Page 10 of Mistress of Bones

VII

AZUL

NINE YEARS EARLIER

They hadn’t let Azul see Isadora. Not after she’d woken up to find her sister hot to the touch and slurring words. Not after she had told one of the inn workers.

No, they had locked her up in another room and given her trays of food and a chamber pot and looked at her with pitying eyes while telling her to be a good child and stay over by the bed.

Azul didn’t like sleeping alone. She did it while Isadora was away, but now that they’d had to share a bed at the inn, it was so nice to stay up at night, talking about Isadora’s exploits at the Temple school and her words-and-swordfights with her year mates.

If it were up to Azul, they’d travel from inn to inn forever instead of returning home until Isadora had to leave again.

When Azul had said as much aloud, Isadora had agreed wholeheartedly. She had promised that’s how they’d spend the days once she was done with the Temple: exploring together to their hearts’ content.

But now, Azul stood in her sister’s guest room to find the bedframe bare, the mattress gone, the room empty.

“Where is my sister?” She rounded on the inn’s owner, who had followed her into the room. The woman had been kind to them, joking during their dinners and assuring them they’d be safe at her inn. “Where is Isadora?”

“Come here, dear.” The woman gathered Azul in her arms. “Your sister is with the Lord Death now, and no foulness shall touch her again.”

Azul grasped at the woman’s shirt, her body such a contrast from Isadora’s smaller form. “I want to see Isadora.”

“Don’t worry, child. We’ll take care of her.”

“But where is she?”

The woman sighed. “Waiting in a safe place. Tomorrow the cart will come to take her remains away to rest with the gods.”

Isadora rest with the gods? Not if Azul had anything to do with it.

Swiftly, she made some calculations in her head. Her sister’s body must still be here if they were waiting for a cart, and the inn was not so big. She looked up at the woman and allowed the trepidation in her heart to show in her eyes, filling them with tears. “Take her remains away to where?”

“Monteverde, of course.”

THE PRESENT

“Ossuary? There is nothing like that here,” the man at the Monteverde inn said.

Not the same inn where Azul and Nereida had left their hired horses—no need to make the job easier for anyone who might follow—but a run-down place on the edge between those with their fortunes intact and those who could not afford to move.

“Are you sure?” Azul asked. She looked for signs of shrewdness in his haggard face, or any hint of wanting coin for the information.

“Lived here all my life,” he answered, narrowing his eyes at Nereida, who stood quiet and impassive behind Azul.

Perhaps , Azul thought, they called it something else around these parts . “The place where they keep people’s bones.”

The man made a face of disgust. “I know what an ossuary is, and there is no such thing in this town. We don’t deal with the Lord Death’s refuse here. If you’re not going to buy a drink, stop wasting my time.”

Azul spun on her heel, intent on wasting someone else’s time. She strode out of the stuffy, low-ceiling room and considered her surroundings.

The Lord Death’s refuse—what a rude but succinct way to put it. Luck willing, a view not widely shared, or this town’s ossuary might end up being just a hole in the ground.

Monteverde was a sprawling mantle of buildings surrounding an ancient fortress built on a low hill. The houses were wide and elegant, comprising walls and doors but no other openings—they could afford open patios inside.

The ruins of the fortress peeked between the houses.

Calls were often made to tear it down and build something more elegant, but legend claimed its foundations had been laid by a god—which one, no one knew—and superstition died slowly in places like this.

Ravaging wars were things of the dark past, and skirmishes inflicted only upon the borders, not towns this far inland.

And yet, they thought, might not their safety exist because a god was looking out for them?

What would this god say if they were to tear down their gift?

Noticing a woman watching them with curiosity from under a doorway, Azul approached.

“Forgive me,” she said in her friendliest tone. “We are new to Monteverde. Could you direct us to the ossuary?”

“The ossuary?”

Azul deepened her smile to the point of hurt. “Where they keep people’s bones.”

The woman brought out a piece of ribbon from inside the belt holding up her breeches and waved it in front of her, guarding off ill intent. Azul wanted to snatch it from her hands and stamp on it, even if doing so would be stamping on the Lady Dream.

