The Bone Houses

by Emily Lloyd-Jones

  He was. He hadn’t noticed—some aftereffect of the battle, perhaps.

  They returned to their camp, and Ryn stoked the fire with dried pine needles. Sparks flew into the air, glittering and bright, and Ellis tried to focus on them rather than on the burning discomfort settling into his shoulder.

  “Hey,” said Ryn, and he looked up.

  She sat crosslegged and the bone goat leaned against her. She was absentmindedly scratching the goat’s rump. “Thanks,” said Ryn.

  Ellis considered several replies, discarding all but one: “Glad to be of use.”

  She twitched one shoulder in silent agreement.

  Ellis settled on the ground beside the fire. He hoped the warmth would unknot some of the muscles in his back. His eyes slipped shut and he tried to rest.

  But sleep was a long time in coming.

  CHAPTER 23

  RYN ROUSED WITH the dawn.

  She glanced over at Ellis. He was still asleep, curled into a ball on his right side. A smile stole over her, and then she gave herself a little shake.

  She hadn’t slept well after the attack. Even with the bone goat watching over them, Ryn knew she would find very little rest in this forest.

  “All right,” she said, standing. “It’s time to pack up.”

  Ellis did not move.

  “We can’t remain here too much longer,” she said, reaching down.

  He did not move—rather, he remained curled on his side.

  A noise escaped him. It was a thin sound, an animal noise of pain.

  Ryn’s blood iced over.

  His eyes, when they opened, blinked several times. A rattling hiss, and he placed a hand on his chest.

  “Are you—what’s wrong?” she asked. She hated that her voice was unsteady.

  His eyes closed, then opened again. His fingers knotted in his own shirt, as if he needed something to hold on to. He rolled onto his back, a cough shaking him.

  “Fallen kings,” he rasped. He cursed, the words coming out as a sharp groan.

  “What’s wrong?” she repeated.

  “It hurts,” he said, teeth gritted. His fingers clawed at his shoulder and his eyes squeezed shut. “Damn it.”

  She reached for his pack. “Where’s your willow bark?”

  A muscle in his neck spasmed. “No more.”

  Her fingers went still. “It’s gone?”

  “No apothecaries in the wilds,” he said, mouth twitching into a painful smile. It was the kind of smile that was all muscle and no true emotion—hollow reassurance. Ryn’s nails dug into the leather. For one moment, frustrated anger welled within her.

  “You should have said something,” she said. “I could have—”

  “Fixed this?” This time he made no effort to smile. “Pretty sure that’s beyond even you.” He seemed to make an effort to steady his breathing. “It’ll pass,” he said raggedly. “It always does. I just—rest. And heat, if we can manage.”

  She rocked back on her heels. “I should have realized something was wrong.”

  Again, that flickering little smile—more self-deprecation than amusement. “Considering how much effort I put into concealing any discomfort, that would be quite the achievement.”

  She closed her eyes. Her own supplies consisted of food, some clothing, her axe and a knife, firesteel, and a few sprigs of dried yarrow. Which would help with wounds—but not this.

  She stoked the fire until it was dancing on green wood, flames merrily sending sparks high into the air. She helped Ellis move a little closer to it, hating every flash of pain that crossed his face.

  It wasn’t just that he’d likely injured himself to help her—it was that Ellis was supposed to be calm, his face mildly amused, a journal in one hand and a quill in the other.

  The smoke from the fire stung her eyes, making them dry and achy. She blinked several times and the world blurred at the edges.

  She should have paid better attention to him. He would have done the same if she’d been the one hurt. He was good and kind and she—she was a girl who carried an axe and dismembered the dead.

  The day passed with excruciating slowness. The sun moved overhead, and morning drifted into afternoon. Ryn did go to the creek, stripping out of her dirtiest clothing and rinsing her skin with the clean water. It was so cold she gritted her teeth to choke back a scream, but when she was finished, her skin was pink and she no longer smelled of dead goat.

