Blood Metal Bone: An epic new fantasy novel, perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo

by Lindsay Cummings

  She could sense his curse, a smooth bit of stone, the grit of sand and the damp smell of upturned earth, as he pushed against the door with her, trying to shove it open.

  Another slam of Sonara’s power against the red door.

  The whole cave trembled. The door itself shook beneath their joined palms, dust and loose rock pouring down upon them.

  When the dust settled…

  Sonara’s curse recoiled and slithered back into its cage.

  The door simply clicked.

  And with a gentle creak, it opened wide.

  The space beyond the door was inky black, as if inside it spanned a starless sea. A cold, spiraling wind slithered past Sonara’s legs, kicking up the debris around her boots.

  It faded, then returned again. Like a deep, ancient sigh, reeking with the aura of…

  “Death,” Sonara whispered.

  The wind backed away, carrying the aura with it.

  Behind her, a torch flickered to life merrily, as Markam held it out in hope that it would cut through the darkness.

  Sonara dared to breathe it in again, letting her power stretch out and ease into the space before her.

  She inhaled, pulling it back to her in a breath.

  The rot of bones, ancient and trembling as that cold, sighing wind soared past them.

  “Bones,” Jaxon said suddenly.

  Sonara nodded, for she knew he sensed it, too.

  “Hundreds of them: skulls and femurs and knuckles and toes,” he added. “Bodies left to decay upon old, ruined stone.”

  As if a great battle had taken place inside. As if the stories of Eona were all true.

  “Well,” Markam said with a sigh. “If you’re all so interested in stepping inside the doorway of death and doom… I’ve suddenly remembered I have tickets to a show.”

  Sonara turned on him. “What show? There’s no show.”

  “There is.”

  “Where?”

  “North,” Markam said. He pointed, then seemed to think better of it. “Or… south. Does it matter? I’m not going in there.” “I will go,” Azariah said as she stepped past him. Her voice was raw, her eyes heavy, but she rolled back her shoulders and gave a reassuring nod. “I will join you beyond the door.”

  “I’ll go,” Jaxon said. “There’s an arsenal inside, just waiting for me, with all those bones.”

  “It’s too much, Jax,” Sonara said. “The energy it would take from you—”

  Jaxon only shrugged, as if he hadn’t any limits or cares.

  “I’m going, too,” Karr said. “At this point, I can’t turn back.”

  Sonara inclined her head to Markam again and raised a brow in challenge.

  He chewed on his lip, then groaned and removed his hat so he could run his hand across his dark hair. “Fine,” he spat. “I’ll go. But I’m not happy about it. I’ll take up the rear.”

  With that, Sonara turned back to the door.

  The sighing wind carried its own scent, and it was then that Sonara noticed the wind had a rhythm. In, out, and back again. Not just a heartbeat, but breath. It was overpowered with the aura of shadowed blood. Something she’d carried with her for years, had sensed each time she met another like her.

  “I feel it,” Karr said suddenly. “The pulse.” He had his eyes closed, his body leaning towards the open doorway.

  That same tug came to Sonara, the one that had drawn her back towards the rubble when she and Azariah first journeyed into the dark together, and Sonara heard the tale of Eona. She followed it now, stepping forward into the dark with the torch held before her.

  Its light reached only a few paces ahead. The space was full of stones like those that she and the princess discovered elsewhere in the tunnels. But these were larger, columns and pillars that were marked with the same ancient symbols, only their bases visible as they walked past.

  Beneath their feet, Sonara sensed the rot of crushed bones.

  A graveyard.

  Sonara lifted the torch, trying to see deeper into the space.

  “There,” Markam said. “The torch, Sonara.”

  Just to their left, along the rocky wall, sat a carved ledge; a small carved-out line that spanned along the wall at eye level, into the darkness.

  Sonara could sense the oil, already; the sticky substance left behind ages ago. But when she dipped the flames into it…

  A trail of fire came to life, spreading steadily along the lip in the wall.

  It went twenty paces ahead.

  Fifty.

  A hundred.

