My heart rises in my throat. I can’t find my breath. Ailesse isn’t in a cave. Her captors took her to the catacombs.
I cast aside my bow and yank the bone knife from my belt. My hands shake with adrenaline. Ailesse can’t be in that place. She’s brave, but it’s unholy. It will strip her of her Light. Kill her.
Elara, help me.
I launch at the girl. A furious but terrified cry peals from my lungs.
The girl’s face comes into focus as I race nearer.
Her smile slips.
I swipe my blade out at her. Her blond braid whips as she whirls aside to dodge it. Her wounded leg hasn’t slowed down her reflexes.
“Your queen sent you?” she asks incredulously. “Well, tell her Bastien won’t bargain with a servant. The queen must come herself.”
“Bastien?” I slash out again, driving her backward to the edge of the ravine. “Is that the name of Ailesse’s amouré?”
The girl’s eyes tighten with hatred. “It’s the name of the boy who will kill her.”
Blood roars through my ears. I try to stab her, but she takes another backward step and drops out of sight.
My breath catches. I dart to the edge of the ravine. The girl is tumbling, but her fall is strategic. Halfway down, she straightens her body and pulls to a stop near the burrow hole. Without another glance at me, she slips feetfirst inside.
No! I can’t follow her there. Not because of the Leurress’ rules, but common sense—the one gift I have that surpasses Ailesse’s. If I crawl inside that burrow, I’ll face three opponents instead of one. I’ll enter darkness devoid of Elara’s Light, and with only one grace to aid me. It will mean my sure death. I’ll have no hope of rescuing Ailesse.
“Sabine?”
The distant sound of my name stops my heart. Ailesse?
I jerk around and scan the moonlit forest. A silhouette comes into view. I make out the clear-cut outline of a crown, and I stiffen. It’s not Ailesse. It’s my matrone.
15
Ailesse
JULES STILL HASN’T RETURNED TO our catacombs chamber, even though it must be nearing nightfall, maybe later. Bastien takes a break from rechecking his supplies and pacing. He sits with one knee bent to his chest and draws serpentine patterns on the dusty ground, then grumbles at his pictures. I know what he’s doing—plotting a strategy to kill my mother with his knowledge of the mazelike catacombs—though he doesn’t look like much of a killer at the moment. He’s chewing on the end of his tongue, the way a little child does, and it softens every harsh edge of his expression.
He sits back and runs his hands through his dark hair. His sea-blue eyes trail over to where I’m bound up on the limestone slab, ten feet away. His brows furrow. Too late I realize my gaze is soft on him and my lips are curved upward. I immediately stiffen and school my features.
Bastien picks at his fingernails, then scoots over to Marcel and whispers something in his ear. The younger boy peers up at me. “All right,” he says, and shuts his book. He stands and stretches, then picks up a tumbler of settled water and brings it over to me. My throat parches at the sight of it. This was Bastien’s idea? I glance at him, but he’s studiously avoiding my gaze.
“It isn’t poisoned,” Marcel says, when I don’t touch it. Of course it isn’t poisoned. My captors wouldn’t risk killing Bastien by killing me. “Although you do have to grow accustomed to the taste,” he adds.
I accept the tumbler, sniff the water, and take a tentative sip. The mineral taste of limestone is heavy, but at least no grit coats my mouth. I drink the rest in one long gulp and release a small sigh. “Thank you.” The words spill out before I think better of them, and Bastien’s brows lift and wrinkle again. I pass the tumbler back to Marcel.
“So . . . how many of you are there?” Marcel asks.
“What are you doing?” Bastien frowns at him.
“Until I get my other books, I’ve no better resource than her. I might as well try to learn something. Jules will be back any time now, which means the queen will be, too.”
Bastien snorts. “Good luck getting her to talk.”
Unruffled by the challenge, Marcel crosses his arms and stares me down. He doesn’t look as though he’s trying to intimidate me. Maybe that’s why I answer him.
“Forty-seven.” Or maybe I answered because Bastien said I wouldn’t.
Marcel’s eyes fly wide. It’s the most animated I’ve seen him. “So many?”
