Dagger of Bone

by R. K. Thorne

  Damn. He should never, ever, ever have taunted Raelt about magic—

  He was going to die.

  But before he could really expound on this regret, his senses dragged him down, the world spun, his head spun, and he screamed.

  The sudden scent of fresh grass filled his nose.

  He opened eyes that had been squeezed tight. Moonlight. He was bathed in moonlight. He was indeed lying on his back, but he was in a field, not the street. Tall grass waved on all sides of him.

  Breathe in, breathe out. He’d crossed over. He was in the afterworld now. What did that mean? Was he dead or still alive? What did he need to do?

  He couldn’t see or hear his attackers this time. For all he knew, Raelt was carving up his guts by the minute.

  Nyalin sat up and scanned the place. No Myandrin, not much of anything really. Perhaps a few low shadows flickered in the grasses a long way off, but that was all.

  When Andius had attacked, the torture had kept on coming, even when he’d crossed over, even though he hadn’t felt it. So he had to do something. But what?

  He had to figure out how to keep fighting from this side of existence.

  He staggered to his feet, dizziness assaulting him and turning the stagger into a jog forward a few feet. Then a few more. Yes, if he could at least run away from them, maybe that could help minimize the damage. When he’d stood in the first fight, he’d stood in real life, as if he’d been invulnerable, according to Faytou.

  Perhaps the same applied to staggering. And maybe that would startle them into stopping, especially if he’d just been stabbed.

  He stumbled a few feet more, but—no. If he was bleeding, walking around wasn’t wise. He really needed to be there to get out of this fight. To get to help. Something. He needed to be in his body if he wanted to stay alive.

  And to do that, he needed to be able to control this ability of his. If that was even possible. The emperor didn’t seem to think it was.

  Couldn’t hurt to try.

  He heaved in a breath, centered himself, and reached for his body, his world—his home.

  As before, the pain came flooding in, condensed together with dizzying nausea. The green and the grass faded to the dark navy blues of the nighttime street. His scream was twice as loud this time, raw and animalistic, and richer with agony until he faltered suddenly.

  Because the world was back. His body was back. But the bridge… The bridge was gone.

  And nothing was underneath him.

  To his side, the shouts of men went up, but as pain and nausea swept him, so did a sudden wind.

  He fell.

  Water enveloped him, ice-cold and hard, smacking into his back with a force to rival the cobblestones. He hadn’t had time to even breathe, and the impact forced more air out of him. Immediately he heaved in a lungful of water.

  He flailed. No pain was enough to keep him from clawing toward the surface, and to his relief a foot hit the bottom of the river and bounced, sending him skyward.

  He broke the surface once, coughing up water and gasping for breath, before another wave of magic hit him.

  He fell again, into the world, into the afterworld. But mostly into unconsciousness. The world went neither green nor blue, but black.

  Chapter 9

  Curses and Locks

  Pyaris was just adding another log to the fire when a knock sounded at the door, harsh and loud. She jumped. And dropped the log on her foot.

  Stifling curses on the log, her foot, the door, and whoever was knocking, she reached for the power gathered in her cauldron, but only a few souls had yet gathered. If she used up what they offered her, she’d have nothing left to defend herself if this visitor meant her ill. As a necromancer, she had no sword to draw energy from, although her father had certainly tried to get her one. The smiths wouldn’t be reasoned with. She could have turned away from magic. But instead, she’d chosen to charm the souls of the dead. It hadn’t been an easy choice, and it hadn’t earned her any respect from the neighbors—or anyone at all—but turning her back on magic hadn’t been an option.

  Occasionally, it had also earned her a living after her father’s death. Let this be a job and not some fool come to spit in her face. The meager congregation at the cauldron wouldn’t be enough if it was someone foul, so she’d have to tap the totem plant she kept by the door for just such emergencies.

  The little fern withered as she sucked some of its life away. She’d have to ask Lara to burnish its energy the next time she saw the girl, or she’d sadly be getting another plant soon.

  Then, delicate plant energy in hand, she probed at the person beyond the door.

  One energy glowed powerful and bright, reeking of urgency and worry. The other—

  The other.

  Whatever it was, the creature was dying. But was it even human? It was profoundly strange, different from her. Almost like… almost like… No, it couldn’t be.

  But when she opened the door, an older man stood, a younger man in his arms. Both were dripping wet, soaked to the bone. Father and son, she guessed. There was a small resemblance between them around the eyes, and in the shade of their skin.

  “What?” she demanded, putting up her usual rude shell. She had no intention of letting anyone get too close. Or close at all. She had had enough betrayal for one lifetime.

  “A healer. We need a healer.” The man was older, with wavy hair and a beard of salt and pepper. He was dressed in something shapeless and black, more a robe than a crossover. A fan of green feathers protruded from one chest pocket. He started forward.

  She didn’t move, barring him entry with her stance. “I’m no healer.”

  “You’re close enough.”

  She frowned harder at him as he started forward again. “Do you even know what I am?”

  “Of course,” he said breezily, edging to the side of her.

  This time she relented as the boy’s face grew paler. Guilt for delaying his treatment pricked at her a little, so she shut the door behind them.