  Then it trailed upwards, snaking along the stone pillars themselves, which lined the walls of what was a massive, ancient-looking temple.

  Slowly, the darkness faded. Now they could see piles and piles of bones leaning against the pillars and stacked against the rounded cave walls, ten bodies high.

  This was a place where the dead could not rest.

  A place that had Sonara choking back the aura of death.

  The sound of a heartbeat came louder.

  It joined their footsteps as they made it past the rubble. They clustered together closely as they walked, as if to ward away the awful feeling of death.

  In the very center of the temple the ground sloped downwards. Wide stone steps were carved into the cave floor, each of the steps covered in those strange markings and painted a deep burnished gold.

  They reflected the torchlight along the walls, and as Sonara and the others stopped atop it, she realized it was like a shining amphitheater.

  More skeletons were strung along the steps, like they’d died trying to crawl towards the very center of the amphitheater.

  Sonara trailed those steps downwards with her eyes, towards the middle.

  Thump.

  A heavy beat in the darkness. Thump.

  There it was: the heart of the planet.

  It was not as Sonara had imagined it to be. Not a shimmering stone that was bathed in golden light, or a beautifully carved statue, or even a pulsing, writhing cluster of shadows.

  It was simply a massive, jagged black rock that protruded from the smooth stone floor as if it had been planted there. It had the aura of pure shadows, like sorrow and sadness. Like death.

  “The heart of the planet,” Azariah said, as wind heaved from the stone. It pulsed once, the solid black shifting as Sonara realized shadows did swim around it. It pushed forth that wind again, cool and full of an aura that had her curse writhing from within. “It truly exists.”

  Her eyes glowed in the dark light from the heart. A black glow, if that were possible, that cast everything in a strange shadowed light.

  Power.

  Promise.

  The purest aura Sonara had ever sensed. The heart called to her as if it were singing a song. A droning, sad refrain, one that she was certain had a voice. But she could not quite hear it.

  “It’s… real,” Markam said suddenly. Out of the corner of her eye, the Trickster had stepped forward. The heart pulsed before him, sighing out again with its deathly wind.

  “Markam?” Sonara said. “What are you doing?”

  His eyes reflected the firelight as he leaned forward, almost as if pushed by a rogue wind. “Look at it, Sonara. Don’t you see what it wants?”

  He took a step down, into the amphitheater.

  Sonara’s body tensed, waiting for a trap; a threat, a great monster hiding in the shadows beyond the heart that they hadn’t seen. But there was nothing.

  “It wants to be taken,” Markam said softly. “To be wielded by someone worthy.”

  A whisper of an aura pulsed from the heart. That song again, a melody that Sonara sensed inside, but wondered if anyone else heard. Beside her, she saw Karr tilting his head, as if he heard the song, too.

  Markam swayed a little as he took another step downwards.

  The song, pulsing in time with the heart… it had begun to form words.

  Save me.

  Sonara heard them at the same time her curse picked up on an ancient scen
t. Fear.

  Helplessness.

  She was certain it came from the direction of the heart, as if the rock itself were speaking.

  “Markam, stop,” Sonara said.

  He’d taken three steps down, and as he drew closer, the whisper from the heart grew louder.

  Save me.

  Markam removed his dagger from his belt, his hands trembling as he stepped over a skeleton and kept going. The bones crunched beneath his feet.

  “Markam, I said stop,” Sonara commanded him.

  But he kept going, lower and lower towards the heart.

  Save me, save me, save me.

  It commanded Sonara to obey.

  She lunged forward before she could stop herself, bounding down the golden steps and into Markam’s path. His eyes were wild, as if he wanted to hunt the heart. Capture it and keep it for his own. His aura came to her, eager and desperate.

  A monster on the prowl.

  “Get out of my way, Sonara.” He said her name like a hiss.

  Her boots slid as he tried to move her aside, but she pressed against him, unrelenting. “What are you doing, Markam? Stop it!”

  She slid Lazaris from its sheath, holding it before her.

  “I must have it,” he hissed.

