Dagger of Bone

by R. K. Thorne

  Nothing changed for what seemed like an eternity, aside from the vague stirring. Occasionally his hand between Lara’s hands tickled, twitched. Itched. He longed to pull it away from her, to escape the sensation, but at the same time, he liked the feel of her.

  Cerivil’s hand lifted from his forehead.

  “Hmm, I don’t understand it.”

  His stomach knotted yet again. Damn. Would Elix lash out if word got back to him that they’d second-guessed his pronouncement?

  “That’s nonsense. Let me try,” Lara snapped. One of her hands left his and clapped down on his forehead.

  The world lit up in an explosion of color against his eyelids, falling like torrents of rain out of the sky, blue and green, purple and yellow, obliterating his view of the shelter above him, the sun, reality. All of it slid from view in a riotous fountain of color and light.

  He gripped her hand, hard, before he could stop himself.

  “Do you feel that?” Lara whispered.

  “No. What? I don’t feel anything,” Cerivil said anxiously.

  “It’s there, Da—oh, it’s there, all right. How can you not feel it?”

  “I feel it,” Nyalin murmured.

  The image shifted from slicing streams of color to a sudden purple and red mist that loomed in all directions.

  “There too,” she muttered, like a doctor inspecting a wound. Or wounds. He watched as the image shifted to a hazy golden fog, then a bluish swirl, like he was underwater.

  Then she let go. His forehead was cold. Her fingers left his.

  The mundane world returned.

  “Really? Nothing?” Lara was saying to her father. Then she scowled. “Damn. Well, it was clearly there. Reasonably strong with but a cursory inspection. You really couldn’t feel it?”

  Cerivil frowned. “Well, when you were looking, I almost could. As though just out of my reach. Like a sneeze that never comes. Was it subtle?”

  Nyalin started to sit up and then groaned as a sudden streak of pain cracked through his skull. “Subtle as a dragon in a hen house,” he muttered. He collapsed back down.

  “Sorry,” said Lara with a giggle. Nyalin managed a glare and a curled lip in her direction, but she ignored him, cheerily focused on her father. “Not subtle. Not exactly a dragon-sized amount of magic, not that I would know how much that is. But more than a hen.” Her tone was proud and a touch defiant.

  Cerivil’s frown deepened. Nyalin covered his eyes with a forearm, the light making his head ache.

  “What? What is it?” she asked.

  “Well, Nyalin came to me because the Obsidians have refused to teach him.”

  She snorted. Then laughed. Then stopped. “You’re not serious.”

  She might be the most unladylike woman he’d ever met. He kind of liked it.

  “I’m afraid I am,” said Cerivil.

  “That’s absurd.”

  Well, that felt good to hear, even if it was the only thing that would come from this damn trip. In spite of her tendency to attack him unprovoked, if he hadn’t liked her before, he did now.

  “None of them can find it. Clan Leader Elix, the Obsidian teachers, none of them.”

  The air around him felt still, as if Cerivil and Lara had both realized something he hadn’t.

  “That’s… that’s ridiculous. He is clearly very gifted. Could they be lying? Did they try the dragon?”

  He nodded under his arm and stifled a groan. “The dark one too. She didn’t say no, but she didn’t say yes either. Just… waved me aside.”

  All these people, the sacred dragon of his clan, even his brother and best friend—none of them could find any scent of magic on him, and this girl could? What sense did that make? Who would even believe it? He wanted to groan again, but he stopped himself. “Well, at least we know, right?”

  “I can’t say for sure, Nyalin, it was Lara that felt it. So I’m not sure how well it serves your goal.”

  He pried his arm away and one eyelid open to peer at Cerivil. “My goal? You mean getting them to change their minds.”

  Cerivil hesitated, glancing nervously at Lara. “I fear… they won’t listen to her.”

  Lara’s jaw tightened. She was silent for a moment, glaring at the ground. “Why do I even bother…” she muttered after a moment.

  “I’m sorry, Lara. Do you disagree?”

