And then all was quiet—but for the sounds of the living. Ryn breathed so hard there was a gasp on every inhale; Ellis leaned against his knees, shaking so hard she heard his teeth click. “Are—are you all right?” she managed.
He nodded. His own voice had yet to return to him. His hands sought hers, and then they were clutching each other. A smile touched her lips even as she panted for breath. “Alive,” she said, and it seemed the only thing she could say. He pulled her close, only for a brief moment, and then he whirled, one arm catching her around the middle and dragging her back.
She saw them a few moments after he did.
Moonlight danced across the surface of Llyn Mawr. The water lapped against the broken-shale shore, and it would have been beautiful.
If not for the creatures emerging from the water.
Dead things. All sorts of dead things. Men and women. Hundreds of them—some broken and some whole. Ryn remembered the piles upon piles of bones stacked upon the lake’s bottom and she went cold.
“Fallen kings,” she heard Ellis whisper.
So many. Too many.
They could not fight them all.
Ryn’s hand went to the cottage door. She shook the knob but it was locked. It wasn’t much, but four walls would be something. A place they could fortify and hold out in until sunrise. All they needed was sunrise. Ryn took a step back, eyes darting over the door. It was heavy oak, and the emblem of the Otherking was etched into the frame. A beautiful piece of work—and she yearned for her axe so she might cut it down.
She struck at it with the heel of her booted foot. A jolt ran up her leg, but nothing happened. Cursing, she hefted her sword and brought the pommel down upon the door latch. Sparks glittered in the night and fell to the damp ground. Ryn hit the latch a second time, then a third. Her sweaty fingers slid along the hilt and she gripped it tighter. If she slipped, she might flay her own hand open on the blade, but there was no time.
On the fourth blow, the latch cracked free of the wood. She saw splinters, and then she threw her weight against the door.
The door opened by a fraction; the wood had swollen, making it scrape across the hard-packed ground. Ellis seized it and they pushed together, until the gap was wide enough for Ellis to slip through. Ryn angled herself, then glanced back.
The bone goat stood there, watching them.
“Come on,” said Ryn, beckoning. “Bone goat, come here!”
The animal blinked at her.
“Damn it,” Ryn snapped, and began to step outside.
Ellis caught her by the arm, and she jerked to a halt. “No,” he rasped. “We can’t.”
“But she—”
“We can’t,” he said again, and she saw how near the bone houses were. So close she could see the web of cracks in one’s skull and the gleam of silt on another’s fingers. The bone goat lowered her head in challenge and turned to face the attackers.
“No,” said Ryn again. A denial, when she knew there was nothing more she could do.
Ellis pulled her inside, and then he threw his weight against the door. She heard the creak of wood as it jammed into the door frame, and then he was moving, dragging something. A chair, she saw. He shoved it against the door, then dropped to his knees.
Ryn rested her forehead against the wood, her own breathing harsh in her ears.
Even so, she heard the sounds of the dead things outside.
CHAPTER 29
IT WAS DARK in the cottage. Ellis sat with his back to one wall; his legs had given out and he had little desire to stand again. Every part of him ached. He hadn’t noticed the small cuts and bruises when he was fighting with the bone houses, but now they all came rushing back to him.
He waited. For the sound of people throwing themselves against the cottage, for the noises of battle, for… for anything.
Everything had gone silent.
When he met Ryn’s gaze, he saw her eyes were wide. “Why does the quiet not reassure me?”
“Because you’re not a fool,” she replied. “Come on. Let’s see what frightens bone houses away.”
There was a lantern hanging by a hook near the door—likely so that whomever lived here could venture outside at night. Firesteel rested on a small nook by the door, and Ryn handed Ellis her sword, then struck a flame alight on the first try.
This small room was meant for sitting; there were carved chairs and a table. Without thinking, Ellis picked up an embroidery hoop from that table. He trailed his fingers along the smooth surface, felt the grooves, and the memory of stitches. There was no fabric, but his mind supplied the sensation.
“What is it?” Ryn peered over his shoulder. “I didn’t know magical beings did embroidery.”
He did not answer, but gently set the hoop down. Another step, and he was through a doorway, into what must have been the kitchen. A stove rested in the corner. The chimney was crooked, and he thought he heard a rustle, as if there were something nesting inside. Several bottles and jars remained on shelves, the glass smudged with dust.
“Blackberries?” Ryn murmured.
“Currants.” The answer sprang to his lips without thought—and he knew he was right, even as he didn’t know why.
He felt very far away. As if he were watching another young man wander through this cottage, as if it were a wholly different person exploring this place.
He watched this other person—because it wasn’t him, it couldn’t truly be him—explore the small kitchen and then walk into another room.
There was a cot in the corner. The blankets smelled of moths, but they were still intact. A quilt, with blue embroidery. A leaf pattern, and he knew without touching that the stitching would be soft as butter beneath his fingers. He knew it would smell of dried grasses, because the blankets were hung on a line outside. And part of him wanted to curl up on that cot, to be small enough to fit there, and perhaps if he closed his eyes, the world would vanish.
He dared not look around that room any longer. He could not.