  “You are a sorceress of the dead.” The man was laying the boy on her cot in the corner now.

  She raised her eyebrows at his use of the more preferred, more respectful term—and his use of her own bed. So much for a dry and warm night’s sleep. “And are you…?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. He straightened and gestured at the boy. “Please. It matters not what I am, only that we help him.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Because there is not just a wound, but a curse.”

  Raising her eyebrows, she rushed from the door to the bed, angry at herself for not checking. What if the curse transferred over to her home, her luck, if the boy died? There were incantations that worked that way. She should have checked harder, but she’d been so thrown off by his… otherness.

  She knelt beside the cot and floated her hands above the abdomen’s injury. And sure enough, it was there. A curse.

  “Can you lift it?” the man murmured.

  “Perhaps. Because the cauldron is already going. Go and add this vial to it, will you?” She took a vial of wolf’s blood from the shelf and held it up to the man. Time to see how much he cared about this boy’s life. Or if he was squeamish.

  He was either not afraid of blood, or he cared very much, for he strode to the fire and added the vial’s contents without question.

  “Stir it,” she commanded. “Slowly.”

  He complied, much to her great surprise.

  She turned back to the boy and closed her eyes. It was still a bit risky to let her guard down… but if he’d wanted to kill her, there were much simpler ways of doing it and they didn’t involve following her directives.

  She dug into the curse like kneading into dough. There was something here, all right. She was no healer and could do nothing for the cuts or bleeding, but someone had already tried to heal it. The wound had an odd shape, something like a stab wound but soft at the edges. The original wound had likely exited the back, but th
at much had been healed already.

  The curse had prevented full healing, though. That was why he was here. He needed her help.

  Technically all magic wielders could work the same spells if they wished. She suppressed an urge to taunt him about his lack. Whether power was drawn from cauldron or blade, whether a charm was used as a crutch or if the caster did the hard work of spinning the energy themselves—magic was magic.

  But in practice, the spells employed by sword mages and necromancers were very different. Necromancers sneered at silly charms—imagine needing an aid to prop up your mental abilities. And many mages curled a lip at the sight of a cauldron, believing that drawing power from swords was cleaner, more ethical.

  Necromancers knew better. Necromancers knew the truth. About the swords, and about other things.

  Mages were aware of curse spells but didn’t deign to learn to fight them. They deemed the dark magics beneath them—immoral, dirty, corrupt. And yet, when a curse took hold, did they ignore the magic then? Oh, no. Then they knocked on her door, as he did now, and mingled with the darkness. It wasn’t the spells themselves or the sources of magic that were right or wrong, good or evil. What really mattered was intent—how they were used. Any necromancer worth their salt knew that.

  Any sorceress of the dead, too.

  She felt a little sting of foolish pride at the words, and at the idea that he needed her. By Seluvae, this was not the time for feeling superior or inwardly gloating. It was time to wrestle with the curse—and hope she didn’t lose.

  It was far from a sure bet. This one was powerful and clung around the abdomen like cords cutting in, restricting the body’s attempts to heal, seeping rot.

  She opened her eyes and glanced at her shelves. She needed something stronger in the pot, something better to ensure the curse didn’t overtake her. Silver was what they should use, but it was one of her most expensive tools. She’d hoarded it for an emergency, for herself.

  The man appeared by the shelf, picking up the small vial her eyes had been locked on.

  She swallowed. He would demand she use it. He could make her use it, if he so chose. A boy’s life was certainly worth it.

  “Is this what you need?” he asked. “In the pot?” His voice was surprisingly controlled.

  “Yes,” she murmured. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned back to face the curse.

  “What’s wrong? Why do you hesitate? Is it dangerous?”

  “No. It lures better spirits, stabilizes the concoction. It’s just expensive. Cost me three years of labor to put that away, and I have no job to speak of now. But it’ll do me no good if the curse takes me over and we all end up dead. Besides, a life is worth three years.” She said the last bit at least as much for herself as for him.

  “I’ll repay you for it if you’ll allow me to add it for you.” His footsteps moved from beside her back to the hearth.

  Yeah, right. So he said now. But she should just get over the cost. Safe and poor was better than dead. Or cursed. “Go on. Add it.”

  The silver sliding into the concoction hit her with a burst of fiery energy, spirits dancing to a new and different tune. A good one. Farmers and merchants and bankers came to play and lend their aid. She wasted no time.

  In her mind’s eye, the silver flames engulfed her hands, and she tore away the bonds of the curse, unwound the tightly spun spell, ripped it if she had to. She flung their sticky tendrils into the clean, consecrated fire beneath the cauldron. Spirits spit and dashed dust on the filthy remains.

  The young man groaned, but that was a good sign.

  She probed the wound further, rooting out bits of rot sown by the curse. She couldn’t heal him, but his body would heal itself, with time, now that the curse was gone. Strangely, there was a glimmer of something else curse-like, something hard and unyielding but hidden and inert. But she lost track even as she reached for it and couldn’t find it again. As the flames diminished and flickered out, she sat back on her heels and opened her eyes.

