The cauldron rested beside her. It was so small. So much smaller than she’d imagined. She had to break it.
To end the curse. To save Colbren. To be a hero.
Ryn looked up. Ellis’s gaze met hers, and she saw his chest rise and fall. Rise and fall.
“Do it,” he repeated. But quietly this time—a plea rather than a command. “Do it to protect your siblings. For every dead person that hasn’t been allowed their rest. For your father, Ryn.”
Fallen kings. She wanted to. She didn’t want to.
In the end, there was no choice. “I’m sorry.”
With a cry, she gathered all the strength in her arms—and then she brought the hilt of her sword down.
And the cauldron of rebirth shattered.
CHAPTER 30
RYN DID NOT look up. She couldn’t.
Her gaze was locked on the cauldron.
It lay in pieces on the floor. Ryn stared at them. If she looked up, it would be real. Everything would crystalize. She would no longer be Aderyn the gravedigger—she would be the girl who’d killed Ellis.
And then she heard the noises. Bone scraping over stone—the rasp of breath against teeth.
Ryn looked up.
Ellis was alive. He leaned heavily on the bed, breathing raggedly as he watched the bone house.
They were both alive. At least, mostly.
It had not worked.
It—it hadn’t worked.
Ryn could not move. The cauldron was in pieces, yet the curse remained.
Defeat made her whole body slump. Everything hurt. The back of her head felt as if a hot poker had been pressed to it, and her neck ached. Ryn swallowed again and again, measuring out her breath so that perhaps she might regain some control of herself.
“Why didn’t it work?” she croaked. The words were a child’s plea. She wanted to close her eyes again, to pull a blanket over her head and pretend she was young, she was having a nightmare, and if she could just wake up, everything would be set right.
“I don’t—” Ellis began to say. Then he halted. As if he did not know what to say. His hands fell, releasing his mother. “She must have brought me back before the cauldron cracked. Before the magic was distorted. I don’t know—if breaking the cauldron won’t end this, I don’t know what will.”
The dead woman smoothed her bony hands over his chest, straightening his shirt.
And something in Ryn’s mind finally came together. It wasn’t just the cauldron that had bound the dead here—it had been her. A woman who had lost her son: first to death, and then to distance. Ellis must have wandered away after he was resurrected—or perhaps the thief even stole him, only to lose the child in the woods. She supposed they would never know the truth of it.
But this was true: Ellis’s mother remained here. Even after she’d died, after the magic brought her back, she’d waited. For Ellis.
“Ellis,” she said. “She’s your mother.”
“I know!” He spoke through gritted teeth. “We’ve established that.”
“No,” said Ryn. “I mean—she’s your mam.”
The word startled him. Confusion flickered across his face. He looked between Ryn and his mother, his brow creased.
“She stayed here,” said Ryn, “waiting for you to come back.” There were tears running down her face; she only realized when she felt them fall.
Ellis’s mother had lingered in the house, while her flesh rotted away, in case it meant seeing her child again. She’d clung on even when death tried to take her.
And there was something so human in that, so recognizable, that a sob hitched in Ryn’s chest. She knew what it was to cling on, to grasp those small fragments of memory and try to live in them. Even if it meant not living at all.
Ellis remained still. His eyes roamed over the bone house, as if trying to find something in it. He was crying, too, Ryn saw. Silent shakes of his shoulders, his mouth crooked open as if he wanted to speak but didn’t know the words.
Then his gaze jerked back up to the bone house’s face.
To the woman’s face.
To his mother’s face.
His lips were bloodless when he finally spoke.
“Mam?”
The bone house looked up. Moonlight shone across the cheekbones and jaw.
The dead woman leaned closer, until the ridge of her brow was pressed to Ellis’s. As if she wanted to feel the warmth of him.
Ellis spoke the word again, his voice shaking apart. “Mam?”
The bone house wrapped him up in her arms, held him close. And then she did something that Ryn had never expected. Something the dead should not have been able to do.
