Grace bone, not bones. Singular. Pitiful. “I tried to help, but I was injured.”
“That’s no excuse. You should have trusted your grace to heal.”
I stare at her, my mouth slack, completely at a loss for words. I’m covered in dried blood and struggling to stay upright. My salamander grace may have quickened my healing, but my wounds were deep at Castelpont. “I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head and paces the courtyard, her dress rippling as she changes directions every few feet. I scarcely recognize the woman before me. She’s nothing like the cool and collected matrone who rules my famille. “Is this your sign?” Her furious shout echoes off the cavern walls. I wince, even though she isn’t speaking to me. I don’t know what sign she’s talking about, but her onyx eyes stab a glare of accusation toward the ground.
Within moments, three of the elders—Dolssa, Pernelle, and Roxane—race into the courtyard from various tunnels. Their hair and clothes are bedraggled, but their eyes shine alert. They scan the cavern like they’re searching for a source of danger. “Is everything all right, Matrone?” Dolssa asks.
Odiva clutches the lump of a red gem—or whatever it is she’s hiding beneath the neckline of her dress. “No, it is not.” She takes a labored breath and releases her grip.
Pernelle’s gaze turns to me and latches on to my blood-smeared face. “Ailesse . . . is she?”
“She’s alive.” Please let it be true, Elara. “But she needs us.” In as few words as possible, I repeat what I told Odiva.
The matrone wrings her hands and paces another length of the courtyard. “Wake the rest of the elders,” she commands the three Leurress. “Go track my daughter. Start at . . .” She looks to me.
“Castelpont.”
Odiva shuts her eyes. “Of course, Ailesse chose Castelpont.”
“We’ll find her, Matrone.” Roxane motions to her companions. They quickly leave to gather the others. I hurry to join them.
“I’m not finished with you, Sabine.”
I freeze and turn around. Odiva has regained her composure, but something about her pale, almost bloodless skin—gleaming even more pallidly in the moonlight—makes my scalp prickle.
She wanders toward me. “Have you been taught the difference between the Chained and the Unchained?” she asks, like I’m a child still learning the concept of ferrying—like this is an opportune time for a lesson.
“Yes,” I reply warily, and steal a glance over my shoulder. The elders are already gone from the courtyard, and I don’t want them to leave the castle without me. Why is Odiva bringing this up right now? “The Unchained are those who led a righteous life and deserve an eternity in Elara’s Paradise,” I say. “The Chained are the sinister souls, those who were wicked and merit punishment in Tyrus’s Underworld.”
Odiva nods and sweeps nearer.
“Can this wait, Matrone? Ailesse—”
“The elders will search for Ailesse.”
“But—”
“You have one grace bone, Sabine. You can’t do anything to save her right now.”
Her words hit me square in the chest and echo Ailesse’s at Castelpont: You can’t save me! I believed my friend. That’s why I finally ran for help.
“I will tell you what you can do, however,” Odiva continues. “But first you must listen. I need you to understand.” I shuffle back a step as she comes closer. I hate the softened edge of her voice. I don’t want any tenderness from the matrone, especially when she gives none to her daughter—who we should be searching for right now. “When the Leurress are ready to become Ferriers, I teach them the ultimate threat of the Chained. I taught Ailesse just yesterday.”
I frown. Ailesse didn’t tell me. Which means the knowledge must be sacred.
“Now I will teach you, Sabine.”
“But I’m not ready to become a Ferrier.”
Odiva’s stark-red lips curl, and the hair on my arms stands on end. “You may soon find out you feel differently.” She draws up taller. “Do you know what happens to the souls of the recently departed when they hear the ferrying song?”
I shift on restless legs. “Their spirits rise from the grave and gain a tangible form.”
“Which makes them dangerous in the first place. But do you know what becomes of souls when they cannot pass through the Gates of the Beyond?”
I try to picture the Gates I’ve been told about but have never seen with my own eyes. Elara’s Gate is supposed to be nearly invisible, while Tyrus’s Gate is visible and made of water. When the land bridge emerges from the sea, both Gates crop up at the summoning of the bone flute, just like the dead are also lured by its song. “They don’t get punished?” I ask, speculating about the Chained, though my answer is obvious. I’ve never heard of any soul who successfully evaded ferrying.