So instead, he walked through the opposite door. This bedroom was larger, with a window that looked out upon the lake. Lace curtains were hung around it, and the bed was neatly made. There was a desk—and parchments. A leather-bound book, with a quill still stuck between the pages. He remembered the softness of the feather, tickling someone with it, then feeling a gentle kiss against his hair before it was taken away.
He heard Ryn’s intake of breath. A sharp hiss against her teeth, and he sensed more than saw, her reach for a weapon.
He didn’t want to turn around. He didn’t want to see. Seeing would make it all too real, would draw him back into the present moment, into the cottage with the bone houses waiting outside, and he desperately wanted not to be here.
“Ellis.”
His name had been many things—a rebuke, a question, a warning—but no one had ever spoken it like Ryn did. As if it might be an endearment.
Ellis forced himself to look.
In the corner was a chair. And on that chair rested a figure.
It was a woman. Or rather, it had been a woman. She still had hair, straight and fine, falling around her shoulder bones. She was draped in silvery fabrics and a fur-edged cloak. And beyond that, Ellis could see very little. She had no skin, no lips, no eyes. She was all bone—blanched by time, untouched by the silt of the lake. Her hair was a dark brown, and there was something familiar in the lock that slanted across her eyes.
And in the woman’s lap rested a cauldron.
It was smaller than he expected. The edges were rusted and a crack ran through its side.
Ellis made a sound of surprise. Ryn’s fingers squeezed his wrist, a silent acknowledgment that she’d seen what he had.
It was the woman from the tale—the woman who’d tried to save her child, the boy who’d been murdered by a thief.
He took a step forward. He felt like his body wasn’t under his control; he had been compelled to come here, just as the dead were compelled to rise. He had no say.
/> “What is this?” he said, his voice shaking.
Ryn’s gaze never left the woman. “I think… this is what we’ve both been looking for.”
Of all the ways Ryn thought she might find the cauldron, she’d never expected this. Ellis’s hand came up, as if he wanted to touch the bone house. Ryn seized his shoulder, trying to pull him back. He made a sound of pain, and she realized she’d seized his left shoulder. She let go at once, but it was too late.
The bone house’s head snapped up. Its eye sockets were hollow, but somehow Ryn knew it was staring at her. The jaw moved, silent but for the click of teeth, and then it surged to its feet. The gown was in tatters, a bit of borrowed finery that had survived decades—
The sound of Ellis’s pain seemed to rouse the bone house. It cradled the cauldron in its left arm, pressing it close. In its other hand, it held a knife.
The blade belonged in the hand of a butcher; it was meant for slicing meat. The bone house threw itself forward, the blade’s edge a hiss through the air, and Ryn felt the whisper of it pass by her ear. She ducked beneath the blade, kicking out.
Her leg caught the bone house in the side. It staggered, one elbow slamming into the bed. Its refusal to drop the cauldron and the knife meant it had to fumble to stay upright, and its jaw clacked again and again, as if it were shouting. Its arm came up, knife flashing, and Ryn slammed her forearm into the bone house’s elbow, knocking the blow aside. The blade hit the wall, sank into the wood.
Ryn saw Ellis in the middle of the room. His left arm hung limply by his side—and his right hand held her sword. His face was frozen in an expression that she never wanted to see again. It was how a child looked when they scraped their knee or burned themselves on a fire. Startled that such pain could exist. She took a step toward him to seize the sword. If either of them was going to bring this bone house down, it should be her.
Agony cleaved her skull in two.
The room spun around, and then her cheek was pressed to the wooden floor. She was breathing dust and there was a leaf stuck to her arm, and she was on the ground and wasn’t sure why. She blinked, and—and reopening her eyes was a struggle. Something warm seeped down her neck, and she tried to lift her hand, to see what was wrong. Her fingers came away bloody.
The cauldron. The bone house must have struck her with the cauldron.
It hurt so badly she wondered if the bone house hadn’t managed to break something vital. She tried to sit up and nausea swept through her so strongly that she didn’t dare try again. She closed her eyes, hoping her stomach would remain where it was, and tried to breathe.
It happened too quickly.
Ellis knew that sound would follow him into his nightmares—the resounding crack of the cauldron striking Ryn, and then the thud of her body hitting the floor. She was so still that she might have been dead. And for one terrible heartbeat, he thought she was. Then her fingers twitched and she made this noise. A whimper at the back of her throat.
He’d grown used to the idea that Ryn was invincible. That she could shake off any threat with a quip and a glare, her axe hefted on her shoulder and a smirk on her lips. The sight of her, still and bloodied, snapped something inside him.
He brought the sword down on the bone house. The creature lifted an arm, and the blade snagged on bone. The creature opened its mouth, as if wishing it could scream, but it did not have the voice.
Its fingers wrapped around the bare blade and it pulled. Ellis stumbled, caught off balance. His left arm came up, and he grasped the pommel with both hands, trying to hold on.
Pain burst behind his collarbone. He caught a cry between his teeth and ground it into silence.
He would not lose his weapon.
He couldn’t lose his weapon. Not with Ryn on the floor, not with this thing staring at him with its hollow eyes.