She spoke.
“Ellis.” Her voice sounded like that of any woman—her words preserved by the same magic that had kept her lingering here. She spoke again, and her voice was overfull. “My Ellis.”
“Mam.” This time it wasn’t a question. Ellis made a small, broken sound and he hugged her back, pressing his face to where her shoulder should have been. Like a child who wished to shut out the world and to remember only the one place where he had always found safety.
Ryn remembered tucking her own face into her father’s shoulder, feeling the strength of him, and sitting in her mother’s lap, feeling utterly secure. And perhaps—perhaps this was why she’d retreated to the forest after her own parents were gone. To love someone was to lose them. Whether it was to illness or injury or the passage of time.
It was a risk, to love someone. To do so with the full knowledge that they’d leave someday.
Then to let go of them, when they did.
Ellis cried out suddenly, and Ryn blinked through her tears. His mother was swaying, her arms loosening. It was as if the magic that had kept her alive was draining away. “No, no,” said Ellis, and he was choking on the words. His face collapsed in on itself, twisting with unsuppressed pain.
His mother sank to the floor; Ellis sought to keep her upright, his arms locked around her, but it was to no avail. His mother was fading, the magic slipping away. Her fingers traced his cheek, and then clattered to the floor.
Everything went quiet.
Ryn stepped forward. On shaking legs, she knelt beside Ellis and put her arms around him. She felt as if the sobs might shake him apart, and she clung on, knowing how it felt. How the grief swelled up like a tide, threatening to sweep a person away.
She held on, knowing that sometimes that was all a person could do.
CHAPTER 31
THIS WAS HOW the bone houses were defeated.
With a whispered name.
CHAPTER 32
WHEN THE STORY of the bone houses was told, it would go something like this:
There was a young woman. She was a fearless creature—a girl who would chase death into the mountains. With only an axe for company, she slipped past pwca and afanc, fought through lines of dead soldiers, and found the old woman responsible for the curse. There was a great battle, and the young woman beheaded the dead woman, ending the chaos.
Or, there was a young woman and a young man. They’d eloped, because the woman’s family didn’t approve, and took her younger brother and sister with them. They went into the mountains seeking refuge, only to find Castell Sidi. There, they ended the curse by melting down the cauldron.
Or, there was a young criminal. She stole a map of a mine, hoping it would lead her to great treasure—but instead, it led her into the mountains. She stole the cauldron and, in her own ignorance, accidentally shattered it and ended the curse.
Or, perhaps it went something like this: A goat ended the curse. It got tired of its humans being distracted by hordes of dead soldiers, so it went into the mountains and ate the cauldron.
Years later, Ryn would confront Ceridwen over that particular version of the story. Ceri disavowed all knowledge.
But for all the variations, the stories never mentioned what happened after the curse was ended. Even in Ryn’s own mind, the details blurred together.
There were a few days of cleanup. Dead bodies were strewn about the fortress and Ryn couldn’t just let them be. She found the tools of her trade in one of the outlying buildings, and she began work the next morning. It felt almost natural to find places in the rocky soil where graves might be dug, to clean the bodies as best she could, to wrap them in cloth and lower them into the ground.
To give these dead the peace they deserved, but had never known.
Ryn worked until her fingers blistered, until the weak autumn sun made sweat gather on her neck, until her clothes were stained with dirt.
On the first night, she looked out over a row of burial mounds and felt something like satisfaction.
She found the bone goat on the second day, curled up beneath a tree, as if in sleep. But she was dead—well and truly, this time.
Ryn buried her as well. She left wildflowers on the mound.
It was a strange few days. Living in Castell Sidi, burying long-dead bodies by day, and sleeping in an old barracks by night.
Ellis slept in the cottage.
Ryn went by a few times, but he didn’t speak, so she didn’t press. She did bring him a bowl of hare cawl, thick with potatoes and leeks. She left the bowl beside the front door. When she returned again, the bowl was empty.