Bastien huffs. “She’s lying. Everyone would know if that many Bone Criers lived around here. We certainly would.”
My gaze flits between the boys. I wasn’t lying. “Would you like to know more?” I ask Marcel, making a point to speak to him and not Bastien. I can test Marcel’s knowledge of the Leurress while he tests mine—and make sure he doesn’t know anything more that can endanger my famille. Better yet, I’ll distract him from plotting a way to kill my mother.
He gives an unabashed laugh. “I always like to know more. About everything.”
I smile. I shouldn’t like him, but I do. Marcel’s candidness reminds me of Sabine. He’s a year or two younger, like her, maybe fifteen or sixteen. “Then why don’t we strike a bargain? For every question I answer, I’ll do so truthfully, but you must answer one of mine in return.”
“This is ridiculous,” Bastien says, but Marcel waves him off like he would a gnat.
“Agreed.”
I scoot into a more comfortable position and prop myself against the wall of the slab. “Do you know why the Leurress exist?” I begin.
Marcel cocks his head. “Leurress?”
“You call us Bone Criers.”
“None of my books mention that name.”
“I doubt any were written by my famille.”
He gives a conceding nod. “Well, you exist to—”
“Torment men,” Bastien interjects. “Murder them. Sacrifice them to your gods.”
“She wasn’t asking you,” Marcel says. Bastien rolls his eyes. “You Bone Criers—Leurress, that is—are parasitic in nature. You can’t thrive on your own. You need the moon and stars and animal bones . . . and, well, what Bastien said—human sacrifice.”
“What if I told you that you were wrong?”
Lines pinch between Marcel’s brows. “Isn’t it my turn to ask a question?”
“Yes.”
He shuffles another step forward and sits on the stone anchoring the rope I’m tied up with. “So”—he scratches his head—“why am I wrong?”
“We aren’t parasites. We exist to ferry the dead.” I wait, hook baited, for Marcel to bite, to tell me if he knows where we ferry the dead. But his expression is blank.
“Pardon?”
“We labor to obtain the sacred gifts that give us strength and skill to guide souls into the eternal realms.” Doesn’t he know about the soul bridge? “The rite of passage is our test of loyalty to become a Ferrier. That’s the whole point.”
Marcel’s mouth slowly parts. “Oh.” He nods a few times. “Well, that’s illuminating.”
Bastien’s vivid eyes narrow on me. He looks . . . conflicted.
“You really weren’t aware that the Leurress are Ferriers?” I ask Marcel. He shrugs. Once more, I’m amazed at the holes in my captors’ knowledge. If they don’t know something this fundamental, maybe I shouldn’t worry about them knowing my biggest secret—that no one but me can kill Bastien or I will die; the curse goes both ways. For that reason, my mother won’t kill him when she comes for me. If she did, she’d sacrifice her only heir. I’d lose all my leverage if Bastien knew that.
“One of the folktales does mention the dead being ferried,” Marcel says. “But I thought that part was mythical—something that happened when you killed your victims. I didn’t realize you were the Ferriers, or that Ferriers were real at all.”
“Believe every story you hear,” Bastien murmurs, his gaze distant. Marcel and I pause to look at him. He blinks and rolls a crick from his neck. “How kind of you to lead souls to
Hell after you slaughter them.”
I take a steeling breath. He’ll never understand the Leurress aren’t evil. I turn back to Marcel and pose my next question. “Was your father chosen by the gods, too?”
Bastien scoffs. “Meaning did he have the good fortune to be murdered by your family?”
My fingers curl, but I ignore him and wait for Marcel to answer. Marcel’s still acting a little dumbfounded, hunched over and resting his elbows on his knees. “My father? Um, yes . . . I was seven when he . . .” He clears his throat. “Jules was nine.”
Marcel and Jules are siblings? Except for rare twins, siblings are unheard of among the Leurress. We don’t live with amourés long enough to bear more than one child.
“He fell ill after the Bone Crier left us.” Marcel’s gaze drops, and he rubs a stubborn stain of limestone sludge on his trousers. He isn’t bitter like Jules or vindictive like Bastien. Marcel must have stayed with them all this time to survive—and because they’re family.