Odiva shakes her head. “It is much worse than that. The Chained become even more sinister, and if the Leurress are not able to restrain them, they can flee the bridge and retain their tangible form. Do you understand the implications?”
A commotion rises from the tunnels. The elders. They must be gathered now and ready to leave. “The Chained return from the dead?” I ask, impatient to finish this conversation.
“If only it were that simple. The souls are neither alive nor dead in the mortal realm, where they should no longer be. In this frustrated in-between state, the Chained seek more power and feed off the souls of the living.”
Feed? I forget about the elders and give the matrone my full attention. “How?”
“They steal their Light.”
My eyes widen. Elara’s Light is the life force within all mortals—strongest within the Leurress. Without it, we would weaken and ultimately die. “Then what . . . what happens if the Chained take all of their Light?”
Odiva grows silent, her gaze distant. The feathers of her talon epaulettes flutter on the breeze, and one catches on the largest talon, the carved pendant bone of an eagle owl. “They die an everlasting death. Their souls are no more.”
Dread, deep and black, overwhelms me, like my Light is already fading. What she’s speaking of is the worst form of murder—to murder a soul—something I never thought possible.
This is the reality Odiva has been laboring to drive into me: to her, the loss of the bone flute is worse than the loss of her daughter. And I’m responsible.
“I’m sorry.” My voice wavers, flimsy as seagrass. After the rite of passage, it was my job to place the bone flute back on the bed of lamb’s wool in the cedar chest. Now, not only is Ailesse’s life at risk because of me, but countless other lives are, as well. Ferrying needs to happen in fifteen days, during the new moon. “What can I do?”
“You can grow up.” Odiva grimaces like it costs her to reprimand me. “I have been too soft on you, Sabine. You are not a child anymore. If you had obtained more graces before tonight, you would have been able to overpower your assailant. Ailesse would have had a fighting chance.”
Fresh tears gather in my eyes, but I deserve this chastening. “I promise to hunt for more, Matrone.” I have to get over my qualms about killing animals. “But first . . . please, let me help my friend. Let me go with the elders.”
“With the graces of a fire salamander?” Odiva’s eyes fall to the tiny skull on my necklace. “Absolutely not.”
All seven elders emerge into the courtyard to cross through. Their most striking grace bones gleam under the moonlight. Roxane’s stag antler hair wreath. Dolssa’s snake rib necklace. Milicent’s vulture wing bone earrings. Pernelle’s fox vertebra pendant. Nadine’s eel skull hair comb. Chantae’s boar jawbone choker. Damiana’s wolf fang bracelet.
I fight the urge to hide my own pitiful grace bone as they leave through another tunnel on their way out of Château Creux. “Please, Matrone. I’m the one who was with Ailesse tonight. I’ve seen what her amouré is capable of. He and his accomplices must have studied the Leurress. They knew what they were doing. What if they’ve abducted her?” As terrible as that would be, at least it would mea
n Ailesse isn’t dead. “What if the elders can’t find her?”
“If they cannot, it is no matter.” Odiva’s raven brows lower over her sharpened eyes. “I will find her. Ailesse is blood of my blood, bones of my bones. There is magic between a mother and daughter that even the gods cannot explain.” A deep ache rises in my chest, a yearning to experience what Odiva is talking about. Mon étoile, my mother used to call me. My star. “I will draw on that magic to track her. I will save my child.” Her voice exudes calm confidence. “Ailesse is alive. I can feel it now.”
A cautious breath fills my lungs. “Truly?”
“Truly.” Odiva smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Now go to sleep, Sabine. Your wounds will finish healing while you rest. Tomorrow, you will begin the hunt for your new graces. The gods may have need of you sooner than you think.” Her hand drifts to the lump of her hidden necklace. “I want you to be ready.”
I try not to squirm under her lingering stare. Odiva wants me to become a Ferrier—she’s made that painfully clear—but I also have the uneasy feeling she wants something more from me. Something I won’t like.
“Ailesse will survive,” she reassures me. “I possess the strength of five grace bones. I will see to it. So do not pursue her.” Her tone is clear and final. “Leave my daughter to me.”
