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brOKEN PROMISES AND brOKEN BONES

WREN

K eeper!

The word is a falcon cry, a dying keen, a broken dream.

Little Keeper! Awaken!

Wren! Oh Wren! They’re taking my boy! Wren! They’re taking my beautiful boy!

I lurch from sleep, from dead to living in a single, painful gasp. Who is screaming? What wrenched me from my dreamless world?

Wren! Hurry! Hurry! My boy!

The pull from bone is so strong it is almost tangible; I’ve never felt something like it before — it is a command I can’t ignore, leaving no room for thought, only action.

There is no space even for breath; I don’t put on any bone armor, any clothes other than my thin sleep shift, don’t even grab my Guiding Knife.

My windows are rattling with the shrieking dead, urging me to fly as quickly as I can, through the black night, the moonless sky swallowing sound and motion.

The knife is at his throat! You must run! Run run run run run…

The command is repeated, over and over, as I stumble over the uneven ground, the surrounding dark too thick to see anything; for once my masque is reality — I’m truly blind in the night, pressed relentlessly forward by the voices of bone now acting as my eyes, urging me to go faster and faster still.

They sink into me, wrapping around me, suffocating me with their panic.

Night-damp earth slides beneath my racing feet, sharp, slicing rocks carving bloody footprints from my bare skin, a clear path for Hunters towards their quarry.

Breath coming in shallow, terror-stricken gasps, I fly around the corner of my small lane, then jerk to an abrupt halt.

Beyond me, at the end of the long, unbending main street, the thick ink of the sky has been torn open.

In front of the Council House, a bonfire is lit, a raging inferno so bright it seers the eyes, dancing garishly against the night.

And beyond it, on the stage, four, maybe five large, shadowed shapes, with a shorter one in front of them, bent back at a painful angle and struggling silently against grasping hands.

There is something in the turn of the small head that catches my breath in my throat, that freezes my heart in panic.

Wren! My boy, my boy, my boy…

Her voice is a mother’s desperate lament, calling from around his neck. She thinks I am too late.

Perhaps I am.

I am too far for anything but drastic measures.

Too far for anything but steps which, if taken, can never be undone.

I am ashamed that, for a moment, I wonder if the end will be worth the journey.

Until Marrin makes a small sound, barely a whisper, but it travels down the empty streets like a scream, and my heart cracks.

Oh Little Keeper…what are you thinking?

Lorcan is scared for me, but he hasn’t learned all my secrets yet, despite his years on my spine.

I draw myself up to my full height, and plant my bleeding feet in the earth.

“If you harm that boy,” I call, voice diamond and stone, loud even over the snapping of the fire, “It will be the last thing you do on this earth.”

The man exposing Marrin’s young, pale throat, cackles, echoed by the carrion birds hovering behind him — loud, braying laughter that is swallowed by the oily stones of the square.

“Threats from a ghost are as worthless as water from the village ponds,” the sneering man returns. Nickolas. Of course.

Around us, up and down the street, the village wakens, the unusual noise in the Reaper’s-pit-silence of midnight running like a lightning bolt of fear through the homes over the shops.

I hear more than one latch rattling in indecision; is it worth the risk of night to open their windows? Most remain closed.

“I will only warn you once, Councilman, and it’s more than you deserve.

If you walk down this path, there is no way back home for you.

” My words are amplified by the exposed ivory surrounding me, the sound shivering like shattered glass, echoing in hollow, sharp reverberations off the walls of the town around me.

I can hear them, mirrored from the First Gate to the Third Gate, the sound repeating in a faint, eerie chorus much farther than was logical.

The bones are crying out with my voice, and the men on the stage shift uneasily.

All but Nickolas, who grins, teeth in the darkness looking decayed in a snarling mouth, skin mottled and leathery in the fire’s light.

Behind me, hesitant footsteps approach.

Your…friend. Lorcan’s words twist in strange ways.

Tahrik is silent, shaking, but standing at my shoulder.