  She shook her head. Her nostrils flared as she blew out a breath. Then she glanced at him, finally meeting his one open eye. “I can try talking to them if you need me to. But if your dragon’s word goes against mine too?” She shrugged. “I’ll try my damnedest, though. It’s the truth. They should accept it.”

  “It’s also not just anyone we’re trying to convince here. It’s Elix,” Cerivil said gravely. “He’s grown… foolish with his years.”

  “It’s the whole damn Obsidian Council,” Nyalin groaned. “What was I thinking? There’s no way to fight them. I’m out of luck.”

  “Even if they’re wrong?” said Lara. When he opened his other eye, she was glaring from him to Cerivil and back again. “There has to be a way.”

  Cerivil sighed. “I don’t know if anyone but the emperor himself could change their minds at this point.” They all sat in silence, thinking. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “Well, then that’s what you’ve got to do.” To his shock, Lara punctuated the words with a poke of her finger to his forearm. He gaped at her, pain from the glaring light momentarily forgotten.

  “What?” was all he managed.

  “Talk to the emperor. Have him make them teach you,” she said, closing her fingers into a fist.

  Cerivil’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s not how it works.”

  “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” Lara insisted.

  “Not always,” the clan leader shot back, and they glared at each other for a moment. He had a feeling it was an old argument. “But, maybe…”

  He looked from Lara’s crazed expression to Cerivil’s thoughtful one and back. “Maybe what? He won’t talk to me.”

  Lara snorted again, as though she thought he was being sarcastic. “Yeah, right.”

  He stared at her, even more baffled now.

  “She might be onto something. Go and speak to the emperor of this. I assure you he will care, and he will speak with you and know what to do.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Trust me, Nyalin. I’ve known Pavan for years. He would want to hear from you on this.”

  “If you think there’s a chance.” Nyalin nodded. He struggled to sit up one more time, and Cerivil and Lara grabbed his hands and shoulders and helped him to his feet.

  He swayed, took one step, and almost fell over.

  Lara caught him by the elbow, her fingers brushing his again, and he could have sworn heat flooded from her into him. He steadied.

  “I, uh… I’ll head over there right now,” he mumbled. Grel was right, putting it off would only make it harder.

  He took another step forward, more confident this time. Then one knee buckled.

  Cerivil caught him this time. “You seem in no shape for that. Lara, get that guard. Nyalin needs somewhere to rest.”

  Cerivil gazed down at the young man while the guard finished laying him onto the down mattress. Nyalin was already asleep. A maid fussed with the room, straightening the bronze coverlet and stoking the small fire.

  This boy and his magic—or lack thereof. Something strange was going on. It was hard to be angry with Elix when Cerivil had seen just what his Obsidian peer had seen: nothing. But Nyalin’s exhaustion couldn’t be faked and only bolstered Lara’s claims.

  No, they weren’t claims. Lara had no reason to lie. It had to be the truth. Lara’s observations.

  Even after Nyalin was settled, Cerivil dallied, watching. Thinking. The maid tried to appear occupied, but he was starting to believe that she wouldn’t leave until he did. Still, a question poked at him.

  Was he really doing all he could to help Lara’s situation
? She’d pushed him before but never as hard as this morning, and her accusations niggled at his brain. Was she right? Was there something more he ought to be doing? Him marrying some poor woman was never going to work.

  But maybe… Maybe something else would.

  He had tried so hard to give her the whole world to explore. It was a world that didn’t want her to explore it, but he didn’t care, and he’d taught her not to care too, not to let that stop her. She’d taken the lessons to heart. Nothing seemed to stop her, not even her own father. Or so it had seemed when Myandrin was alive.

  That. That had stopped her.

  Even as a young father, Cerivil had known what the world wanted of young women. He’d known the choices he ought to have made.

  But as she’d grown, it’d been hard to confine his vibrant tornado of a child to any of that. How could he care about silly, stupid expectations, when those big brown eyes blinked up at him, full of hope and wonder and miracles? And determination. Oceans of determination. All the while innocent to the trap she grew inside.