Odiva turns away, signaling the end of our conversation, and she withdraws to the place where I first saw her praying. She starts to murmur an unfamiliar chant. I can’t make out all her words, but I hear Ailesse’s name as Odiva lifts her hand to her bat skull crown. She cuts her finger on its teeth and drips her blood onto the limestone below, where the Leurress have etched the face of Tyrus’s golden jackal in the curve of Elara’s sickle moon. My stomach turns. I’ve never seen or heard of a ritual like the one she’s doing.
The matrone’s pitch-dark eyes slowly rise to me while her blood keeps spilling. “Goodnight, Sabine.”
My knees wobble. “Goodnight.”
She turns her back to me again, a mirror reflection of before—her arms outstretched in prayer, her cupped hands tipped downward. A marrow-deep shiver runs through me, and I hasten away.
In my room, I grab my bow and a quiver of bone-tipped arrows. I have no intention of sleeping tonight. I’d only toss and turn. Instead, I sneak through a side tunnel, bypassing the courtyard, and I leave Château Creux.
Clutching my wounded side, I run as fast as possible. Once I clear the castle by a mile, I remove my salamander grace bone and tie it onto Ailesse’s shoulder necklace. The act of clasping it around my own neck and shoulder seals my vow to her.
I will save you, Ailesse.
I can’t rely on the elders or Odiva to do what I must, especially since my matrone is more concerned about the bone flute.
As I begin my journey to Castelpont, Elara’s Light, like courage, seeps inside my soul. Even stronger is my fierce determination. I’ll search for the flute in the riverbed, then I’ll strike out for the hunting grounds of the forest. I’ll kill to obtain my last two grace bones, if that’s what it takes to save my friend. And this time I won’t weep.
I will be like Ailesse.
11
Ailesse
CURSE BASTIEN AND EVERY BONE in his body. I can’t see anything through this blindfold. My foot catches on a tree root—or maybe a rock—and I pitch forward. He hoists me back up before I hit the ground. I thrash against his iron grip on my arm. “Let go!” But he won’t. He hasn’t since we left Castelpont—since I failed to kill him.
Humiliation scalds my cheeks. My mother will never believe I’m capable again. Far worse than losing my grace bones, I lost the bone flute. Sabine will go back for it—that’s my only consolation—but I can’t shake the image of my mother’s furious eyes when Sabine tells her what happened.
I struggle to stay on my feet as Bastien continues to drag me through the forest. His two friends hedge us in, helping to guard me as we travel, Marcel in front and Jules behind. Their footsteps fall loud and clumsy. Marcel shuffles as he walks, and Jules limps on her hurt leg. Thank you for that, Sabine.
“You’re playing a game you’ll never win,” I warn them. “If you three had any wisdom between you, you’d let me go while you still have the chance. My mother will come looking for me, and you do not want to face her wrath.”
Bastien’s grip tightens, and my arm prickles with numbness. “If your mother wants you back, she’ll have to come to us in our territory.”
“You really think you can hide me?” I scoff. “There is nowhere you can dream of that my mother won’t find.”
“I’m counting on it.”
We come to an abrupt stop in the forest. I’ve tried to track my steps over the past hour and a half, but we’ve changed directions too many times. We’ve even walked through streams, with the current and against it. Bastien is trying to disorient me, and without my falcon, shark, and ibex graces, it’s working. Maybe he fears my mother will see through my eyes—impossible—and he thinks his tactics will help outrun her. Fool.
“You first, Jules,” Bastien says. “Then you can guide the Bone Crier through to the other side.”
“I say we let her squirm.” I startle at the nearness of Jules’s voice, just behind me, deep and scratchy for a girl. If I had my shark tooth, I’d have sensed her closeness. But my grace bones are in her possession now, a fact she keeps gloating about when she’s not hissing about her hurt leg. I hope it falls off.
“Our first priority is to get her deep underground,” Bastien replies.
Underground? My chest tightens at the suffocating thought. The courtyard beneath Château Creux is different from wherever Bastien means; it’s at least open to Elara’s Night Heavens and the breeze from the Nivous Sea. “Where are you taking me?”