“I have nothing to do with the dead,” the woman said, full of distrust. “Don’t bring your problems to me.”

With another wave of her ribbon, she stepped inside the house and closed the door in Azul’s face.

“Friendly bunch,” Nereida commented.

She should know , Azul thought, considering the woman had uttered less than a handful of words since their talk inside the ship .

Azul turned, looking for more prey. Surely someone in this city must know where they kept Isadora’s bones.

Her gaze strayed toward the hill. Perhaps they kept the bones in the fort itself? She directed her steps that way and waited until the housing quality increased, the buildings just a little wider, the flagstone on the ground a little less dusty.

She approached an older man dressed in fine clothing slowly making his way along the street with the help of a beautiful cane.

“Excuse me, sirese,” she said politely. “Do you know where they keep people’s bones? Is it at the fortress?”

The man spat at her feet, and Azul took a hasty step back.

“Bones?” he said in a rough, unpleasant voice. “Leave me be and take your problems with you.”

Something unpleasant crawled up her insides toward her throat, but Azul refused to acknowledge it. If this man wouldn’t speak, the next one might.

“Hold,” she heard Nereida say, but she paid her no attention. She had spied someone else to ask—a boy of about twelve selling dried flowers out of a cart.

“Hello, there,” she told him. “Could you point me to Monteverde’s ossuary? The place where they keep people’s bones?” she added, because when she was his age, she was too busy learning to spell damn to worry about fancier terms.

The boy wrinkled his nose as if Azul’s words had the smell of a dozen chamber pots. “We don’t have that here.”

But they did. She remembered the innkeeper’s words as clearly as if she’d heard them five heartbeats ago: Monteverde, of course.

“Are you sure?” she insisted. “What do you do with your dead, then?”

“Same thing you do,” he answered a little belligerently. “Pay the Temple for a prayer and hope it’s enough to win the gods’ goodwill. You going to buy flowers or not?”

“I might if I knew where I could offer them to the dead.”

“Then you got a long way to go,” the boy said. “They’re all down in the capital.” He looked around, then leaned in, adding in a whisper, “Mom says they eat them for dinner at the court, and that’s why the gods struck down Girende.”

“They’re at the capital?” Azul pressed, her friendly smile forced so deeply into her cheeks she might never carry another expression again.

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

Well, it couldn’t be. Abandoning the boy, she focused on another citizen making her way along the street.

“We should—” Nereida began.

“No.”

Behind her, the boy’s cursing filled the air, damning their souls to Fellman’s End for wasting his time and leaving no coin.

“Sirese, if you please,” Azul asked of the passerby. “Is it true the bones of the dead go to Cienpuentes?”

“Ah yes. To Cienpé, they go. I was born there, you know.”

Azul didn’t know, didn’t care. With a murmur of thanks, she walked on.

She felt Nereida keep up with her hurried steps and realized her own breath was coming out in uneven gasps. She stopped, biting down on her fist as if gnawing her hand to the bone would somehow make Isadora’s own bone appear under her flesh.

Cienpuentes! How could that be?

Ah, if only she had pressed harder back at the inn.

Belatedly, she realized she had come to a stop by a statue of the Lady Dream. The goddess’s hands rested on her hips, her legs standing apart, offering plenty of room for the ribbons tied around her limbs.

As children, Azul and Isadora had embroidered such strips themselves.

Isadora had wished to slay monsters—the ones that came at night out of caves deep in the earth to steal people’s bones—while Azul hadn’t known what to wish for.

So, she had embroidered some gibberish and tied it to the legs of the statue along with Isadora.

She had figured, I will think of something later, come back, and redo my stitches .

Of course, she had forgotten. But now the memory was a thick ball in her gut.

She should’ve wished for Isadora’s safety.

What a selfish child she had been; why had she not thought of this?

“Cienpuentes,” she said as if it were a curse rather than a destination. She looked at Nereida with sudden hope in her eyes. “Perhaps the local ossuary is kept a secret?”

