Page 71

THE FIRES ARE BURNING

WREN

T he Fires are burning, but the bones are quiet.

The smell of acrid smoke yanks me awake from restless sleep, blinking blearily in confusion.

No bones are calling, warning me of singed flesh, of melting fat, and they always warn me ahead of Rending.

The burns to the jealous Sun God are my least favorite, so when the bones hear whispers from the mountains above, from the whipping winds racing down the rock face, when they feel the warmth of the sun increase on their exposed, weather-pocked surface, they call to me.

He’s wanting, they murmur, he’s hungry. He’s angry.

He’s calling for flesh. And I know that one morning, soon, I will awaken and a bitter smoke will sting my nostrils, will hover heavy on the village, and someone will be called by Bone to fire.

Today, though, today they are silent. Not one speaks, and I shiver.

Something is wrong. Something is wrong. The words sound in my head as a clanging alarm, a sword on a shield, and I hurry to dress before making my way to the square.

It’s the first time in a week that I’ve left my cottage, the first time I’ve felt some sort of life drift back into my veins.

As soon as I was well enough to walk, I had left the old BoneKeeper’s cottage and returned to the cold comfort of my empty home, against Lorcan’s advice, against common sense — a stupid but quiet rebellion opposing decisions others continuously make for me.

The broken lock on my door has been wholly unnecessary — even the Council has left me alone this week, a thought which sends electric tendrils of worry twisting along my skin. I wasn’t paying attention.

Something changed with the Traders, and yes, it was Kaden, but also it was more and less than him.

It was the taste of fruit that hadn’t been watered by the blood of an Offering, the strange simplicity of friendship, the happiness of woefully bad dancing with a willing partner.

It was the hint of things outside our village, and some doors, when opened, cannot be forced shut again.

I spent all week trying, and exhausted myself every day with the amount of effort it took to forget, only to remember it all in the night.

My time was scattered with minor distractions; Marrin visited with some more food reluctantly made by his aunt.

When he saw me, he flung his thin arms around me in a quick, fierce hug that did more for my heart than any soup could have.

He let go almost immediately, straightening and gruffly rubbing his eyes, mumbling something about the proper behavior of a Protector, then read me a story by the fire before running home in the twilight, having lingered too long in the dubious comfort of my cottage.

Bri came once, briefly, a scramble of children with her; Grace stopped by separately, long enough to drop a loaf of floured bread with a sweet smile.

And one morning, still early enough that the dawn was cold in the air, a bundle of fragrant blossoms and two apple buns were left on my windowsill, an object memory that caught my breath in an oddly painful way.

But otherwise, I was left alone, curled up with Lorcan, who whispered me so many stories I had to anoint him again.

In all our time together, I’ve never had to soak him more than once in a moon’s turning, and I refuse to look too closely at how often he’s been stained red from my veins already during the Harvest.

It doesn’t matter anyway, I think to myself. I will cut myself to ribbons to keep Lorcan.

He spent most of the empty days attempting to distract me, sharing memories from his childhood, stories from his mother and father, funny little tales of him, and oddly Silas, when they were young.

I sunk so deeply into him that I forgot to keep my secrets from him; when he realized I could taste his memories, could smell the barn where he’d leap from the rafters into the hay, could see the colors of his calico cat, he couldn’t hide his concern.

Little Keeper he said, voice tight and desperately controlled. What else are you hiding? This is — I have never heard of a BoneKeeper who could do such a thing. I asked you before, I ask again. We should have no secrets between us.

And I knew it for truth, so I told him. How I could sometimes feel him on my skin, the drag of his fingers, the tremble of his teeth, the bite of his warning. That occasionally when he sighs it seems like the air shifts around my throat, as though his bones are breathing on my neck.

Should I remove you, Protector? I asked hesitantly. You didn’t know when you offered to guard me that I…that you…

If you try to take me from your skin, I’ll strangle you, Little Keeper.

He was teasing, but not, and I couldn’t hide my relief.

I’d lived so long with him as a part of me that the thought of putting him into the bone wall was ice in my veins.