His spicy scent hits me as he shifts nearer. “The catacombs. I’ll let you guess by which entrance.”
My heart hammers. The catacombs are rumored to have several entrances, and some sections don’t join up with others and lead to dead ends. “No, you can’t . . . I can’t . . .” I’ll be starved of moonlight and starlight, my last sources of strength. I have to get away. Now.
I shove Bastien hard in the chest. His hold breaks, and I run—only four feet. He grabs my other arm and twists it behind my back. I suck in a sharp gasp of pain.
He chuckles. “You were right, Marcel,” he calls a little ahead of us.
“Was I?” Marcel replies. “I mean, I usually am, but what about this time?”
“Bone Crier magic comes from more than just bones.” Smug satisfaction drips from Bastien’s voice. “They’re creatures of the night.”
“Ah, yes . . .” Marcel drawls indifferently. “That’s partly why they worship Elara.” He doesn’t sound like he has the venom to commit murder, like Bastien or Jules, or even help them strip me of all my magic. But his apathy could be a mask for viciousness. “They need sustenance from the goddess’s moon and stars.”
“And without it,” Bastien adds, adjusting his hold on my arm so he’s no longer twisting it, “the princess here will be nothing except a lure for her queen.”
“Lure?” Jules asks, wariness creeping into her tone. “What are you talking about?”
I grind my teeth. It’s clear enough to me. “Is that your big plan?” I turn my face to Bastien. “Using me as bait to kill my mother? How? You won’t be able to steal her grace bones—and she has the finest in my famille.” I throw all the cruelty I can into my tight-lipped smile. “She will utterly ruin you.”
“Bastien . . .” Jules says from behind me, her voice low. “Maybe we should rethink this.”
I feel him bristle. “I have been rethinking this. Our fathers deserve more than the death of a random Bone Crier. We need to stop ritual sacrifice once and for all. The smartest way to do that is strike for the head—take out the queen.” His tone tempers with an edge of desperation. “This is our best chance, Jules.”
“I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Don
’t I always?”
She huffs. “Hilarious.”
“Keep moving,” he says. “We’re almost there.”
She walks past me and slams her shoulder into mine. My jaw stiffens. I kick backward and bash her shin with my heel. She hisses a curse. I must have hit her wounded leg. Good.
My left cheek smarts with a bright burst of pain. I stumble backward with a jolt of dizziness. “Careful, Bone Crier,” Jules warns me.
I lift my chin, wishing I could rip off this blindfold so I could stare her down. I barely know her, but I already hate her. Jules hurt Sabine. I haven’t forgotten that.
She limps away from me. I hear her for a few paces, then I don’t hear anything at all. Has she already entered the catacombs?
A fresh wave of panic assaults me. I drag my feet and wrestle against Bastien. He yanks me forward. “You’re next.”
I can’t go in there. I won’t. I stomp on his foot. His arm wraps around my throat in a chokehold. I can’t breathe. I thrash harder.
“Stop fighting!” His voice trembles with exertion. “Or I’ll hurt you so badly you’ll wish you were dead.”
I don’t doubt him. Blood pounds through my skull, but I won’t back down. I pry at his hands. I claw. I kick. I clamp my lips together so I don’t mouth, Please. I won’t beg. He won’t steal my self-respect, as well as my graces.
“Um, Bastien?” Marcel says with nail-biting sluggishness. “I think she understands your point now.”
Bastien’s grip hardens. My eyes water. I fear my neck might break. Maybe he’ll end my life right now. I dare you, I think, even while my head prickles on the verge of unconsciousness. If he kills me, he’ll die with me.
“Merde,” he says, as if he’s had the same thought. He releases my throat.
I collapse and suck in burning mouthfuls of air. Before I’ve a chance to recover, he lugs me up again and hauls me forward. We trip forward a few feet, and the ground steeply declines. My legs are knee-deep in wild grass; this isn’t a catacombs entrance. We’re moving down the side of some kind of cliff or ravine. Before the terrain levels out, my left foot plummets into a burrow. “Put the other foot in there.” Bastien shoves me. “That’s the entrance. We’ve arrived.”
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