Page 20

ALL THE WRONG WORDS

RANNOCH

N ight rises up like plumes of smoke from the dark valley below.

I’ve heard in other places night descends upon you, that light fades in glorious colors and night wraps around you, a heavy blanket, comforting and warm.

But here it rises up to swallow you, the frantic swimmer treading, barely keeping your head above the tidal waters, pieces of you being sucked beneath — first your neck, then chin, your head tilted back desperately — until only the barest curve of skin flashes above the surface, and in an instant, you’re pulled under, oxygen lost as the forever black fills your dying lungs.

Here, night is a battle, and to make it through til morning is a blessing and a curse.

Strange things happen in the shadows of our village; strange and vicious things.

Anyone who has grown up here knows that twilight is a time to disappear. Anyone but the BoneKeeper.

When we arrived home from the hunt, my eyes searched for her immediately, scanning the murmuring crowd over and over.

It took what felt like hours to find her, my heart clawing at my throat until I spotted her curled up into the bone wall on the far edge of the square.

I only spared half a breath to drink her in before moving past her; it would do no one any good if it was known how carefully I’ve memorized the lines of her face.

Nickolas and Raek were beside me, more obvious in their scrutiny, Nickolas running his thumb along the blade of his knife until a thin line of blood appeared on his skin, causing him to curse under his breath.

Raek spotted her at the same time I did, but before he could step forward, Silas called us into the Council House to discuss the hunt, and the coming Storms.

For the rest of the day we were locked inside arguing plans, the Councilroom thick with tension and anger, fear and plotting.

The divides that were there before the long hunt had become chasms in our absence, and more than once I locked eyes with Silas in concern.

The Council had always been subservient to the Father, but when Silas was named as a child to the position over Raek, a full Councilman, the water was poisoned, and it has been a tooth and nail battle since.

Even the mountains feel it; no one has ever challenged the strength of the Father before, but we are in unfamiliar times, where every move seems like a dance on a sword’s edge.

Silas called a halt to the “talks” when we started gnawing on bones where the meat had already been stripped, commanding our presence early the following morning.

Raek jerked his head subtly toward the door, then left, trailed by his brother and four other Councilors.

Silas watched them through narrowed eyes before exhaling sharply and retreating to his chambers.

I forced myself to wait an agonizing beat, then another, feigning fatigue by the fire until the chamber had finally emptied, and I could chase the pounding in my veins, the siren’s call luring me outside.

If I could just see her for another moment. Just a moment.

And like a dream, as I step outside, she appears.

Edging through the shades of light between the ivy and bone, skirting the darkness, keeping one foot in the wavering torchlight that illuminates pale, muddy circles on the ground.

My thirsty eyes drink her movements in like pure water.

It is not full dark yet, so the setting sun drains a bit of the fire’s brilliance.

This is her time, this inbetween — not day, not night, not life, not death, not villager, not Councilmember.

Not human, not ghost. Not woman, not Goddess, my mind whispers, and I check myself sharply at the thought. She is human. She is a woman .

The poison Nickolas and Raek have been dripping in Council Meetings is acidic, burning holes in every surface, even my own. She is human, I repeat again, more firmly. Shaking my head, I frown, and the few villagers left in my path scuttle away like field mice.

As a child I was raised on stories of the Council — how they were a beloved institution, a group of grandfathers who cared for their people like they would their own children, who listened to the bones.

They revered the Sun God and Earth, and in the quiet spaces of the day, would sneak secret Offerings to the TriGoddess, in the hopes of Vengeance being paid and granted.

In reality, the veins of the Council went black years ago, pumping toxic power through its body, infecting the members one by one, until they have become deaf to the needs of our people.

And since then, we have been met with fear and reverence, but below the surface other, darker emotions simmer, and they are fools who cannot see it.

My eyes seek her out again. It is as it always is — she is a breath of oxygen in a sulfurous world.

