“Aderyn,” he said.
She did not look at him.
He might lose her to this place. It would be so easy for her to put aside her quest, to dig up her mother’s bones and bring them here. Perhaps she could even find her father in the mine or the mountains beyond and bring him here, too.
As for what would become of himself—he could continue on alone. Try to find his own family, skirting the edges of the forest, always searching, always half-lost.
Or he could retreat home. Return to Caer Aberhen, sleep in a soft bed, smile at the nobles, and when the master mapmaker’s hands became too stiff, Ellis might take his place.
All he had to do was run. All he had to do was turn his back on Colbren, on those travelers who might be caught unawares on the road, on the deaths that would follow if the bone houses were allowed to exist.
No. He’d come here to find his parents. He’d found peril and magic instead, but he would not run. He had no surname, no family, no ties at all—but he had his pride.
Ryn was trying to make this land safer.
He could do no less.
“Aderyn,” he said again.
Her eyes came up to meet his—and he saw the war raging in her. Grief and need and fear seemed to freeze her in place. But he could not do this without her.
So he did the only thing he could think of.
“Ceridwen,” he said.
It was like submerging her in frigid water: She shuddered and seemed to come awake, eyes wide. She shook herself, taking a step back, away from Catrin.
It had been a gamble, but he’d seen how she regarded her little sister. And perhaps there was a bit of himself in that gamble, too—he imagined, if he’d had a little sister, he would have done anything to keep her safe.
“N-no,” Aderyn said. “This—this isn’t right.”
Catrin edged forward, but Ellis raised the crossbow a little higher. She went still.
“We’re leaving,” said Ellis. “I’m sorry.” He wasn’t sure to whom or for what he was apologizing, but it felt necessary. He reached behind himself, fumbling for the door handle. Part of him knew that to turn his back would be to invite another blow to his head. The latch came undone with a heavy clack, and the coolness of the night air touched his neck. He took a step back, and then another, until the glow of the fire faded and he found himself standing outdoors. Aderyn followed a moment after, her pack bouncing on her hip. She moved as if she were halfway between waking and dreaming, and her mouth kept forming words he could not catch.
“We need to leave now,” said Ellis. A terrible fear had descended upon him—and before he could voice it aloud, Catrin began to scream.
It was a terrible sound. The kind an animal made when it was pierced through, when there was no hope of survival. The music fell away, and the sound of dancing went with it. Ellis could almost feel the eyes straining through the dark, trying to find the source of the noise.
Ellis took off at a run. He heard Aderyn behind him, fumbling for a moment, and then she fell into step. His strides were longer, but she knew how to run in the dark. They kept pace.
Together, they sprinted around one of the half-collapsed cabins. If these villagers caught them, he had little doubt of what they’d do to protect their loved ones. Even their dead loved ones. If breaking the curse threatened them—
Something flew through the air, slamming into the underbrush. Ellis felt its passage as a whisper of movement and sound, but it was gone before he understood. Arrows. Someone had a bow—likely for hunting rabbits or deer. Biting back a curse, Ellis ducked low and tried to keep moving, darting from one side to the other, trying to elude the hunter.
“The bone goat,” said Aderyn suddenly, and she veered to her right. How she remembered the goat in this mess, he did not know. He yearned to keep running, but if he rushed headlong into the dark forest, he might end up even worse off than he was now. Forcing his breathing to slow, he followed Aderyn, more by sound than by sight. The thick foliage drowned out the starlight, leaving them in suffocating darkness. He heard her murmur something, and then the snick of a knife cutting through rope. A rustling as a four-legged beast rose to its feet.
There was a shout somewhere in the distance.
Ellis felt Aderyn’s hand seize his arm. “Do you know where we need to go?” he gasped. In the dark, and full of fear, he had lost all sense of direction.
“Yes.” The word was curt but sure. “This way.” She pulled, and he followed—or at least he would have, if the bone goat had not chosen that moment to step in front of him. He staggered, half tripping and half falling around the animal. He heard Aderyn snarl beside him.