“What would be the point?” Nereida ignored Azul’s crestfallen expression and looked at the darkening sky. “It’s too late to travel. We must find an inn to stay the night.”

Azul wanted to contradict her, but she knew Nereida was right. She tried to instill reason within herself. Cienpuentes wasn’t so far—three days of travel at most. It wouldn’t make a difference to Isadora’s bones, which had been lying there for near a decade now.

But the emissary’s death…

Every breath they exhaled outside the ossuary holding Isadora’s bones was an opportunity for the emissary’s death to catch up to them and stop their plans.

“Not an inn,” she thought aloud. “Too easy to track if someone comes after us.”

“Where, then?”

“My mother has a friend here. Lina del Valle. She will give us a place to stay and keep our visit secret, I’m sure of it.”

“You were also sure of where your sister’s bones lie.”

The words were cool but not unkind, so Azul decided against planting her fist on Nereida’s face. “That was someone else’s lie. This woman, I know well.”

Nereida thought about this for a moment, then nodded. “We’ll stay with your family friend. But, Del Arroyo,” she added in an icy tone, “no more delays. No more lies.”

Azul nodded. “I am as eager to get this done as you are.”

Not long after, they were ushered into a comfortable receiving room with a view into Del Valle’s patio. Two settees with artfully bowed legs cornered a low, elegant table. Blue and gold drapes covered one of the walls while a framed landscape covered another.

Nereida placed her hat over the white mantel and inspected the room. She fit in here, with her dark hair, green eyes, and elegant blue waistcoat. The days of travel had left little mark on her except for the dust on her boots.

“Are the houses in Cienpuentes much grander?” Azul asked.

“Some are, some aren’t.”

“Yours?” Azul walked up to the drapes. Knowing there were no windows to the outside didn’t stop her from pushing the fabric aside to check the street and make sure no galloping soldiers from Valanje were thundering their way.

“Of no concern to you.”

A servant returned with their hostess in tow. Lina del Valle was a handsome middle-aged woman worthy of the house she owned. Arms covered by embroidered fabric hugged Azul tight against a stiff stomacher, and rose perfume wound around her senses.

“My dearest Azul,” she exclaimed, “what a most welcome surprise!”

“Aunt Lina,” Azul answered—although they shared no blood link, the woman had always insisted on being called so. “We are in need of a respite, and you’ve always been so good to us.”

Del Valle examined Azul’s tired face, the ill-fitting clothes. “What trouble has that wild sister of yours landed you into?” She looked around. “Where is she? Hiding behind the curtain?” The words were meant in jest, Azul reminded herself as she forced another smile.

“Not this time, Aunt. This time it’s of my own doing. Isadora is…” A hard swallow. “Well, she is occupied elsewhere at the moment.” She added a laugh, weak and pitiful.

Del Valle joined her with a much more buoyant sound. “Azana’s two girls away from each other? Something I’d never have thought possible. Who is your companion, then?”

Azul hurried to make introductions. “Aunt Lina, this is my dear friend, Mar de Flor,” she said, giving the false name Nereida insisted on using. Azul couldn’t fault her. If Del Valle hadn’t been her mother’s friend, she would’ve used one herself.

“You must both stay, then,” Lina del Valle was saying. “I insist. Rest from your travel and tell me of your problems. They won’t be so bad once I’m done with them, I assure you. Are your belongings with you or traveling separately?”

“What you see is what we come with, I’m afraid,” Azul told her. “We had to leave in a hurry.”

Del Valle waved toward the settees. “You are safe here, my love. Your mother would never forgive me—I would never forgive myself—if I didn’t help you when you’re in such obvious need.

Sit, make yourselves comfortable. I shall order refreshments, and some clothes will be found so you can change out of your traveling garb. ”

Azul touched Del Valle’s hand, her eyes pleading. “We must keep our presence a secret. Someone might be following us, and we don’t wish to be found. Nobody can know we’re here, not even Mother.”

“Of course,” Del Valle assured her. “Stay. Gather your strength. I will take care of you and your friend.”