And it was a relief to share with someone that, maybe all of my time as a child locked with bones had changed me, had caused some kind of irreparable damage, canyon wide cracks in me that can only be filled with the memories of the dead.

Share the pieces of myself with someone who accepted their broken mosaic and found something worthy in them as they were, not trying to rearrange them to make a prettier picture.

And then, when he rested, I drifted into the bones around me as I had not done in a long time, letting them pull me into their side of the veil so long that the scent this morning of real smoke in the real air was a shock, the smell so thick and strong in my cottage it burns my nose, even this far from the square.

A call for death tore me from the death side of the veil, and suddenly I’m very and inexplicably terrified.

I don’t take time to eat breakfast. It is a mistake.

By the time I arrive in the square the twelve are in their black cloaks, like vultures circling, surrounding the Sun God’s pillar. But the Bones did not whisper. He has not called for flesh. Making my way toward them with silent steps, I wait for them to acknowledge me. I am not kept long.

“BoneKeeper.” The Father’s voice is low, cavern-dark, and troubled. There is no hint of quiet confidences and shared secrets in his words. It is as he promised, simply a moment out of time. “Who have the Bones chosen?”

I raise a single brow. “What do you mean, Sir?”

He looks at me sharply. “The fires were lit this morning when we woke. He is calling for his Offering.”

Shaking my head, I look to the tall pillar, maybe fifteen feet high, ornately carved with the symbols of a distant god.

The pillar is made of the same black rock as the Council House, gleaming in the early morning light.

At the top, a small metal brazier sits, fire dancing merrily inside it, heavy smoke pouring out of it, falling like a diseased plant trailing to the ground.

“The Bones…” I am hesitant, words slow, shaking my head.

They shift uneasily at my answer, glancing at each other beneath cowled hoods.

There are entire conversations held in secret silence, some of the Council clearly confused, others waiting with almost eager anticipation, and all at once I want to scream at them, to strangle them for their unrelenting stupidity.

That desire is cut short as Nickolas’s voice rings out from the end of the semi-circle.

“Have you lost their favor, Keeper?” The sound of him freezes my blood, still fading bruises flaring to painful life, the memory of his fingers on my skin choking me.

Lorcan’s teeth on my back scrape my spine when I shiver, pulling me back to my body.

Nickolas’s words are an insult, and worse than that, but he continues before I can speak.

“If the fire is lit, the Offering must be made.” He turns slightly, addressing the Council, and like a comet across the night sky, I see his plan laid out, a brilliant flame leaving destruction in its wake.

“If the Bones will not tell her, it is the Council’s job to choose, as we do when there is no Keeper, in the times between. ”

And it is true. If there is no BoneKeeper, the Council speaks for the Gods, is left to interpret their will on their own. But there is a Keeper, and never in our history have the Gods called for an Offering and the Bones been silent.

I look back up to the pillar, and hiss, a short, sharp sound that catches the ears of the Council members nearest me.

“What are your thoughts, Keeper?” Rexus, one of the older members of the council, addresses me. His face is wrinkled and folded under a scraggly grey beard, and though I don’t know his actual age, he wears his years poorly. He is too old to serve, really, but no one has been called to replace him.

“We don’t need her thoughts , Rexus,” Nickolas snaps, voice whip sharp and cracking with anger. “ She doesn’t have thoughts. She is a vessel for the Gods.”

Rexus waits patiently, ignoring the huffing bull of a man behind him, and I walk to the pillar, placing my hands on the curling white bone lines that are inlaid into the rock.

They are quiet, so I press my forehead against them, asking for their guidance, but they will not speak, feel…

strangely hollow. Not Silent, not exactly, but — I have suspicions, dark, dreadful suspicions.

What to do? Perhaps, perhaps I can speak around it.

From my position against the pillar, I harden my voice to stop it from shaking, then call, “The fire is the wrong color.”

There is an intake of breath that drains the world of oxygen, and an uneasy muttering, before a third Council Member speaks. “Please, BoneKeeper. Explain.”

I shrug, and point up. “The Fire is the wrong color. That is all I know. When the Sun God lights it for Offering, it burns blue and white until blood is spilled. The fire is winter yellow and hearth red.”