It was terribly painstaking to run from the others. Ellis and Aderyn could not sprint, not without breaking their necks on tree roots or sharp rocks. Rather, they ran in short bursts, keeping low to the ground, trying to put as many trees behind them as they could. Aderyn seemed to have a good sense for when to move and when to go still. A hound bayed, and Aderyn hissed through her teeth.
He did not know for how long they ran. But as they moved, the undergrowth thinned out; the texture of the ground shifted, from soft moss to hard-packed dirt and rocks. Even the scents changed: from bright greenery to a heavy metallic tang. It was only when his foot slipped in a puddle, when he touched hard rock and felt the coolness of it, that he understood.
They were in the mouth of the mine.
Aderyn paused, and Ellis leaned on his knees, panting hard. Every part of him ached, but he knew there wouldn’t be any rest. Not tonight, when they could be followed into the mine. He heard her fumbling in her pack, and then the familiar sound of tinder catching. Brilliant light made him blink tears from his eyes; a lantern burned merrily in her hand. She looked haggard, the hollows beneath her eyes deep and her lips pressed tight.
He remembered the silent words her mouth had formed as she’d stared at Catrin. He had not heard them, not then, but looking at her now, he saw the shape of them.
I’m sorry. I have to.
CHAPTER 19
THE MOUNTAIN WAS called Carregdu—the black rock. There were tales that said the mountain had been named for the fire it had once spat into the sky, covering the stars with black clouds. Even after the Otherking left the isles, very few would venture through the forests to the mountains. The trees in those forests had thick roots, and bark that seemed to repel axes; there was no great game to be hunted; even the herbs and berries could be more safely picked elsewhere.
It had only been the copper mine that had drawn humanity through the tangled trees. The promise of wealth within the mountain was a lure, and Ryn wondered if it had been enough for those who had built homes and paths, fought back the creeping undergrowth and the sense of otherness that still lingered in the air.
Ryn walked through puddles of water; rusty sediment had settled in them, and even in the darkness she could see the way the copper had stained the land. This had once been a place where hundreds of men and women had come to eke out a living bringing copper to the surface, the pay keeping food on their tables.
The ground was rocky and sloped upward, the trees thinning out. Abandoned carts were strewn about; they’d been scavenged for metal pieces and useful tools. Remnants of a better time, left to rot where they stood.
She tried not to find any deeper meaning in that.
Her emotions still ran too high; her fingers were numb at the tips and her forehead fevered. She could not close her eyes without seeing Catrin’s mother—those sightless eyes boring into Ryn, as if the dead woman could see through her. And worse, the pleading on Catrin’s face. The woman had begged, and Ryn had understood. If someone had tried to take her own mother away again, Ryn knew she might have done more than tackle a person to the ground and try to talk them out of it.
When she’d decided to end the curse, it had been to save lives. Not to end them a second time.
She closed her eyes and reopened them.
“You don’t have to come with me,” she said
. Her voice shook.
She gripped her axe more tightly.
She was a gravedigger. She would bury her fear.
“I believe,” said Ellis mildly, “we are well beyond that decision.” He smiled with the corners of his mouth. “And just because I did not find evidence of my parents at the encampment doesn’t mean I won’t find something in the mine. Or perhaps beyond.” His gaze sharpened, and she felt the full weight of his attention. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand. “Besides, I have a job to do. Mapmakers have a responsibility to the world to portray it as accurately and carefully as they can. Wars are won with maps. Trade routes are created. And lives can be saved or not—all depending on the stroke of pen across paper. I would be a sorry excuse for a mapmaker,” he said, “if I were to walk away now.”
That got a laugh out of her. “You speak of mapmaking as if there’s nobility in it.”
“There is,” he agreed. A moment, and then he added, “Just as there is in gravedigging. Neither occupation is particularly romantic, but I suspect the world would be a sorrier place without us.”
