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

by Lindsay Cummings

  “You refused,” the woman said.

  Sonara had. For she couldn’t find a stronger pull towards either side, both equally as appealing.

  “As all the worthy souls have done before you,” continued the woman, “and will do so after your time. Unless of course, the darkness wins, and Dohrsar ceases to exist.”

  “You… are the planet?” Sonara asked.

  The woman tilted her head, stars tumbling from her hair to fade over the boat’s edge, into the black sea. “No. I am her messenger. The spirit of the first Shadowblood she created.” She bowed, holding out an arm before herself. A constellation created a bangle upon her wrist. “I am Eona.”

  Eona.

  An enemy to the heart.

  Sonara reached for Lazaris.

  But her hands only scraped air. Her weapon was gone.

  “You cannot kill me here, child,” Eona said. “Not until I release you. And even if you did, the death would not be true, for I no longer exist. I am only Eona’s spirit. The voice that speaks for Dohrsar.”

  “You were the one who forced me to kill him,” Sonara said, looking towards Karr. “The one who has destroyed everything, time and again, taking my curse and acting like it’s some sort of plaything in your hands.”

  “Oh, child,” Eona spat the word. “Goddesses above. You use your magic but you still call it cursed. Dohrsar was right to choose you. The perfect balance. Deep down, you want to do good. But you don’t fear the darkness, the acts you might have to do in order to protect the light.” Eona sighed, shrugging her delicate shoulders. “It is just as I was, a long time ago. For part of me… half, at least, resides in you.”

  Sonara blinked.

  The boat slid soundlessly across the sea.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Sonara asked.

  Eona smiled. “Listen, for once, Sonara of Soreia, and the truth will be revealed to you.” She looked to Karr with narrowed eyes. “And you. Dohrsar has been waiting for your fate to collide with hers, lost soul. For together, you are the answer to end an oncoming darkness. Dohrsar sensed it long ago, barreling across the stars. Such peace, Dohrsar once had from her place in the sky. But other planets have voices, too. They whispered to her, sent their warnings from star to star, until the message arrived. A call across space and time. The darkness is coming.”

  Eona’s gaze deepened, the nebulas in her eyes churning like a raging sea.

  “Those planets were unwise. They shriveled and died when the darkness arrived to them, for they did not create an army as Dohrsar did.”

  “Shadowbloods,” Sonara said.

  Eona nodded.

  “I was the first. She gave me a choice, just as you both had… I looked at the darkness and light, and I could not choose.”

  “But the story says you tried to slay Dohrsar,” Karr said. “You tried to take the heart for yourself.”

  Eona balked. The boat rocked, suddenly, as the black waves came to life. Perhaps Azariah had been wrong about the story after all, the details she’d spent her life believing warped as they slipped from lips to ears and onwards again.

  “This is exactly why I will never understand your kind,” Eona said. “I was once alive, like both of you. I have watched you, the living creatures that walk on Dohrsar’s back, plucking plants and animals from her without ever thanking her for her gifts. You allow things to get twisted, stories to shift and change like the sands of time, until only the tiniest seed of the real truth remains. I was her first Chosen. Her first protector. It was my fool brother, Eder…” Eona’s eyes narrowed, blazing bright. “Wicked, unworthy Eder, who managed to steal a part of Dohrsar’s heart. Without it, she cannot be whole. She cannot unleash the power she holds inside to fight the darkness away.”

  “What darkness?” Sonara asked.

  But Karr spoke next. “My ship. The Starfall, and Cade’s plan.”

  Eona nodded, her nebula eyes grave. “A darkness much like the darkness that arrived when I was a living child, in my first life. My father found the heart, and in his greed, wanted it for himself. But I heard the planet’s whisper. Heard the heart calling to me. Save me. Gentle and pressing but commanding all the same. My steed and I stood against him. Together, we fought with all that we had in our souls, for I did not want the planet to be stripped of what allowed it to exist. When I fell… Dohrsar brought me back. She gave me a piece of her own soul, the blood that roils with shadows. That part of her soul allowed me to have magic that was twofold. The ability to command the very land beneath my feet. And the ability to hear the planet’s voice. To speak to her, not through words, but through tastes. She brought my steed back with me, for he’d been slain trying to protect the heart, too, loyal to the grave.”