  She returned to Ellis and brought him a cup of water. He nodded his thanks, but did not say much more. She could see the pain behind his eyes, despite the way he tried to hide it even now. And he did this every day? She could not imagine it.

  “It’s not always this bad,” he said, as if he could hear her thoughts. She gave a start, then glimpsed his faint crease of a smile.

  “I saw your face,” he said. “And no—it’s not always like this. Some days it’s just in the background. I don’t even notice. Other times it’s nagging. And once in a while if I strain myself or sometimes out of nowhere it just… flares up.”

  “Like now,” she said.

  “Like now.”

  She watched as his fingers dug into the muscle of his shoulder, as if trying to release some of the tension. “You can’t stay here forever,” he said.

  Ryn’s gaze fell to the fire. “You’re right; we need more wood.”

  “No, I mean.” He drew in a long breath. “You can’t stay here on my account.”

  She blinked at him. “You think I’m just going to leave you?”

  “I think,” he said, “you have to. With your family, with your home, with everything at risk. You came here to end the bone houses—and I came for my own reasons. You shouldn’t put everything at risk for my sake.”

  She thought of it. Of how it would feel to walk from this forest, to follow the river to its source. To cross Llyn Mawr on her own, throw open the doors of Castell Sidi, and find the cauldron of rebirth.

  One thing was certain: If she left Ellis on his own, he would die. He couldn’t navigate the wilds, forage for food, or defend himself should the bone houses attack again. He would perish—of cold, of starvation, of being torn apart by dead creatures.

  “I’ll be fine,” said Ellis.

  She threw him a disgruntled look.

  “Your face is rather expressive,” he said. “And I believe I’m beginning to tell the differences in your scowls.”

  Her frown deepened.

  “Like now, you’re wishing I would stop being so lighthearted about this,” he said.

  “That wasn’t hard to guess.”

  CHAPTER 24

  EVENING CAME ON. Ryn snared a rabbit and cooked it over the small fire; gristle bubbled into the coals and the smell of roasted meat seemed to rouse Ellis a little. She gave him the larger portion before settling down to watch the sunset. There was no more talk of her leaving him, but even she could feel the urgency beginning to tug at her.

  Clouds filled the sky, blotting out stars and the moon, and the only illumination came from the fire. It crackled and spat, the green of the wood too damp for easy burning. Ellis slept—or rather, he remained quiet and still, his fingers knotted in his shirt. She watched his chest rise and fall, rise and fall, until she was sure he was resting.

  Ryn rested in fitful moments. She woke when the fire began to sputter out, she woke when Ellis stirred, and she woke when she heard the sound of footsteps.

  Her axe was in her hand at once. She rose to her feet, knees slightly bent, her every nerve at the ready. The forest was still and quiet, and even the sound of the creek seemed to have faded away. Ryn ventured a few more steps.

  Something approached. Grasses rustled and the undergrowth stirred. Ryn pulled her axe back, jaw clenched and arms shaking with readiness.

  A goat emerged.

  Ryn’s shoulders slumped.

  “You,” she said in an undertone, “need to announce yourself before scaring people.”

  The bone goat blinked slowly. Then it walked forward an
d nudged her, as if asking for food.

  By all the fallen kings, the creature was beginning to smell. Ryn grimaced and gave it a quick scratch behind the ears before sidestepping it.

  “Are you going to keep following us all the way to Castell Sidi?” she asked, sitting down on a large rock. Its surface was rough with lichen, and she found herself absentmindedly using her thumbnail to pick at it.

  The goat sniffed Ellis.

  “He doesn’t have food, either,” said Ryn.

  The goat lay down beside Ellis. Ryn wrinkled her nose; she considered grabbing the goat by the horns and trying to coax it away from Ellis, if only so he wouldn’t smell like death tomorrow.

  A branch snapped behind her. She whirled so swiftly she was on her knees, one palm pressed to the mossy earth, the other trying to grip her axe.

  Someone stood over her.

  Another bone house.