  A warning aura flickered at the same time Markam lunged at her with his blade.

  Sonara lifted Lazaris, blocking the hit with a clang that echoed up the amphitheater and around the massive temple cave.

  But he recoiled and slashed again, eyes wild with the need for the heart. She slung Lazaris around, jamming the pommel into his nose. Shadow blood leaked out, but he didn’t seem to feel the hit. He slashed again, aiming not for a wound, but for a kill. Something he’d never done, in all their years fighting together.

  He aimed for her throat.

  Jaxon shouted and ran down the steps towards them, while Azariah and Karr simply stood staring, in shock.

  Sonara dropped to a knee as Markam’s blade slashed the air. When she came back up, he’d lunged away, leaping sideways across the steps at the very same time his limbs began to fade from existence.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” Sonara growled. “You’re not going to disappear this time.”

  Behind Markam, Jaxon lifted his hands.

  And one of the skeletons on the steps began to rise.

  It was horrific, the sound of those rattling bones as Jaxon pieced the ancient dead back together. A clean skull bobbed atop shoulders that were bare of skin, and a rib cage that was broken at the chest—as if someone had stabbed it right through its long-gone heart—connected to long arms and splintered wrist bones. But the skeleton wrapped its unfeeling hands around Markam’s arm, stopping him before his curse could render him invisible.

  Sonara took the opportunity and dove. Her shoulders slammed against Markam’s stomach as she knocked him to the ground, the skeleton cracking beneath them.

  The blade flew from his hand, and his curse fizzled, his limbs solidifying again. “I need it,” Markam groaned. “I need the heart for myself.”

  He rolled, heavier and stronger than Sonara, until he was on top of her, her body pressed beneath his. He grabbed her hair, lifted her head and slammed it back down against the golden steps. Her vision sparked, flecked with white for a moment.

  But she rocked and used her momentum to launch him upwards, driving her knee in between his legs. His eyes never wavered from the heart, hands stretching down the steps towards it, his aura reeking of want.

  “A little help here!” Sonara called out.

  At the same time, Markam’s teeth found her throat.

  He bit.

  Hard.

  Sonara screamed and dug her nails into the back of his neck. But then another pair of skeletal hands closed over Markam’s throat, and began to squeeze.

  Jaxon stood behind him, shaking as he held out his own hands and commanded the bones to obey.

  The heart’s aura kept pulsing, the dark death-wind sighing, and Sonara knew that each time Markam breathed it in, he fell deeper into its temptation. The power that it promised, the song that it continued to sing.

  She heard save me, but some part of her knew that Markam heard a different set of words.

  Take me for yourself.

  Use me for your gain.

  Somewhere beyond the cave, the mountain rumbled again. Cade and his soldiers, growing closer as they dug. Were they almost to the cave? Sonara’s attention couldn’t grasp on to which direction it was coming from, for Markam lifted himself on hands and knees, his face turning blue as Jaxon’s skeleton squeezed the life from him.

  Save me.

  Sonara slammed her pommel against his head, but Markam did not falter.

  “I must have it!” His voice was ragged, breathless and desperate.

  Sonara went behind him and gripped his legs, pulling backwards. He flailed, kicking as she began to haul him away. Karr finally joined her side.

  “I MUST HAVE IT!”

  “Azariah!” Sonara commanded between gritted teeth. “Now would be a great time to step in!”

  Lightning shot across the space, hitting Markam so hard he was blasted backwards until he slid to a stop, slung across the golden steps with the rest of the skeletons. His head lolled to the side.

  Silence swept over the space.

  “The heart,” Azariah said with a gasp, as she slowly made her way down the steps to the rest of them. Blood trickled from her nose and soared away. “It calls to some stronger than others.” She frowned down at Markam.

  “Why am I not surprised it called to him in such a way?” Sonara said.

  Its whisper still beckoned, drawing her near. She stalked towards it, as close as she dared.

  “Don’t get too close,” Jaxon said. He wiped sweat from his brow as he sat on the steps to catch his breath. “It feels wrong, Sonara.”