  Sonara felt her very blood go cold, then.

  Powers that were the same as hers. The same as Karr’s.

  And Duran.

  Duran had come back to life, too.

  She listened closer, wanting to understand why, of all people, the planet had chosen a girl who was unwanted. A bastard princess from Soreia, who had never been anything special at all.

  “Oh, yes,” Eona said. “You notice the connection. But the tale is not yet complete. You see, when I rose again—the planet’s soul like living shadows in my blood—I sensed an aura of terror upon my tongue. The planet was afraid. I commanded the ground to quake. The cave entrance collapsed, killing my family with it. None but my younger brother Eder escaped.” She looked past them, and in the sky came a flashing vision of the temple, the ruined arches and patterned stone strewn with skeletons. “This place became my home, for I chose to guard the heart with my second life. Because before Eder fled, he took with him the portion of the heart that my father had stolen. He declared that he would someday return and use that portion to take the heart for himself. I stayed for years, honing my powers, crafting a mighty underground temple to Dohrsar with my magic. Here, I worshipped her. In this sacred space, I listened to her whisper. She told me that the darkness she was warned of would someday arrive. So I began helping her craft an army. I crafted a door with my own magic, buried it in the earth and left the heart locked up behind it. I traveled across Dohrsar, where I helped to slay others, so that the planet herself could bring them back.”

  “You murdered innocent people across the planet,” Karr said. “In hope that some of them would come back?”

  Darkness, or light?

  All Shadowbloods had to be held in the center of the two.

  “Some sacrifices had to be made,” Eona said. “We created an army. An army intent on protecting Dohrsar when that foretold darkness came.” She seemed to still, and Sonara watched as her eyes shed tears made of stars. “Eventually, I met a Shadowblood from the south. Fell in love, as the living ones do. I had a child of my own, a beautiful girl who would someday become a Soreian queen.”

  More tears of starlight.

  “Time and again, I would return to this space alone, to speak with Dohrsar. When she feared a threat was near, I came. And one day, my brother Eder did return. He brought with him that piece of the planet’s heart. Tricky, he was, for he’d used it to fashion a weapon. One that I could not best with ease, for it held power from the planet’s very heart. Eder and his army, hundreds upon hundreds of soldiers, nearly slayed me. And as I lay dying, I told the planet I was sorry. That I had failed her. Dohrsar mourned, the aura of sorrow on my tongue. I used the last bit of my strength to destroy this place. To bury it deep, destroying Eder, his army and myself along with it.”

  “But yet here you remain,” Sonara said.

  Eona nodded. “The planet loved me. Mourned for me, her first creation. But in that great explosion of my power, I gave so much of myself that I cast out my very soul. And with her own magic… the planet preserved it. She kept it here for a time, alongside my spirit. Keeping the pieces of me safe, until she could find someone else worthy to carry them. Someone to burn with the desires I had, to always protect Dohrsar, no matter the cost. She chose. Eventually.”
/>
  “Your daughter?” Karr asked.

  “No,” Eona said. Her eyes turned until they fell upon Sonara, who felt stripped wholly bare beneath that ancient gaze. “She chose you, Sonara. The bastard princess of Soreia. My descendant, and a soul that was finally worthy.”

  Sonara froze as those words washed across her. “What did you just say?”

  Eona simply smiled.

  But it wasn’t possible.

  It wasn’t possible at all, that Sonara would be chosen. For she was nothing. She was no one.

  She was unwanted and unworthy, a sign she’d seen in her own reflection, all her life, when she looked into the sparkling sea and saw herself staring back: blue hair with streaks of brown, dark eyes that were not the cerulean of a true Soreian lineage.

  “It can’t be me,” Sonara said. “I’m… no one.”

  “You carry blood of great strength,” Eona said. “Have you never wondered, Sonara, why the Queen of Soreia hated you so?”