He must have been trying to place the cottage in his memories. She saw him a few times, wandering about the grounds. He’d trace a wall with his fingertips, as if he were trying to map out its structure with hands alone. Then he’d vanished into the cottage again.
On the third day, Ellis returned to the fortress. Ryn was taking a well-earned midday break. She kept a good distance from the Llyn Mawr, choosing to wash her hands in a nearby stream instead. When Ellis approached, Ryn scrambled to her feet.
His eyes were red and shadowed, and he moved with that restless grief that Ryn knew so well. Platitudes and reassurances meant nothing, so she didn’t offer them. She waited for him to speak, instead.
When he managed it, his voice sounded rusty and unsure. “I—I want to bury her,” he said. His throat jerked in a swallow. “Can you help?”
Ryn gave him the smallest of smiles. “That’s one thing I’m well equipped to do.”
Ellis found a place behind the cottage. The soil was thick with old rocks, and it took half the afternoon to dig the hole. Ellis wrapped his mother in a clean linen sheet and they lowered her into the earth.
When they were finished, the sun was low in the sky and Ryn’s back ached. Ellis didn’t speak, but laid a hand on the pile of rocks. “She wanted me,” he said softly. “She—she spent years holding on because she wanted to find me again.” There was a tremor to his words, as if he hardly dared believe them.
Ryn placed her hand between his shoulders. His back was warm, damp with exertion. “Of course she did.”
She felt a shudder run through him. He turned and she pulled him close, felt his breath rustle her hair when he exhaled. He smelled of fresh earth and sunlight.
That night, he slept in the barracks.
They left Castell Sidi with full packs of food, ancient swords, and very little conversation. Ellis had taken a few things from the cottage—an embroidered shirt, a book, and a blanket.
As Ryn walked out of the great hall, she glanced over her shoulder at the living statue of the Otherking, one hand raised as if in welcome—or farewell. In the spring, fresh leaves would awaken the hall, make it into something breathing and green and wonderful. It was beautiful even now, with the starkness of winter and rain in the air.
They would go around the lake this time. As Ryn trudged along the broken-shale shore, she found a half-collapsed skull sitting amid the rocks. With a grimace, she picked it up and tossed it back into the water.
What she was not prepared for was to see an axe fly out of the lake. It flew at Ryn’s head and she lunged to one side.
The axe thudded into the ground, blade sinking into the soil.
For one long moment, neither she nor Ellis moved. She looked at the lake, looked at the axe, and then back at the water. “What,” she said flatly.
“Don’t the otherfolk dislike iron?” Ellis reached down and picked up the axe. He flicked a stray leaf from its blade before he held it out to her.
“Thanks,” said Ryn.
The axe handle had toothmarks on it. But she shrugged and hefted it over her shoulder.
The journey home took longer.
For one thing, going around the lake added another two days to their journey, and it was hours of grueling climbing over jagged peaks and slipping on patches of damp lichen. They took care not to touch the water, relying on flasks until they reached the river.
From there, it was slow going through the mountains.
But it was also peaceful. There were no dead things crawling about. Ryn and Ellis slept at night and walked during the day.
Even the mine had little fear left in it. It was dark and damp, and Ryn’s heart beat a little fast as they passed through it, but there was no terror. No waiting for a hand in the dark. It was just an abandoned mine.
She closed her eyes, wondering where her father was resting. She would have liked to bury him.
But at least he was resting now.
They all were.
The villagers at the old mining encampment were burning their dead. This time, the fires did not have the sweet cook-fire scent as they passed—no, these were pyres. Ryn and Ellis kept to the fringes of the camp, skirting the edges through the forest. They dared not go too close to the camp; Ryn remembered Catrin’s fear and desperation. Grief could turn to anger, and Ryn knew how easy it would be for those people to wield that anger like a weapon.
She wondered if they would remain at the encampment or if they would find somewhere else to live. Perhaps some of them would come to Colbren.
As for Colbren—they found it battered but alive.