  He wore a tattered gray cloak—the garb of a traveler, not a soldier. There was no flesh to him, and his bones had the brown quality of someone who had spent time in the mine. He must have followed the goat here.

  The bone house stood there, the firelight flickering across the hollows of his face. He took a step closer.

  “No,” said Ryn softly.

  As if sensing her anger, the bone house retreated a few steps. The empty eye sockets remained fixed on her, and she felt the weight of his gaze.

  Ryn lowered her axe, letting the heavy iron blade rest on the ground beside her. So long as he did not attack, nor would she.

  “You out for a stroll?” she asked, as if they were merely strangers who had met on the road. “You don’t look like a miner. Did you follow us from the encampment? Is there a dead grandmother on my trail, seeking to end our quest?”

  The bone house raised one shoulder in a half shrug. Even without features, she could sense something like amusement in the gesture.

  “Well, if you’re not going to attack, I’d appreciate it if you left us alone,” she said. “My friend isn’t doing so well, and I can’t stare at you the whole night.”

  She’d wondered sometimes if the bone houses could understand her. But this one seemed to—his gaze fell to Ellis. He took a step back, and then another, and Ryn watched as the bone house slipped soundlessly into the undergrowth.

  Ryn leaned her elbows on her knees, eyes slipping shut. Exhaustion pressed down on her and she fought it, but she knew it would be a losing battle. Time slipped by—minutes or hours, she couldn’t be sure.

  A root snapped.

  Ryn’s head came up. The world swam into focus: the moonlit clouds, the forest, and the gray-cloaked figure before her.

  Panic ripped through her. Her fingers scrambled for her axe, but before she could take a swing, the bone house dropped something into her lap.

  Her shaking fingertips brushed over delicate white flowers. A few petals fell, and the sweet scent of cut greenery reached her nose.

  She remained there, crouched over Ellis—flowers in one hand and axe in the other. Neither one moved. And then the dead man silently pointed a finger to Ellis.

  She finally recognized the flower. Feverfew.

  It was meant for treating headaches and fevers, of course. But she knew several elders who used it for their joints, who sipped it in tea and said it helped with their aches.

  “Did you want me to have this?” she asked.

  The bone house nodded.

  A well of confusion opened up within her. She thought she’d known the dead, known them better than anyone else. She’d met one when she was a child and lived to tell about it; she had made it her life’s work to keep the peaceful dead in the ground and the risen dead in the fires. But they still managed to surprise her.

  Ryn emptied a canteen of water into her small iron pot, placing it over the fire. Once the water was boiling, she sprinkled the water with the feverfew leaves and set it aside to steep.

  When she looked up again, the bone house was still there. He stood with his arms at his sides, unthreatening and unmoving.

  “Thank you,” she said. She hesitated. “Is there—I don’t know. A message you wish to give me? Do you have relatives nearby that I could contact? Let them know that you’re dead?” It was the least she could do.

  The bone house did not reply for a moment. Then it raised a hand and beckoned to her.

  In the old stories, heroes always went with the monsters. Ryn remembered thinking it was such a foolish decision to make; surely those heroes of old knew better than to accompany the monster into its lair.

  But, standing here, she understood.

  She rose to her feet.

  The bone goat lifted her head, gazing at Ryn. Death had crept into the creature’s body with sickly sweet rot; it was becoming less goat and more monster. Even so, Ryn laid her hand on its forehead. “Keep an eye on him, all right?” she asked.

  The bone goat nuzzled her fingers, then rested her head gently on Ellis’s stomach.

  It would have to be good enough. Slowly, ever so carefully, she followed the bone house.

  He moved as shadows did—grace without weight, shape without form. Those who did not know how to move in a forest could not have kept up. And Ryn felt glad she was half-wild, raised on the edges of Annwvyn—her feet found footholds and her fingers slipped through brambles without snagging.

  She followed for the same reason she had begged her mother for tales of monsters. Monsters were unrestrained, unbound, and beautiful in their destruction. They could be slain but they would never be truly defeated. And perhaps, even back then, Ryn thought that if she could love the monsters—then she could love those monstrous parts of herself.