  The man was still standing by the hearth, poised to do her bidding.

  She blew out a breath, feeling woozy, her forehead slick with sweat. “It is done. Check for yourself. He will be all right.”

  The man approached the bed and stood beside her even as his fingers poked around in his chest pocket, brushing the green feathers across his knuckles. His concerned frown slowly eased. “Brilliant work. You are very talented.” He withdrew a small pouch, opened it, and handed her a neat stack of five gold coins.

  She stared at them in her palm. If these were real and not some illusion, this was enough for five years’ work. Maybe more. Without requiring her to find someone willing to actually hire her for a job. It repaid the silver and then some.

  “You are too generous, I—”

  He cut her off with a slash of his hand. “For that sum, you have done your work. Will you do one more task for me as part of that payment?”

  “Of course.” She nodded, although belatedly she realized she should have found out what the task was first. She was being sloppy tonight. But the man seemed so trustworthy, it was hard to summon up her defenses, her suspicion.

  “Contact Lara naCerivil moMyra. She’ll know what to do with him.” He was moving toward the door.

  “I can do that. Lara is a friend.”

  “I know.”

  “You know? How? But—you’re not taking him?”

  “No.”

  “Who are you? Where are you going?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “He’ll want to know who saved his life.”

  For a moment, the man paused in her open doorway and looked sad. “I know. He’d like to know a lot of things. But it’s better this way.”

  Then he shut the door. She groped tentatively past it, at the street beyond, but he was already gone.

  And he’d left her with this… this… very strange young man on her bed.

  She sighed. She had better call one of the children next door to send a message to Lara.

  They were lounging by a fire Lara had built when Yeska’s ears suddenly perked. The dragon jerked awake.

  “What is it?”

  Your friend. He is in danger. We must go.

  The words “your friend” had dripped with sarcasm, as if he were anything but. “Who? Do you mean Nyalin?” Perhaps she revealed too much by asking after him first.

  Of course Nyalin.

  There was no time to argue labels, though. Yeska had already reared up and begun to stretch her wings. Lara grabbed her bags, tossed them on her shoulder, and then took a running leap atop Yeska’s back. They were in the air before half a minute had passed.

  “What kind of trouble?” she shouted into the wind.

  You know you can talk to me without speaking aloud.

  “I know, but it feels strange.” She swallowed. Fine, I will try. Tell me what happened to him.

  I’m not sure. I only know that something did.

  How can you tell?

  He has an unusual soul. I have a few such souls I like to watch. His light is wavering.

  Lara bit her lip. I don’t like the sound of that.

  Well, I don’t like the look of it.

  The dragon’s wing beats were powerful, and she and Yeska covered the distance back much more quickly than she would’ve expected. In no time at all, the city had moved from the horizon to a dark patch speckled with light and fire directly beneath them. She craned her neck to look down at it, despite the wave of vertigo that came along with the move. The city from above was beautiful.

  Can you fly here without being seen? Is being seen a worry? Maybe you want to be seen?

  They see me from time to time. Some are excited, thinking it a lucky omen. Others… well. You’d be surprised how much people will ignore just so they don’t have to inconvenience themselves. She laughed darkly. I land where I choose. It hasn’t been a problem, but it does draw attention.

  Were dragons known for being honest? Or were they wont to le
ave things out? Even as the clan leader’s daughter, she had never seen the Bone Dragon, so sightings among the average folk must be rarer than Yeska believed.

  The dragon settled on the rooftop of the manor, and Lara slid down the dragon’s side. The roof up here had a small, flat terrace with stairs that led down. The space was suspiciously appropriate in size for a dragon. She brushed away her curious questions but made a note to ask Yeska more about the past of her clan. Later. When Nyalin was safe. She turned toward the stairs. Although a few shouts went up from the gardens below, it wasn’t as many as she’d feared.

  Where is he?

  I’m not sure exactly. I’m not bonded with him the way I am with you. Yet.

  Don’t start.

  Give me a moment. There was a pause. I believe a messenger has been sent. They’re already looking for you.

  Lara cursed. They know I was gone?

  It appears so.

  Terrible timing.

  I am sorry it took so long.

  Oh, it’s not your fault. It’s just my bad luck. I hope hanging around you is a good omen, because I’m sorely in need of one.

  Yeska nuzzled her shoulder affectionately, and Lara patted a hand on the dragon’s snout. Huh. Yeska was comforting her. And it was kind of working.

  We forgot your horse. I will make another trip. It was worth it; the boy is in danger. You must go. Now. The light flickers further.

  Thank you, Yeska. She squeezed a hug against the bony plates of Yeska’s head before racing down the stairs.

  She found people when she reached the lobby. And this—well, this was worse than she’d hoped.

  Andius stood, organizing the guards and ordering them into three groups. As she came down the stairs, he rounded on her. “Where have you been?”

  “Lara!” Da exclaimed. “We were so worried.”

  She pressed her lips together. She didn’t think Andius was particularly worried, just excited for a chance to kidney-punch her while she was down.

  She forced an intentionally fake smile. “Oh, just wandering the city. I needed a day to myself. “