“I hope so,” she replied. She squared her shoulders, taking a deep breath. “If we wait for daylight, those at the encampment might find us.”
The mine smelled of old metal; the ceiling was low, and Ryn had to duck her head to step inside. At once, she felt the presence of stone all around her. The weight of the mountains seemed to press down, and the air was thick and damp. The lantern light made the shadows quiver, and she hoped her hands were not visibly shaking. She heard Ellis walking behind her, and then the sound of hooves as the bone goat trailed after. Their footsteps echoed from the mine shaft, wobbling back to her.
“You feel that?” Ellis murmured.
Ryn looked at him sharply. “Feel what?”
He gave a little shake, as if trying to rid himself of something. “Like—I don’t know. Something’s waking up.”
His face was lifted to the darkness, prey scenting a predator. It unnerved her, even as she said, “Don’t let the mine rattle you. We can’t linger here.”
Ellis nodded, and unrolled the sheet of parchment. “It’s a rough map,” he said. “The one I used to get to Colbren.”
“The one that got you lost,” she answered again. “That’s reassuring.”
“Well, it’s all we have.”
To Ryn’s eyes, it was a mess of crisscrossing lines and shapes, of crudely scribbled words, many of which she’d never learned. She did know how to read, thanks to her mother’s teachings, but the map seemed to use a kind of shorthand. As Ellis studied the paper, something about it changed him. It sharpened him, brightened his eyes, and made every movement a little faster, a little more certain. “I see,” he murmured, fingers whispering over the paper. He slipped a compass from his pocket, laid it upon the ground, and watched the iron needle. It was all very practiced, very precise, and Ryn found herself watching. It was always fascinating to see people do what they did best—Gareth’s hands steadied when he tallied the graveyard’s account books, and it was the only time he ever appeared truly relaxed; Ceri was smiling and friendly until she went to war against a dough that would not rise, and then she was all narrowed eyes and thin-lipped determination.
Ryn didn’t know what she looked like when she worked. Smudged with dirt, most likely.
“We need to go this way.” Ellis tapped the parchment.
The walls of the mine were stained golden with copper. Stalactites clustered along the ceiling, reaching down like the fingers of some clawed beast. Every so often, she heard the sound of moving water. The air smelled—wrong. Perhaps it was the stillness of the air, the stagnation of the world around them.
The miners had driven spikes into the walls to hold narrow planks of wood placed like the rungs of a ladder. The planks were about an arm’s length apart, and they ascended into the darkness.
“Ladders,” said Ryn. “To the other levels of the mine. Some’ll go up—and some down. They would’ve dug in both directions.”
“Are these safe?” asked Ellis. He touched one plank, as if testing its strength.
“Hardwood,” replied Ryn. “They won’t have rotted yet.” She hauled herself up and onto the first plank, and extended a hand to Ellis. He took it without hesitation, cool dry fingers sliding against hers. The climb upward would have been grueling, if not impossible, had these crude ladders not been left behind.
Ellis glanced down. The bone goat remained there, head slightly cocked.
“Right,” said Ryn. “I forgot about her.” She flapped her hands at the goat. “All right, girl. You can’t—”
Before she could finish the sentence, the goat tensed. Her haunches bunched with muscle, and then she leapt into the air. Hooves found invisible grooves along the stone wall and—and the bone goat stood on a small ledge. The movement had been so sudden, Ryn flinched and Ellis caught one of her arms, holding her steady. For a moment, they both gazed at the dead animal.
The bone goat looked back.
“I don’t think we have to worry about leaving her behind, then,” said Ellis drily.
Ryn let out a breath—half laugh and half sigh. “Looks like.”
It was slow going, and Ryn listened all the while. She almost expected to hear the shouts of those coming after or the grinding of bone against metal. But she only heard the drip of water and the rustle of wind through the tunnel.