  “Because I was a bastard,” Sonara hissed, hating that word as it tumbled from her lips. “Because I was not created out of a fully pure bloodline. Because I was a stain on the crown, and a threat to the throne.”

  “There are plenty of bastards in each kingdom,” Eona said knowingly. “They are swept under the rug, set aside… but the hatred goes deeper than that word, Sonara. You, my soul… you are perhaps the most worthy of any on Dohrsar. Because you are the daughter of a king and a queen.”

  “No,” Sonara said, shaking her head. “My father was no one. A spoil of war… that’s what my mother always said.”

  “How easily the living believe such petty lies about themselves.” Eona smiled softly. “Your father, Sonara, reigns on a different throne. I believe you and your comrade recently removed one of his eyes.”

  Sonara didn’t want to believe it.

  But she saw the face in her mind, as Eona said, “Yes, my soul. King Jira sired you. You, a girl who has a claim to not one, but two Dohrsaran thrones.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Is it? The King has sired hundreds of children, from hundreds of women across Dohrsar. How do you think your mother has kept the peace with Jira all these years?”

  “Through strength. Through a steed army,” Sonara growled. “Through a ruthless taste for bones and blood.”

  “Not so,” Eona said, shaking her head so that more stars tumbled from her, landing upon her shoulders. “Your mother and Jira were lovers who met on the battlefield, and in secret, when they signed the Decree, they created you. A child that had the ability to bring both their kingdoms crashing down.”

  “No. I refuse to believe that monster is my father.” Sonara’s breath was growing ragged with horror. For that would mean… that would mean, all along, there was Jira’s blood running in her veins. She was part monster, after all.

  But then a different thought struck her, one that pressed back with a bit of light, as she realized…

  Sonara’s eyes widened.

  Azariah was her sister. It all made sense now, the connection she felt to the princess. The strange sense of trust between them.

  Sonara’s hands began to shake. For the collar scar on Azariah’s throat should have been on Sonara’s throat, too. Would have been, if she’d grown up one kingdom over. “An entire life, I spent in the shadows,” Sonara said, shaking her head. “When all this time… I could have been seated upon either throne.”

  “But would you have wanted them?” Eona asked. She clicked her teeth. “No, my soul, I do not think you would have. For your destiny is worth more than some pathetic mortal crown. You are the savior of Dohrsar. Well, half of you. The planet could not place all of her faith into one person again. Dohrsar made that mistake with me, for still, that missing piece of her heart is out there. I never got it back.” She sighed. “So the other half of my soul went to an equally worthy person. A Soreian prince who was kind and pure to his heart, but willing to do what needed to be done to guide his kingdom to true light. He was named Soahm. Your brother.”

  Soahm. At the sound of his name on Eona’s lips… Sonara felt like she was ready to shatter. Ready to break. “You’re lying,” she spat. She looked at Karr, begging him to agree with her. But he only stared at Eona, unblinking. “Azariah was correct, that Eona was the enemy to the planet, and she’s twisting stories even now, trying to decipher a way for us to bring her back. To give her the power of the heart.”

  “Do you sense lies in my words, Sonara?” Eona asked. She shook her head. “No. Because inside you know I speak the truth. You’ve known from the very moment you became a Shadowblood that you were worth something. It is why you always fought for life. Why you fight for freedom, even now, for the ones who don’t see value in you. Because you want them to believe you aren’t a Devil. You want them to know that deep down, you are good.” She sighed and turned to face Karr. “This is where your destiny mingles with Sonara’s and Soahm’s, my sweet lost soul.” She truly did sound sorrowful, as if she hated the words she would speak next.

  “Me?” Karr asked.

  Eona nodded. “The darkness did arrive. Not once, but twice. It is here now, to carry out the end of the end. But it came before, searching for a savior of its own. It found that savior in Soahm, and it stole him away, taking with it the other half of my soul before he could meet his death on Dohrsar, and become a Shadowblood. Before he could reach his destiny.”

  “But… that has nothing to do with me,” Karr whispered.