Bastien’s jaw muscle flexes. “He didn’t deserve his fate.”
“No one would, but . . . well, he was a great father.” Marcel’s mouth quirks in a half smile. “He used to make up songs while he was working. He was a scribe, you see, and some of the texts he copied were tragedies. So he’d change up the words and set them to a silly tune. Jules and I would roll on the ground laughing.” He chuckles, but doesn’t stop picking at the stain.
A surprising wave of sadness wells within me, and I forget about our game of questions. “I never knew my father,” I say quietly. “He died before I was born, like every father of every daughter in my famille. I’ll meet him in Elara’s Paradise one day, but . . .” My voice quavers. “The ache of not knowing him in this life is very real.” I press my lips together and inwardly shake my head at myself. I sound so much like Sabine. She’s the one who laments the cost of being a Leurress. I spent so much time striving to ease her conscience that I never allowed myself to mourn and wonder what if.
My eyes lift and fall on Bastien. The expression on his face treads some middle ground between confusion and anger and, perhaps, ever so fleetingly, his own sorrow.
I tense and look away. My bruises remind me he can’t be pitied. I offer Marcel a gentle smile. “At least you were blessed to know your father for a few years.”
Bastien stands. “You’re outright appalling, do you know that? You think Marcel’s luckier than you?”
I recoil and meet his glare head-on. “I’m only saying I lost my father the same as you did.”
“Oh, yes?” He stalks closer. “Tell me, did you love your father before you lost him? And when he died, were you left with nothing?” I swallow, resenting the heat flushing my cheeks. “Did you have to beg from strangers and learn to steal when their charity ran dry? Do you know what it’s like to spend cold nights in the alleys of Dovré, huddled in garbage just to get warm?”
I shift uncomfortably. “I’m not the woman who killed your father, Bastien.”
“No.” His voice sharpens to a deadly point. “You’re just the girl who’s sworn to kill his son.”
“I’m trying to spare you from a more painful death! Do you want to end up like Marcel’s father?”
Marcel winces, and I immediately regret my words. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—” Why am I apologizing to one of my captors? Because Sabine would. She’d extend thoughtfulness to someone mourning a loved one. “I’m only trying to say I’d never want anyone to suffer like he did.”
Bastien scrubs his hands over his face, so frustrated he can’t even speak for a moment. “Do you hear yourself? You cause the suffering!”
My hackles rise. I’m not like Sabine. “I can’t help the fact that the gods chose you for me, or that you’re destined to die the way you will. Why can’t you understand that?” I blow out an exasperated breath. The sooner I kill Bastien, the better I’ll feel. We can work out our differences in the afterlife.
The door to the chamber slides open. Jules ducks in. She eyes all of us suspiciously. The tension is so thick it sticks to my lungs. She limps over to Marcel and breaks the awkward silence, saying, “We better eat this bread before it turns to mold.” She presses a round loaf into his hands and drops a heavy bag of books at his feet. “I carried all that weight on my head through the water. You’re welcome.”
He inhales deeply and smiles. “You’re a goddess.”
“I’m better than a goddess. Those books weren’t the only things I kept dry.” She hefts another pack off her shoulder and hands it to Bastien. “Keep that away from the oil lamps,” she warns.
He gives her a quizzical look and pulls out a small barrel from the pack, no longer than the length of my forearm. “I’m guessing this isn’t ale.”
She grins and leans on her good leg. “It’s black powder.”
Black powder? What is that?
Bastien’s eyes widen. “You’re joking. How did you break into Beau Palais?”
“I didn’t get it from the castle.”
“But Beau Palais has the only cannons in Dovré.”
“Not for long. At least fifty powder casks were carted from the king’s alchemists to the royal shipyard today, and let’s just say His Majesty should have sent more than four guards on the journey.”
Bastien stares at Jules, and then bursts into warm laughter. “You really are a goddess.”
A pretty flush dusts her cheeks, and she rocks back on her heels. Black powder must be a weapon of some kind.
“Anyway, we need to hurry.” Jules crosses her arms. “Night has fallen, and one of the Bone Criers—that witness from Castelpont—is already lurking outside.”