  They walked through the forest, dead man and living girl. The air smelled of the late harvest, of sun-ripened berries laced with frost. They went up into the mountains, around boulders and over mounds of stone that must have once been homes. The trees thinned and then vanished all together, until Ryn found herself in a field of dead grasses.

  They walked in silence—that was the one thing Ryn had always liked about the dead. There was no need to talk.

  The path wound farther upward, until Ryn found herself reaching for rocks and weeds to stay upright. Her palm came down on a dusty ledge and she hauled herself up and over. When she rose, she saw how far they had come.

  They stood on the edge of a mountain.

  When the clouds parted, she saw the forest sprawled below, a dark smudge against the earth. And beyond that, she glimpsed the shape of rolling hills and fields, and the place where Colbren resided. It felt as if all the isles were laid at her feet.

  Perhaps this was why Arawn had chosen to make his home here; the Otherking could look down upon the human lands at a glance.

  A tremor ran up her legs, and the bone house seized her arm. It was a tight grip, but not restraining. It was as if the dead man feared she would fall.

  “I’m all right,” she said, rolling her shoulder. He pulled back, jaw working silently. She could only imagine his reply—and somehow she thought there might be a quip and a laugh tangled up in it. “Why did you bring me up here?” She gestured at the ledge. “It’s pretty, but a bit of a climb.”

  The dead man merely looked at her. And then he ducked low, and she saw the gap in the rock.

  It was small—barely the width of a man’s shoulders. The bone house slipped into the space and crawled into the dark.

  There was an old tale of a man who’d crawled into a rabbit hole and found himself in the land of the tylwyth teg. The immortals had welcomed him, asked him to join their revel, and he pleased them with his fine manners. They said he was welcome to return. He’d used the hole to come and go, until his pride got the better of him. He bragged to a lady that he could show her the otherlands. But the next time he tried to get inside, he found only a rabbit’s warren.

  Ryn knelt beside the hole.

  Someone had cut into the rock; it was crude, as if a blade had been jabbed repeatedly into the stone. It looked a bit like a star. Her t
humb slid across the etching.

  She thought of a man seeking treasure in the mountains using a hunting knife to mark his way. Her hands found the smooth rock, and she began to crawl. The air tasted of dirt, and roots brushed across her back. Pebbles scattered, heard but unseen, and she hoped no rats or other creatures had made their home here.

  Something dripped onto her shoulder and she flinched, a curse snagging between her teeth. She scuttled forward, and nearly tumbled headlong when the path angled down. She scooted on hands and knees, rocks biting into her palms, her axe banging against her hip, and when she left the tunnel behind, it was with a gasp and a thud.

  She half scurried, half crawled from the hole. Her fingers clawed at damp earth, and she dragged herself into a sitting position.

  The bone house stood a few strides away, arms still at his sides. She looked past him.

  Everything seemed to slow.

  She saw a shore of broken shale. The dark gray rocks overlapped one another, shattered to pieces by time and wind. And against those rocks lapped water.

  Her gaze was drawn past the water, to the smudge of dark against the sky. She could not see it, not truly. But she knew it was there, across the lake.

  Castell Sidi.

  Elation propelled her forward, and she walked until she stood at the edge of the shore, eyes straining into the dark. As the bone house led her a little farther, the scents changed, became crisper and damper, and she heard the flap of wings and a splash as a bird descended into the water.

  The heart of Annwvyn—she’d found it.

  No, no. A bone house had led her to it.

  She might never have found it without his help. After all, what kind of person would have crawled into a deep, dark hole, unknowing if it would lead anywhere at all?

  Rocks clattered behind her and Ryn whirled. The bone house stood a mere arm’s length away.

  “Were you a knight?” she asked. “Did you come here seeking the cauldron, too?”

  A shake of his head.

  It was true—he bore no armor. He wouldn’t be a soldier, then. But perhaps—

  She shivered.