone?” I prowl toward Bastien. He crab-walks backward. “I’ll kill her after I kill you . . . and whoever else you brought with you, perched in those trees off the road.” Now that I’m attuned to my sixth sense, I know a third person is out there. Energy buzzes from the direction of the forest canopy, a half mile away, and it’s too strong to be a bird.
Bastien stiffens and steals a glance that way. “You’ll never get the chance.”
He sweeps out his arm and tries to trip me. I jump, but his arm lashes at me again. He’s unnervingly fast for someone with no graces. He’s been training for this.
He flips upright into a crouch and keeps attacking low, near the ground. I stumble backward and hop from one foot to the other. My feet tangle in the excess length of my dress and hinder my ibex agility. Curse Isla.
My back hits the parapet of the bridge. Bastien has me cornered, and he knows it. I fling my blade at his chest, but he twists his body, and the knife glances off his shoulder. A sheath must be hidden under his cloak. My bone knife skitters across the bridge and lands in the shadows.
I try to run for my weapon, but Bastien’s boot traps the train of my dress. With a ha
rd yank, I rip the hem away. He swipes his blade again, and I leap backward with my ibex grace and land on top of the parapet. The ledge is narrow, less than a foot wide, but I’m balanced and in my element. I’m also an easy target.
To my surprise, Bastien doesn’t throw his knives. Instead, in one fast and fluid movement, he hoists himself onto the parapet and stands to face me, six feet away. I lift a brow and return his brazen smile. He’s drawing out his moment of attack. Amusing. As if he could intimidate me.
“The gods chose you well,” I concede, noting how dauntlessly he disregards the forty-foot drop to the riverbed below. But he can’t be a true match to my skill. I’ve trained, too—to battle souls of the dead, no less. For that I don’t need a knife. “I will enjoy your death.”
He scoffs and kicks the bone flute I set on the ledge of the parapet. I stifle a gasp as it plummets into the fog of the riverbed. If it breaks— If I lose it— “Oops,” Bastien smirks.
He charges at me while I’m still in shock. I quickly jump back and arch into a handspring. I tumble again and again in fast circles. He’s keeping up. I sense his nearness with my shark grace. When I come upright again, his knives are at my throat and heart. I grab the hilts and hold them still. Veins strain at his temples as he struggles to drive in his blades.
“The gods didn’t choose me.” Bastien gasps under the iron pressure of my grip. “I hunted you here.”
“You couldn’t have set one foot on this bridge unless the gods sanctioned it. Your life is mine.”
With a sharp twist, I wrench the knife from his left hand. It’s the finer blade of the two. He shuffles back and guards his other knife. Interesting that he favors it. “Any time now, Jules!” he yells.
She doesn’t respond. No one does. “Sabine!” I call. Nothing but the howling wind answers back.
The fog scatters just enough that I catch a glimpse of a figure below, prostrate on the riverbed.
My heart kicks. Is she alive? My sixth sense vibrates dully, but that could be the energy of the other girl down there.
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