  Eona gently inclined her head. “It has everything to do with you, Karr Kingston. For inside, you carry the other half of my soul. Inside… you carry Soahm’s heart.”

  Chapter 38

  Karr

  “No,” Karr said. Beside him, Sonara had gone still and cold. So still he could no longer see her breathing, could no longer feel the warmth of her skin beside his. “I don’t understand.”

  “You have the answers inside of you,” Eona whispered. “I’ve given you the history, the memories… so many lives, my soul, mixing inside of you. It is no wonder your dreams are full of confusion, carrying you to so many places.”

  The frozen throne room, the floor of the Starfall, where his parents were murdered. The rocking sea, and the sand caves…

  “You have lived not twice, as many Shadowbloods do,” Eona said, “but three times, Karr Kingston.”

  “No,” Sonara breathed out the word. “No. It can’t be.”

  “The reality of it is painful, but that pain does not make it any less true.”

  “How?” Sonara asked. She was shaking now. Karr could feel her body trembling beside him. Her hands curled into fists as if she wanted to grab her sword and tear apart Eona, and the heart with it. “I need to know how.”

  Eona looked to Karr instead. “You know, Karr. Deep down, you already know… but time is fleeting. So I will show you.”

  She reached out again, pressing the tip of her star-finger to Karr’s temple. He did not feel pain, as he normally did at her touch. Instead, it was like he’d been dipped into cool water as she pulled a strand of starlight from his temple.

  She let it fall into the sea.

  The water rippled, morphing from black to silver as the boat rocked with the waves.

  “Come,” Eona said as she knelt. She took Karr’s hand, and Sonara’s next, and pulled them down with her until they knelt, too. “It begins with me.” She released their hands, then reached over the edge of the boat and ran her fingers through the silver water.

  It rippled, and suddenly it was no longer a sea, but a memory.

  They looked down at a land painted in white. A castle was carved right out of the ice, glimmering like it was made of fractals and glass. The scene zoomed forward, tearing right through the castle walls. Inside, he saw a young girl with pale, snow-white hair and a crown of stars upon her head, as she entered that very throne room Karr had seen in his dreams. The Child of Starlight, in the flesh.

  “Eona,” Karr whispered.

  This memo
ry came from her past, the part that her soul carried with it.

  The image changed, colors morphing and swirling together until it cleared again.

  In this memory, Karr saw that same sand castle in Soreia, but this time he was up close, staring down at the blue-haired young man he’d seen on the beach beside Sonara. Soahm. The prince was younger, standing on a balcony, a worn journal in his hands as he sketched the landscape, a sprawling kingdom by the sea. His rich blue cloak flapped behind him in the wind. He smiled as he focused his charcoal on a beautifully crafted stable that stood in the castle’s shadow. Inside it, a blue-and-brown-haired girl with dark eyes, shoveling waste out of a steed’s stall.

  The image rippled, morphing again.

  Until Karr saw himself. His own memory.

  A child, so young at the time, but he recognized his own face. More specifically, the people standing over him as he lay in a hospital bed, sound asleep. His parents.

  Karr’s chest ached as he stared down at them, alive and well. He wished he could reach out; grab ahold of them, and beg them not to fly to Xurax, where they would meet an early end. Beside them, curled up in a chair, sat a much younger Cade. His cheeks were still plump with youth, his eyes limned in silver as he looked up at his parents.

  “Karr is dying,” their father said, placing his heavy hand on Cade’s shoulder. The sound of his voice, so familiar, so long unheard…

  “Dad,” Karr breathed. He placed a hand over his mouth, holding his breath to ward away the tears. But they were already falling over the edge of the boat, rippling the memory like stones tossed into a pond.

  “He’s dying.” his father said. “And if we wish to save him, then we must do something unforgiveable.”

  “We have to make a choice, Cade,” their mother said. Her face, much younger then, looked heavy with grief. “You must understand that the burden is ours to carry. But we must ask you to carry it after we are gone. To keep a secret from Karr, because if he ever learns the truth, Cade… we fear it would destroy him.”