Ryn walked into the village and saw Dafyd was at work rebuilding a door. When he caught sight of Ryn, he spat out a curse before clapping her on the shoulder. “Knew you’d amount to something, girl,” he said, and then gave Ellis a hearty embrace that made the young man gasp for breath.
“How did you know?” she said, baffled.
“Your sister’s been braggin’ to anyone who’ll listen.” He smiled broadly. “Said you went into the woods to fix the curse. And the day after, most of the dead cleared out. The armored ones just left, and the stragglers were easier to deal with.”
She understood. The dead soldiers had been here to find Ellis—and they must have followed him back into the forest. Ellis’s gaze dropped to the ground, and she saw the smallest flicker of guilt cross his face. She took his hand and squeezed.
Morwenna grinned when she saw them and then went back to her forge. It looked as though she were working on new bars for a fence.
Ryn’s house was a mess. Their door was broken, and there was a chicken waiting in the kitchen, merrily eating spilled grain.
Ryn stood in her home, breathed the familiar scents, and something loosened in her chest.
“Ceri?” she called. “Your chicken is in the house!”
A shriek came from one of the back rooms. Then a clatter, the thud of bare feet against wood, and Ceri slammed into her. They swayed and fell—and Ceri still did not let go. She was crying and laughing, using her small fists to shake Ryn. “—should have told me,” she was saying, “—should have said good-bye, you foolish, you unthinking—” She buried her insults against Ryn’s shoulder, and Ryn held on tight.
Gareth was in the backyard, repairing the pantry door. He had a nail tucked between his teeth, and he seemed intent on his work—at least until Ryn said his name.
The nail dropped from his bloodless lips.
Neither moved for a heartbeat.
Then he held out an arm and Ryn stepped into it, hugging him back.
“You did it,” he said simply.
“We did,” she replied. “I think Ellis gets a fair share of the thanks.”
She stepped ba
ck, giving him a once-over. Gareth looked older than she did now—the last few weeks were evident in his eyes and mouth. “You managed to keep Eynon from taking the house?” she said, smiling. “And I see the village is one piece. Mostly.”
Gareth huffed out a breath, turning away for a moment. When he looked back, his face was an odd mixture of irritation and amusement. “Eynon came here a few days after you left, to say we were being thrown from the house. He said with Uncle dead, we had no legal claim to the graveyard, which meant we would never be able to pay him back. But when he began shouting, Morwenna overheard him. She came over and said that the dead man couldn’t be our uncle—not if he was her long-lost father.”
“What?”
Gareth shrugged. “Dafyd also said that the body bore a distinct resemblance to a second cousin of his.”
“Dafyd doesn’t have any cousins.”
“The courts won’t know that.”
“You can’t be serious.”
He nodded. “After you left, Ceri would tell anyone who listened that her big sister had set out to stop the curse. And when the bone houses left, it seemed like a miracle. People will live, because of you. And even if word of your deeds never makes it out of the village, people here know. As for our debts… well, I expect Eynon can wait a few weeks for payment. There are quite a few bodies that need burying, and Enid made it quite clear that if Eynon tried to evict us anytime soon, she’d let her chickens into his bedroom.”
Ryn glanced away, trying to hide sudden dampness around her eyes. She’d never thought—as much as she loved the village—she’d never anticipated they would come to her aid like this.
“As for Uncle,” said Gareth, “I believe… it is better that he be named among the missing.” A small shrug. “After all, that dead man could have been anyone.”
A pang went through her. She had never liked her uncle, but he deserved better than to die unmourned and unremarked upon. “I should—”
“You should talk to the villagers soon,” said Gareth, breaking in. “There are still dead about. We keep finding them in odd places—a bone house managed to crawl into the space beneath the Red Mare, of all things. And people are tired of burning them—the smell has gotten atrocious. I think they’ll be wanting the services of a gravedigger soon.” He nodded in the direction of the graveyard. “And I thought that would be the first place you visited.”
The Bone Houses Page 24