  The heart was like a black seed sprouted from the earth, pulsing gently in its bed of stone.

  Save me.

  “I did,” Sonara whispered back to it. But beyond the space, the cave rumbled once more. The walls began to shake, loose rocks tumbling from the ceiling to crash down around them.

  Far more rubble than before.

  “How close do you think Cade is?” Sonara asked. She sensed the answer was not one she wanted to hear.

  Dust had begun to fill the cave, casting it in an eerie glow. “It won’t be long,” Karr said. He closed his eyes. “I can… I can feel pain.” He rolled his shoulders and winced. “Like someone is cutting into my own body.”

  His eyes fell to the heart as it pulsed, the sigh of its breath pushing his hair back from his forehead as its wind soared up the amphitheater steps.

  “It’s calling to me. But not like it called to Markam.” He closed his eyes again. “Like… like it wants me to come closer, and listen.”

  Save me, the heart whispered again.

  Sonara glared at the heart, suddenly hating it. Suddenly wondering why in the hell she’d come here.

  The heart pulsed, and an aura came with it.

  An aura that had words, and the words said, Come to me.

  She took a few more steps downwards, dropping to her knees as she got as close to the heart as she dared.

  “Sonara, don’t,” Jaxon warned again, his eyes narrowing as Karr followed her. “Please.”

  “It’s okay,” she said over her shoulder. “Trust me.”

  She dropped to her knees, leaning forward at the same time Karr did. Their eyes met as they stretched out their hands. Together, they placed them upon the heart.

  Sonara wasn’t entirely surprised when the heart rippled.

  When from deep in its inky depths, as she and Karr peered into the heart…

  A child made of starlight stared up at them.

  Chapter 37

  Sonara

  One moment she was leaning over the heart.

  The next, she and Karr were tumbling into darkness, into an expanse that had no end.

  They came to a stop on
the bow of a boat, sailing across an endless black sea. There were no stars in the sky; only darkness that spanned left and right, as far as the eye could see.

  “I have waited for an eternity.”

  Sonara looked to the right, and there stood the girl.

  A Child of Starlight, Karr had said before.

  And now here the child stood, her body woven out of planets and space and time and stars. Endless stars that sparkled as she turned, crossing her arms and raising a celestial brow at Sonara and Karr. “Perhaps… longer than an eternity,” she said.

  Sonara had the faintest feeling that she was being reprimanded.

  “It’s you again,” Karr said.

  The child nodded.

  Then she snapped her fingertips, and the scene changed.

  The boat sped forward, racing across the sea, and as it sailed, the girl changed, too.

  It was like her life fast-forwarded before Sonara’s eyes, the years adding to her age as she stretched taller so that the stars in her hair died, exploding and forming into new ones as her limbs stretched out. The planets upon the girl’s collarbone and arms spun, lengthening and then multiplying so that more formed into existence. Upon her forehead, an image of a ringed planet appeared. Dohrsar. Her nebula eyes grew, flaring brighter as the girl’s face shaped into something more mature.

  She was a young woman now. A beautiful young woman made of the universe itself.

  “It took you long enough,” she said.

  Sonara glanced over her shoulder, towards the others.

  But they’d disappeared. Only the endless darkness remained, the black sky and the starless sea.

  “Where are we?” Sonara asked.

  Karr said, “My dreams. She only comes to me in my dreams.”

  The woman gave a gentle laugh. “You’re not dreaming. You’ve come to my domain, lost soul. As I had hoped you would.” Stars cascaded down her neck, falling with glittering trails of firelight behind them as she looked at Sonara next. “And you… don’t you recognize the voice in your head, the whisper in your soul? I’ve spent years speaking to you, Sonara of Soreia, and you never truly listen. I’m surprised you made it here, and just before the end of my time. My spirit is growing weak.”

  “You,” Sonara said, voice trembling. That voice, gentle, ancient and knowing all at once. A whisper that had asked her to choose, when she first became a Shadowblood. The voice of her curse. “When I died, and fell into that place of darkness and light, ten years ago. It was you who asked me to choose, and…”