I cannot help but look for her, and I watch her, trailing her pale fingers along the wall, a gentle smile on her face as though she is greeting old friends.

Perhaps she is. And suddenly, stupidly, the weeks of being gone from her press against me, and I must know, so I follow her, stepping in her shadow until we are far from the quietening central village, too far to be completely safe for her, were she actually alone.

At the very edge, nearest the Northern Arch, she stops abruptly, and I can see her sigh, shoulders lifting then falling, before she turns to face me, bones ringing hollow down her back, face studiously calm.

“If you were going to harm me, I feel as though it would have happened already.” Her voice is low, lower than many of the women in the village who pitch their tones high and flirtatious as I walk by, and conversational.

She smiles slightly, just a small twist of her lips to indicate amusement.

“But since you have not, you must want something else. How can I help, Councilor?” She is all courtesy, a blank canvas of tired anticipation.

“I…I…” I do not stutter. Forgotten Gods.

Steadying myself, I adopt my usual manner.

“I do not think it safe for you to walk alone, Bone Keeper.” Sun and Earth, the arrogance in my voice.

I can see it poke at her, her hackles rising, but she has years of practice dealing with assholes like me.

Shoulders slumping now, I shake my head.

“I apologize, Keeper. That was…I saw you walking, and just…I decided to follow you.”

She tilts her head, a curious birdlike movement, but there is no change in her expression. “Am I not permitted to be out until full dark?”

She is cautious, words careful, and I’m suddenly so tired it feels like the weight of our mountain is pressing me to earth.

“You are, Keeper.” I try to gentle my voice, try and fail by her response, but I do try.

I have been wearing a mask for so long it feels welded to my face, and there is something desperate and longing inside me that thinks that maybe, maybe this woman knows what it is like to hide like that.

That maybe she would…she would understand me.

“It was a passing interest, nothing more. I — I have wondered what it is like to speak to the bones. What they say when they are not…when we are not asking things of them.” It seems as good an explanation as any, though at the moment I could care less about the bones and their desires.

Stupid, stupid and borderline sacreligious, but I want to know her.

Want to know if there is even a her to learn.

Her head is still tilted, unmoving, a rabbit in a snare, but her white fingers wrap around whiter bone in the wall, searching out something or someone, until she pauses, listening, and then nods. “Councilman. What would you like to know?”

Rannoch, I want to whisper in the shell curve of her ear, breathe warm on her skin.

Taste my name on your lips. “What are they saying now?” It’s snapped out, a command, and I want to kick myself.

Is it impossible for you not to be a complete ass at all times?

I chide myself silently, and fight to find polite words, to show her that I am unlike the others of my rank and station.

“Please. I’m sorry, Keeper. I would just like to hear a story. ”

Her eyes widen in surprise, and I hide a grin.

She is, when not completely and totally frightening with her power, almost…

adorable. She is pocket sized in her own way, and I have a sudden im age of scooping her up and putting her next to my heart, where I can protect her from the surrounding world.

Most of our people are small — years of hard living have not lent us spare energy to grow — men here barely reach 5’10, and only a few seeming giants, myself amongst them, top 6’.

The women are smaller still, usually between 5’3 and 5’8, for the tallest. I would say the BoneKeeper is somewhere in the middle of that, though it is difficult to tell.

She folds in upon herself so much, unless she is speaking for the bone, she seems wraithlike.

There is never enough to eat here, and these past few years even less than normal.

For a village with little reserve, we are perilously close to empty, and you can see it in the lines of her wrists, thin beneath the bone cuffs she never removes.

Her collarbone stands out in sharp relief beneath her skin and bone collar, and the hollows in her cheeks are shadows even in the shadows.

I frown, looking her over more carefully now.

There are bruises on her bare upper arms, dark, purpley prints that look like…

“Did someone grab you here?” The words burst out of me, Everfire singeing them, and I reach out in a sudden, sharp movement to touch her arm.

She jerks back into the bone wall, and locks eyes with me, unblinking, chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow pants.