My stomach tenses. Sabine. She shouldn’t come in here. She only has one grace bone.
“Found it,” Marcel says around a mouthful of bread. He’s already sprawled on his stomach with three of his four books open. “It’s from Ballads of Old Galle.”
Bastien carefully sets the cask of black powder on the ground. “Go on.”
Pushing his floppy hair out of his eyes, Marcel reads:
The fair maiden on the bridge, the doomed man she must slay,
Their souls sewn together, ne’er a stitch that will fray,
His death hers and none other ’cross vale, sea, and shore,
Lest her breath catch his shadow evermore, evermore.
Marcel rolls into a sitting position and sets the book on his crossed legs. “There, Bastien. That should comfort you.”
He frowns. “It should?”
“‘His death hers and none other.’” Marcel taps the words on the brittle page. “Because Ailesse summoned the magic on the bridge, only she can kill you, or she’ll die with you.”
My muscles go rigid. Jules steps forward. “Where did it say that?” She steals the words from my mouth.
“Her ‘breath’ is her life, and his ‘shadow’ is his death,” Marcel explains. “I never read it like that before, but now it’s obvious. Ailesse will ‘catch death,’ like you’d catch a cold, if someone other than herself kills Bastien.”
Bastien rubs his jaw. “But . . . I still die?”
“Yes, but that isn’t the point,” Marcel says. Bastien doesn’t look so sure. “This is one less thing you have to worry about when the queen comes tonight. She won’t dare to kill you. She isn’t going to risk her daughter’s life.”
A sudden coldness grips me. My leverage is gone.
Bastien cocks a brow, finally understanding, and swivels to face me with a crooked grin. “Thanks for making me invincible.”
My stomach rolls, and I close my eyes. Bastien is going to be bolder now. As if he needed any more confidence. My mother will have to exercise caution around him, but he won’t have to hold back any vengefulness. I only pray she doesn’t bring Sabine. I won’t let Bastien near her.
I raise my chin and meet his poisonous stare with more venom. “You forget you cannot shield yourself from your greatest danger, mon amouré. I am the instrument of your death, not my mother. And I s
wear I will kill you before you even attempt to kill her.” Or Sabine.
Conviction burns inside me, like a sudden burst of Elara’s Light. Behind Bastien and the others, the air ripples with silvery heat. I’ve never seen anything like it.
A flickering image appears. I gasp. Bastien whips out his knife and looks over his shoulder, but the image is gone. In an instant, what I saw sputtered out and disappeared.
A silver owl with outspread wings.
16
Sabine
ODIVA SWEEPS NEARER TO THE edge of the ravine, where I stand, still quaking from seeing one of Ailesse’s captors. Four of the elder Leurress fan out behind her: Milicent, Pernelle, Dolssa, and Roxane. Next to Odiva, they are our famille’s strongest Ferriers.
“Why are you here, Sabine?” Odiva asks, her curious gaze traveling over my necklace—Ailesse’s necklace—to see if it bears a new grace bone. I know why she’s here. And how. Odiva told me last night she’d be able to track her daughter with familial magic, blood of her blood, bones of her bones. Magic I don’t possess.
I open my mouth to explain about the silver owl, but then I hesitate. I can’t tell Odiva that an owl of all creatures—a bird my famille finds superstitious—guided me here of its own volition. She’ll think I’ve gone mad. “I was hunting for more graces and found one of Bastien’s accomplices in the forest. I chased her here.”
“Bastien?” Odiva arches a sleek brow.
“Ailesse’s amouré. The girl spoke his name.”
The matrone nods slowly, her black eyes drifting past me to the ravine.
“She slid into some kind of tunnel opening down there. It looked small.”
“Nothing we don’t have the strength to claw through.”
I bite my lip, delaying the last thing I must tell her: “It leads to the catacombs.”
A small furrow mars Odiva’s smooth forehead. The other Leurress exchange tense glances and step to the edge of the ravine. Odiva waited until nightfall to confront Ailesse’s captors, which means she must have been counting on the full strength of Elara’s Light. And in the catacombs, she and the elders will be cut off from it. They’ll have to rely on the reservoir inside them, in addition to their graces.
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