  It might have been kinder to shut her down then, rather than letting her grow used to hope. What was the point, if it was only to be shattered in the end? But he wasn’t kind or cruel enough to prune her like a bush into the proper shape. He’d had no choice but to let her be who she was. And perhaps now she would pay the price for his cowardice, his inability to mold her into what she ought to have become.

  That was his only regret—that she would pay this price rather than him. Paying the price was inevitable.

  But looking down at Linali’s son now, he wondered.

  He couldn’t give Lara the choice she wanted, but perhaps he could give her another.

  He looked up at the maid, who jumped at his sudden attention.

  “Get me my messenger. And my daughter. And two horses ready. I go to see the emperor.”

  She nodded with a bow and left.

  Cerivil took a deep breath. He wasn’t willing to take on Andius and his own council members, apparently. But Elix and the whole Obsidian Clan? No problem. He shook his head.

  He hoped he wouldn’t regret this.

  Zama.

  In the dim quiet of the cave, Unira said his name—first only in her mind. She knelt at the water’s edge, the rock cold and hard against her knees and palms, cutting through the silk of her robe. She waited a moment, reviewing the spell, hoping she’d gotten everything right.

  A droplet of water kissed the tip of a stalactite, swelling like a pregnant belly before succumbing to its fated journey to the pool below. The plop of it into the water was quiet but piercing. The ripples touched every part of the pool.

  Now she dared to say it aloud: “Zama.”

  His name echoed, both ominous and mocking, as if she might simply be talking to herself. The flames of her small white candles flickered, circling the pool and reflected in its service. She’d tossed the requested ingredients into the water: velvet, silk, satin, brocade, and buttons. All odd offerings. She’d been lucky to find all she needed in her workshop. A relief to avoid journeying into town. The depths of the water stirred, and she leaned forward. Yes. Any minute now.

  Zama.

  The black depths of the hidden pool took on a silvered sheen. The water shook now, twitching this way and that. She’d lined the path from the pool toward her with thick blue candles, appropriate necromancy for a demon of the watery deep. She’d burned fargrass in the air. She’d seeded the water, stabbed her dagger into the earth. The offerings were all fine quality and had disappeared beneath the water’s horizon.

  Everything should be just right.

  “Zama.”

  She rose, ignoring her creaky knees, her shaking form. She pushed aside fear and excitement and cold. There would be no going back from this.

  She would unleash him. Who would win after that was another matter entirely.

  “Zama!”

  She flung her arms up to the ceiling. Energy jolted through the candles, the seeds under the water. All of it lit the air with the power of death, static charging every inch of the cave, sparks jumping between stalactite and stalagmite, her own arms and those fangs of the cave above her. Each jolt sent pain down her nerves, her arms, her throat, straight to her core.

  But she held on. She gritted her teeth and lowered her arms.

  And there he was. Tall, dark, handsome. Surprisingly well dressed.

  He spoke into her mind, a thrill zigzagging through her. Why do you call me, necromancer? Why do you seek the watery abyss?

  “I live in an empire of stone,” she growled. “I want you to help me destroy it. Wash it away until nothing is left but a few grains of sand. I want to see it burn.”

  Hmm. Wouldn’t you rather a fire demon then? He yawned.

  “No.” She hesitated, unsure of how much power to give to him. “I-I liked you the best.”

  His eyes brightened and eyebrows perked. Is that so?

  “It is. I think we can cause quite a bit of chaos together. Isn’t it water that eats away at stone best?”

  A smile tugged up the corner of his mouth. Well then. Say my name again and draw me forth, intriguing woman.

  She shouted it to the sky. “Zama, come forth!”

  Immediately a deluge drenched her, water drowning her for a moment. She gasped and sputtered. Coughing, she squinted in the now complete darkness. The candles had all been extinguished.

  Two points of silver glowed in the dark, staring at her.

  Unira, said the demon.

  She clutched a hand to her soaking chest. He knew her name. She hadn’t intended to give him anything like that; how had he figured it out? He could use the name to enslave her—or for many other unpleasant things.