His feet shifted as he widened his stance before he threw himself forward. The blade surged through the bone house’s fingers, and the creature sprang aside. The sword whispered through the creature’s hair, and several strands fluttered to the ground.
His step brought them together, and this close, he could smell the death upon it. He swung the sword, trying to bring it down upon the creature’s neck. If he could just take its head off, he might be able to end this.
He thought of Ryn and her axe, swinging again and again, that night they first met. She’d apologized to the creature as she’d dismantled it, and right now he couldn’t imagine why. The dead should stay dead. They had no place here.
The bone house tried to pull the sword from him. He crashed into the bed, the sword skittering from his hands toward Ryn. He rolled over and over, until he fell to the floor. Grimacing, he pushed himself to his elbows—and his left arm crumpled beneath him.
The cauldron rolled to the floor.
Ellis saw it—the red-rimmed edges, the crack down the side. It was dark, so dark that light did not seem to reflect off its surface. It gaped wide, like a hungry mouth, and Ellis did not want to touch it.
Even so, he had to. He grasped one of the handles and threw it.
The cauldron clattered along the floor until it rolled within Ryn’s reach.
The bone house seized him. He half expected to feel the whisper of bone across his throat, to feel a stranglehold and the crushing weight of its hands.
But the bone house did no such thing. Its hands settled on his shoulders, skimmed up his throat, then gently rested on his jaw. The dead woman tilted his face toward her—and then tucked the stray lock of hair away from his eyes.
He went utterly still.
That small gesture was a single point of familiarity in this strangeness. Hair brushed from his eyes.
No one moved. Not the bone house, nor Ellis, nor Ryn. It felt as if they were frozen in this moment.
And then Ryn spoke.
“Your shoulder,” she said haltingly. “The left one—the one that hurts you. It was a broken collarbone, right?”
His answer came slowly. He dared not move too much, for fear of disturbing the bone house. Its skeletal hands rested on his shoulders. “I—yes. The healers said that the bone had been broken and was not set right.” He sounded baffled. “I must have broken it when I was a child—”
“Or perhaps an arrow broke the bone.”
He imagined a fallen child, his mother pouring water from the cauldron of rebirth into his mouth. Pouring cupful after cupful, until the magic took.
“It was you.” Ryn said the words first. “The child who died. It had to have been you. The stories got it wrong—the child was brought back before the cauldron broke.”
“No.” The word burst forth, and he whirled on her. He wore the face of a child who didn’t want the monsters to be real, and the face of an adult who’d fought them. “That can’t be right. I’m not—I’m not—”
His voice failed him, and when he spoke again, it was in a whisper. “I’m just a mapmaker.”
Her voice took on an urgent edge. “How long did it take you to get to Colbren? How long were you traveling?”
It took a few tries to answer. “I—a week and a half from the southern ports? I went slowly, so as to chart my progress.”
She nodded, as if his answer were unsurprising. “The first bone house left the forest about the time you began to approach—and then more after that. Don’t you see?” A shaky breath rattled through her. “I kept asking what had changed—and it wasn’t the iron fence. It was you.”
He laughed and the sound was terrible—a jagged rasp. “You think they were looking for me?”
“I think she was,” said Ryn, with a glance toward the bone house.
He thought of that first night on the fringes of Colbren—of that bone house that had tried to drag him into the forest. Toward Annwvyn. Of how the bone goat had followed them without ever wavering. No, the goat hadn’t been following them, it had been following him. He thought of the bone house in the woods, trying to bring Ryn deeper into the mountains—because he’d given her his cloa
k, of how he’d danced among the dead and they’d never noticed he was different—
Because he was one of them.
No, no, he thought. He was alive.
He was shaking all over. “No, I can’t be—”
But he could be.
And more than that—he was.
His gaze slid up, resting on the dead woman. She knelt before him, fingers still resting on his shoulders. Like any mother would with her son. She’d never been attacking him; and she’d only attacked Ryn after she’d grabbed his bad shoulder.
Ellis turned to look at Ryn.
“Break it,” he said. “Before she stops you.”
“Why would she—”
It took a moment for her to understand.
The cracked cauldron was what kept the dead rooted here—bound in a mockery of life. To end the curse, she needed to break it. But if it had brought Ellis back, if he had truly died—
He saw when she understood. All the blood had left her face. “No,” she said. “No.”
He could not hesitate. To hesitate would be to undo everything. All their efforts to come here, all the spent blood and those left dead in their trail—it would have been for naught. He couldn’t let that happen.
“Do it,” he said.
He grasped the dead woman’s wrists. She flinched. He held on.
Ryn’s eyes were too bright and too full. She looked at Ellis as if she could not bear to look away.
“Break it!”
The words ripped from his mouth, hoarse and full of fear. He held the creature that had been his mother, and he was panting, his face creased with pain.
Because he did not know if it was true—if magic had brought him back to life, if he’d grown up here, if his mother was the woman who’d dared use a magical cauldron from Castell Sidi.
But he did know this: It had to end.
Ryn could not move; she could barely breathe.
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