One of the wooden planks had fallen away, leaving only metal spikes. Ryn went first, testing the handholds as she climbed. A childhood of tree climbing had left her with no fear of heights. Ellis waited a moment longer, judging the ascent, before grasping the first of the handholds.
The mine had several floors. Most were artificial—made of bracken mixed with stone and mud, with wooden planks to hold everything together. Some of the shafts were so narrow they had to crawl on hands and knees, Ryn using one arm to hold the lantern as she shuffled along, her hip dragging on the stone floor. Water soaked into her clothing and a chill settled into her bones.
They reached another floor, and Ellis had to study the map again. Ryn held the lantern while he studied the paper, both their heads bent low over the whorls of ink. His lips moved silently as he read, and one of his fingers traced the lines.
A sharp sound echoed down the mine shaft. They both jumped.
“Rocks,” said Ryn. “It sounded like rocks falling.”
“What disturbed them?” Ellis replied. His gaze jerked every which way, trying to take in everything at once.
“I’d rather not think about it.”
The shaft narrowed until she could have touched both sides if she stretched out her fingers. There was that sense of heaviness all around, the weight of something unseen pressing down on them. She heard Ellis’s raspy breath behind her.
They came upon the first collapsed section perhaps an hour into their journey. A large swell of gravel stood before them, forcing them to crawl up and over. Ryn went first, handing the lantern to Ellis so she could use both hands to get over. Her fingers slipped on the debris, and some of it scattered down, bouncing along the floor.
The bone goat was the only one to remain completely unfazed. But then again, this was a creature who hadn’t let death stop it.
“Right,” Ellis said, when they came to a fork in the path. There was an old cart there, one of its wheels shattered. A single bone rested beside the cart—and the sight made Ryn’s body clench.
She felt a hand on her shoulder.
She looked up. Ellis stood beside her; his face was cast into harsh lines by the lantern light, but she read concern in his eyes. “He was here,” she said. “He must have been. Seen this—and—” She shook her head, and a tendril of hair pulled free of its braid, slipping down her shoulder.
When she thought of her father, she remembered fingers creased with calluses and how, no matter what he was carrying, he would shift the burden so as to settle his hand on Ryn’s shoulder. Smile lines were etched into the corners of his mouth, and he l
iked feeding the chickens, giving them names and telling stories about how the birds probably had adventures when no one was looking. He had been solid and smiling and always there—
Until he hadn’t been.
He was dead. Of that Ryn had no doubt. Only death would have kept him from returning home.
“When did you—” Ellis began to say.
His head jerked around, the question dying on his lips.
A moment later, Ryn heard it, too. A scraping sound emanated from near their ankles.
A spidery-thin form crept out from under the cart. A hand, she realized. It was a hand, pulling itself along. Gristle dragged in its wake. Ellis made a startled sound and took a step back.
Ryn brought her boot down on it. The bones shattered and skittered across the floor. One finger bone twitched and went still.
No one spoke for a moment.
“If you make a jest about hands or ‘handling’ that,” said Ryn, “I will shove you down a mine shaft.”
Ellis wrinkled his nose. “Furthest thing from my mind. That’s possibly the most disgusting thing I’ve seen yet.”
The bone goat nudged one of the bones with its nose. “Don’t you dare eat that,” said Ryn sharply.
“Never mind,” said Ellis. “That is the most disgusting thing I’ve seen yet.”
The goat’s gaze flicked up, but it nuzzled the bone again. Ryn grabbed it by one horn and dragged it away.
The journey took them up another floor, and this time, Ryn found a ladder. It was in good condition, but she still tested her weight on the lowest rung.
The ladder was sturdy but she took her time, glancing down every so often to check on Ellis. Lines of pain gathered around his mouth and eyes, and she frowned.
At the top of the ladder, a rung was missing. Ryn reached up and shoved the lantern onto the stone ledge. She placed her hands on the smooth stone and heaved herself up, using all the strength in her arms.
The Bone Houses Page 14