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When the Council is angry with me for any perceived infraction — though they say it’s for my protection — they lock me in a small room.

Ostensibly for my “safety”. They tell the people they are trying to help me, to keep me from harm, to learn to hear the bones better so “when I am well” I will be able to serve my full purpose as the Keeper.

Really, though, they are trying to teach me in subtle ways how to bend to the will of the Twelve, forcing an unnatural relationship between the Keeper and Council.

My little cage is lined with both Silent bones and the bones of the Exiled, and the alternating pressure of the quiet and the screaming pushes against my eardrums and head.

It’s so heavy that it sometimes causes my nose to bleed or eyes to pulse with each heartbeat, but it’s usually only for a few hours.

This time I’ve been here for days, or weeks, and I’m crumbling to pieces, terrified they’ve forgotten about me, that I’ll be kept here until I die.

It is a punishment specially crafted for a BoneKeeper — well, specially crafted for this BoneKeeper.

They would never have dared chastise a Keeper before me with words, let alone with actions.

But no Keeper before had been a girl. And no Keeper before had woken to bone so early.

They had spoken to me earlier than any other in memory — I Guided my first soul at only five, with the clumsy, soft fingers of a child, and had been at every Rending and Reaping since.

And it scared them. Their fear makes them bold and stupid though, and every inch they steal from me has made them falsely brave.

Since they took me from my family, they’ve been pushing, pushing, pushing, and they’re fracturing my brain.

The bones twist me one way, the Council another, and I’m fragmenting into tiny shards.

I’m so alone.

So very, very alone.

And things are breaking inside me that cannot be fixed.

Over and over and over I knock my head against the cold, empty bone, finding strange comfort in the rhythmic sting that does little to distract me from the strangling walls.

“Are you there?” I murmur to the carpals dull brown with dried blood. “Come play with me...Is anyone there?”

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I pull, and pull, and pull at the bone, fresh crimson dripping down its surface. “Come out and play!”

Knock. Knock. Knock .

“BoneKeeper?” There is a voice behind me, hesitant and thick with worry. I don’t turn around, still crooning to the silent bones.

“If you whisper to me, I’ll hear you, I promise. Just say some thing.”

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“I can almost hear you…just come closer…” And I can almost hear them, which isn’t possible. Not from the Silent. But…but… there is sound, bubbling below the hollow surface, and I call to them over, and over, and over. “I just want a friend. Please. I’m so…I’m so lonely.”

Knock, knock, knock.

“Keeper, are you…are you well?”

The Protector at the now open door to my tomb has grown from concerned to panicked, so I turn to face him, a wide, sweet smile on my pale face, teeth stained red. “Why would I not be well, Lorcan?” And I laugh, and laugh, and laugh, then turn back.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Little Keeper — your eyes…” He sounds horrified, but I can’t see him through the rivulets of blood. I turn back to the wall, crooning softly.

“Come play, come play.”

Knock, knock, knock.

For a brief, heartstopping moment I swear I hear a hesitant knock, knock, knock back from the silent bone.

“Come play! Come play! Say some thing! I’m here!”

A second male voice joins Lorcan’s.

“Earth and Sun! What…what…?”

“They ordered her here for the length of the hunt! They must have put her here as soon as I left.” Lorcan’s voice is tight, shaking with emotion. “I’ve only just returned. A senior Protector told me to check on her.”

“The full hunt?!”

“This cannot continue.”

“What? You’ll go against them? You know what will happen, Lorcan. And what good will it be then?”

“She’s a child, Ollendar.” Lorcan chokes on the words. “There was a time Protectors did something. Other than being guard dogs for the Council.”

“They won’t let you survive it. ”

“One of us won’t survive, and she’s needed more than I am.” He’s resigned, and sighs. “BoneKeeper, if you will? Let’s go figure this out.”

I’m not sure what he does or says when he meets with the Council — he purposefully leaves me outside their room — but I can hear the yelling and angry voices even through the closed doors.

Ollendar sits with me, shooting nervous glances my way, but I can’t think through the sudden relief of pressure on my brain.

When Lorcan finally emerges, he exchanges a long, meaningful look with Ollendar, then sinks to his feet in front of me.

“Come, Little Keeper,” he says as kindly as possible in his raw, rough voice.

It is clear he is not used to speaking gently, but he is trying.

The strain of the effort is almost enough to make me smile.

Until — “I’m sorry for the collar. It was the only way.

” He wraps a cold steel ring carefully around my neck and attaches a short line to it. “Let’s go outside.”

I freeze for a long moment, meeting Lorcan’s eyes like a startled ptarmigan.

He does not force me to move, just waits patiently for me to decide.

Lorcan is unusual in this new group of Protectors — he was chosen by the bones when I was eleven, and still occasionally allowed outside by myself.

The Council was startled, unhappy even, with the choice; Lorcan is young for a Protector — eighteen to my twelve years, but it is not unheard of.

The closest to him is Ollendar at twenty-eight.

Lorcan always seemed older than his years to me, though.

A serious man, his mouth, though full, looks as though it has never seen a smile, and his brows are heavy.

The only hint of softness in him is the twinkle in his dappled hazel eyes, like sun through leaves in a forest, a gift from a Trader long ago, perhaps, as our people only have brown.

It takes a breath, maybe two, to adjust, but I don’t argue, don’t complain about the feel of the metal chafing my skin, rubbing a raw line on my throat.

It’s enough just to be out of that room.

As soon as I stand and nod, he leads me toward the keep door as quickly as he is able.

But my legs are stiff from so long in confinement, and we’re still steps from the door to the Council House and the promise of fresh air when, from my peripheral, a newly appointed Council Member approaches.

He is not one the bones called for — was pushed through by the Council while I remained “in recovery”.

I don’t raise my head to look at him, just hover, quiet and submissive, behind Lorcan.

The man lurches forward, a strange, twisting look on his face, mouth tight, eyes eager, and pushes past my Protector to grab my collar, right at the ring where it meets my throat.

He says nothing, just looks down at me with dark, leering eyes, and licks his thin lips with a lizard-like tongue, gliding along his mouth with deliberate slowness as he inhales deeply, nostrils flaring.

“This is how you should be all the time, Keeper. Collared and leashed. For your protection, of course.” He tugs a little, frowning when I don’t make a sound, and leans forward til he is inches from my face.

Lorcan studies the two of us, brow furrowed, then reaches out to loosen the Councilman’s grasping hand.

They meet each other’s eyes in challenge, until Lorcan steps forward beside me, threat clear in the way his shoulders tense.

The Councilmember smirks, dropping his fingers from my collar, hand sweeping seemingly accidentally down my young body, and I choke on bile.

Lorcan’s gaze darkens, and he physically places his body between the Councilmember and myself.

“You know, Lorcan, I’d be careful,” the man says, smiling. “Until the Keeper is considered able, the Council is still responsible for naming the Offerings. I is for infant, Protector. We all owe our due.”

“A threat, Nickolas?” Lorcan replies, and Nickolas shakes his head.

“Just a caution. Of course I can’t speak for the Gods. Who knows what will happen.” Nickolas tilts his head in amused farewell, then turns and walks away.

The Protector frowns, eyes trailing the Councilman’s steps until he disappears from view, hands flexing into white fists at his sides.

When Nickolas is no longer in sight, Lorcan hurries me to a back corner of the First Wall, farther than I have ever been before, as far from the Council House as he can without leaving the inner village.

He looks around, face grim, then sits me down in the shade of a Chokecherry tree, and commands me not to move.

“I must speak to the Council,” he says, words rushed and laced with worry.

“Don’t move. I’ll be back.” And, laying my leash on a low branch, he leaves.