  But for some reason, he didn’t. “I want you to see that I had the power. I could have done it. But I chose not to.” He grinned. “For summoning me and bringing me to this new world, I yield to you.”

  “Zama,” she whispered, biting out the word. Taking control.

  The candles flared to life, bright and warm.

  And there he was, fully in the flesh now and every bit the illustration from her tome. And so much more. He might have been the handsomest man she’d ever seen.

  He took a knee at the pool’s edge. “Great necromancer… and lovely woman, I am at your service. Shall we destroy this world together?”

  She grinned, hardly willing to believe it had worked. But it had.

  “Let’s.”

  Chapter 3

  Honor the Dead

  One shoddy storefront after another drifted by, and as she rode, Lara slumped on her horse and gazed at them with unseeing eyes, her thoughts elsewhere. The road she and her father had chosen took them along the border between the Bone and Glass Districts, but in truth, both sides of the street were plenty impoverished.

  The sad scene was nothing new, however. Her brain toyed with the puzzle that was Nyalin moLinali instead.

  The horses, with all their fine livery, plodded on, equally ignoring everything around them. Why did his dilemma eat at her so? Maybe it was just an interesting novelty—or perhaps she just couldn’t stand that his elders were wrong. How could anyone be so obstinate?

  Her mare stumbled a bit on an uneven cobblestone, jostling her out of an empty stare. She caught sight of a dirt smudge on the hem of her crossover and pulled and belted it tighter, hoping to hide the mark. Her dark brown cloak couldn’t hide that her clothing had seen the dirt of a graveyard and the limbs of a tree. She probably should have changed. But what did it matter?

  Anyone worth their salt would believe her, whether or not she had a dirt smudge on her shirt.

  She cleared her throat. “I don’t understand this, Da. Why would they lie about this? About his magic?”

  “Hmm?” Cerivil perked up at her abrupt question. “Maybe they honestly didn’t see it.” Da shrugged and stroked the horse’s gray mane.

  “Even if that’s true, why would they give up? He’s young. You’d think they’d have the re
sources. The time.”

  “I believe he and his foster father are not exactly on good terms.”

  “Wait.” She straightened on the horse. “Foster father?”

  “Oh, yes. When his mother died, Pavan sent Nyalin to live with Elix, but no one knows who his real father is. I get the sense that… he’s not treated well there. We all thought his father was Elix, but I’m gathering that wasn’t the case.”

  She frowned down at her pommel. Hmm. Perhaps his servant harem was smaller than she’d thought. “Why would I be able to see his magic and not you?”

  “I have no idea, my little cherry.”

  “Has that ever happened before?”

  “No. Not that I can remember.”

  They reached the emperor’s palace gate and dismounted. It wasn’t far from home, and they could have walked, but the horses added a certain pomp and circumstance, even for the odd occasion. When you were the lowliest clan, easy pomp and circumstance were not something to pass up.

  They were received quickly, and a woman dressed in lovely azure robes led them through a tiled, fountained courtyard and into the great meeting hall. A dome of gold, crystal, and lapis stretched high overhead. And inside, underneath it all, was the tree.

  The Tree of the Empire. The ginkgo leaves reached out toward the jewel-encrusted ceiling like trumpets. Light streamed in from the east through tall windows. The tree was at least three stories tall and about the same in width, and it vibrated with life. With magic.

  Dangling along the branches and amid those fan-shaped leaves were the crystals.

  She had no idea what magic the emperor had worked to create such a thing as this tree. He claimed it hadn’t been he who’d created it, but the clan dragons working as a team, just as they had when the clanblades had been originally forged so long ago. Some claimed the dragons had wanted a return to war. Others claimed they’d always pushed for peace. She wasn’t sure what to believe. But when the six clans had finally united under the emperor, this tree had been planted, and once fully grown, it didn’t cast off seeds or nuts or fruit. It bore gems.

  Though, bone and obsidian and glass weren’t technically gems.