Fear is a tangible beast in the night, claws flashing, cutting everyone but me. I’ve made my decision; there is no room for anything but certainty. There is no if.

Behind the men, the keep door opens, and Rannoch emerges, sleepy and confused, but alert; even from this distance I can see his eyes darting back and forth from the men on the stage to where I stand, a short distance down the road.

“Your warnings are useless, Keeper .” Nickolas sneers. “The old ways are dead. The gift of bone was wasted on you; perhaps the answer is a sacrifice greater than any before. A sacrifice others are afraid to make. A gift that has been given, given back.”

The threat is toothless, but scares Marrin. My littlest friend. My young Protector .

He speaks for the first time, throat trembling against the blade, but he does his best, his child-high voice shaking with a desperate attempt at bravery. “BoneKeeper, go. It’s not safe for you. Please. Please go.”

Nickolas laughs again, chaotic, crackling noise like breaking bones. He is a rabid animal.

And there is only one cure for a rabid animal.

“I should like your word that, if you fall, they will do naught in turn.” I reply, voice still quiet, and agreement stumbles from the stage in amused grunts and coughs.

It is not enough. “Sworn in blood.” I say, and their eyes narrow.

Ah , I think. At least blood still holds sway over these maddened men.

They nod grudgingly, as the man holding the boy answers for the lot.

“Sworn in blood,” he smirks, and slices his hand, dripping crimson on the ground, off the edge of the stage, then grins his rotted grin again and twists the boy’s arm ‘til tears spring to his eyes.

It is clear to him that no one else is coming, that no one else will brave the darkness or the wrath of the Council.

It is just the few men on the stage, a young boy, and a small, weaponless woman half-naked with bare, bleeding feet in the dirt.

“Come at me, then, woman,” Nickolas taunts, “if you will.” And he yanks Marrin up til the small boy is barely touching the ground, his toes skimming the dirt, eyes wide in fear.

But Marrin doesn’t make a word, refuses to look at me, to ask for help.

He is trying so hard to protect me, and it fractures a piece of my soul.

I swore I would never again, but at what cost?

Trying once more, I chance a step forward, arm outstretched, palm up in supplication. “If you let him go, we will all leave this unharmed. Just let Marrin be.”

He pretends to think on it, a false look of concentration on his face, which is replaced by a rat-like, sly narrowing of his unbroken eye.

“He wears your jewelry, Keeper. Did you think I’d not notice?

” In a sharp, swift movement, he rips something from Marrin’s body and crushes it beneath his feet.

My heart clenches, but I can’t dwell on it.

“For some reason, this thing means something to you. So you can trade yourself for him.” he says, greed and lust licking his tone, the dank stench of sweat heavy in their air.

“We’ll take his price from your skin. And you’ll promise to stay, though you’ll break under my hands.

” The thought excites him, cold eye lighting up with dark desire.

“Nickolas!” Rannoch lurches forward, straining against the other men on the stage who hold him back.

He wrestles violently with them, hand dropping to where his sword would be, but freezes when Nickolas tightens his grip on Marrin.

Tahrik is stone-still behind me — he is witnessing something he has never seen, never considered.

Our time together is full of wishes and dreams — I have never whispered the darkness of my days to him, have never wanted to stain those precious moments with the ugliness of reality.

And now here it is, all at once. Something that to him is unimaginable.

There is no way but forward , I think, stomach clenching in unspeakable sorrow.

“Give me my boy,” I command, but there is so much sadness in my voice I think Nickolas takes it for surrender, and he wraps his thick hand around the child’s throat in sneering victory.

Marrin’s eyes flare open, one small, pained sound escaping his bloodied lips, then flutter to a close.

“ No .” Nickolas replies, curling back his lip and baring his teeth in disdain, tracing a red line lightly along Marrin’s flesh.

I sigh, and drop my head. “So be it.” I whisper, and the screams in the square are deafening when I call his bones home to me.