Page 78

BLOOD AND FIRE

WREN

H is bones explode from his skin in a liquid, squelching sound — a single skeleton shedding its human form behind it — and come stumbling toward me at my beckoning in jerking, awkward movements.

On the stage, Marrin has mercifully fainted.

The Councilmen who remain on the raised platform are like panicked animals, shrieking in terror.

I cannot see Tahrik or Rannock, focusing solely on the dripping memory of a man walking toward me, tiny bits of exposed flesh and muscle still hanging from his form.

I have not let him die yet, have left him his tongue and beating heart; the pain must be…unbearable.

“Keeper!” It is a garbled wail of sound, a gurgled drowning noise. “Keeper!”

He is begging, but I warned him.

There is no way but forward.

I do nothing until he drops to his white knees before me, and then I release him to the grave, his soul exploding into light.

Guide me to bone, Keeper! He sings, but even in death the music of him is jarring and cacophonous. I watch him through cold eyes, his light fading, fading, as he struggles. Do it! Keeper! It is a snarl of sound; when I take him in my hands, he turns smug, even in death.

There are places worse than Silence, Nickolas, I whisper to his soul, and an edge of fear shimmers in his soul light. To be Exiled is a pain all its own, unending and for eternity. You will never be released, because it takes a BoneKeeper to do it. And I will never, never give you peace, Nickolas.

His soul is tumultuous, but he has no choice.

There are empty bones tucked away all throughout the walls, little hidden pockets of hollowed ivory, pockmarked and pitted.

No suitable home for a soul; to be locked inside such a thing would be excruciating, an Exile even for Exiled.

I reach into the wall, loosening an old, decrepit hyoid, thin, with sharp, broken ends, and I shove Nickolas inside, no gentle Guiding, no practiced hands, just sheer, brutal force.

It is silent for a long, long moment before the howling starts — manic, mindless agony convulsing the sound.

“Threats from a ghost are as good as pure water from an untainted well,” I murmur to the Exiled soul, and my lips curl up in grim satisfaction.

“I warned you, I promised you, I swore it in blood. You will never have peace.” Nickolas’ crazed song fades into hopeless wails, and it soothes the tumult in my heart.

You should not have threatened me or mine , I think, clenching my jaw in fury.

And none will find you to relieve you of your agony.

Reaching forward with the tiny bone, I push him deep, deep into the wall, the surrounding femurs and maxilla seeming to slide to the sides as he passes, then cover his path back up.

Before long the tiny hyoid is in the very heart of the wall, surrounded by silent, empty bones, swallowed by our history.

He will never be found, unless the village is torn to pieces.

When I finally withdraw my hand, I press my forehead against the exposed ivory, and smile.

The living world rushes back in a rush of sound.

Tahrik is screaming beside me, high pitched squeals like an animal being slaughtered, frantic, shuddering notes of dissonance that cut off suddenly as he is violently ill in the dirt.

Bent at the waist he vomits, hands on knees, bowed over with tears running down his face.

I take a step towards him but he holds out a shaky hand, pressing the air as if it could push me back, and turns his head away from me .

“No, Gods, no!”

Flinching back, unexpected hurt stinging my heart, I stutter-step away, keeping my eyes locked on him.

“How could you, Wren?” he moans, not looking at me, “How could you?” He is sick again, and it turns my stomach.

“How could I ?” I whisper viciously. “How could I?!?”

Tahrik is gagging; I turn from him in disgust, the residue of my anger at Nickolas staining my skin like blood. Rannoch stands quietly off to the side, and I bare my teeth at him as I stalk past, snarling. “ What ?”

“Nothing, BoneKeeper,” he replies quietly. “I said nothing.”

It’s too much and not enough as the weight of my actions presses in against my temples.

I forgot this part. Oh Maiden, Mother, and Crone, I forgot the aftermath.

Please, Lady, give me the strength to get to the stage.

Just enough to get to Marrin. My vision tunnels down to a single light in front of me, the blazing fire, and a small boy.

By the time I reach the raised platform I am shivering violently, my skin almost rippling from my trembling.

Marrin is bone pale, thin eyelids so white they are almost blue closed lightly over eyes which are too young to have witnessed my monstrosity.

I can see his tiny chest rising and falling like a baby bird’s, though, and it is enough.

I reach toward him, then think better of it, and am beginning to back away when he opens his eyes and fixes them unerringly on me.

“You came, Keeper!” It is a breath of sound, and so apologetic I choke on my reply.

“Of course, my Protector.”

His jaw juts out and brows fold together as he fights tears. “I’m sorry, BoneKeeper. I tried not to call for you. They wanted to hurt you. I tried so hard.”

“You were very brave, my little man. Too brave by half. I’m glad I put the Baker and her son on you, or things would have ended quite differently.”

He collapses into rough, raw sobs, shoulders shaking as he covers his face.

“They…they took her, Keeper. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.

I couldn’t fight them. They ripped my necklace off and…

and…” the rest is dro wned in tears, but he points to a small dust pile on the ground. I school my face to softness.

“There is nothing you could have done, Marrin. She called me from my sleep, a near impossible task for bone, and at such a distance. She told me, ‘they’re taking my boy, they’re taking—” I swallow hard before finishing, “they’re taking my beautiful boy.

’ And she pulled at me, as hard as she could.

She and her son both. So hard, my Protector, that I do not think they would have had much…

much left to them. They gave everything they could to bring me to you. ”

“And you saved me—” he whispers, still crying.

“And I saved you,” I promise him, then open my arms to receive a fierce, desperate hug from his thin, quivering body.

Above us, in the inky sky, there is a quiet hum, the sound of heavy beating wings, and I jerk my head up to look beyond the bonfire.

Great undulating hordes of blood moths hover just out of the edges of the palest light, the heat and sparks pushing them back.

But the fire is dying, even now, and Tahrik and Rannoch are out on the road, where the shadows are growing longer.

Marrin will be safe; he is with me, but the two men have no protection.

With the last of my strength, I pick up the child wrapped around me, and stumble away from the stage and the false safety of the fading flames.

Rannoch watches me approach, eyes steady, though he shifts uneasily on his feet; Tahrik is curled the earth, pale in the dirt by a still quivering pile of empty flesh and pooling blood.

The glistening remains of Nickolas fill me with an unexpectedly dark gratification, the harsh atonement for touching my Protector surprisingly soothing.

Cradling his featherweight body against me, I can’t bring myself to regret my actions, whatever the cost.

Behind me the Councilmen waken, and start to protest.

“You can’t just?—”

“What have you?—”

“Sun and Earth!—”

Their words tumble over each other in quick succession.

But there are only four of them, and not a single shutter has opened on the street, despite the screaming, despite the tortured shrieks of full-dark in our village.

No one has seen the path of this night but the Councilmen on the stage, Rannoch, Tahrik, Marrin, and myself.

Well. And Nickolas, I think, gallows humor pushing back the throbbing in my skull.

Mist presses in at the edges of my vision; I am too close to fainting.

“Can you walk?” I murmur anxiously to Marrin. Once he nods, I set him on his feet by my side. “You must trust me. Stay close, and hurry.”

He squeezes my hand and presses against me as we run down the short stretch to Rannoch and Tahrik.

Above us, the blood moths press close, pull back, then closer still, their wings beating in thick hush-hush sounds, long, tear-shaped hindwings like star drops in the night.

A few, made bold by the scent of freshly spilled blood, risk the upper reaches of the fire; the sizzle of their velvet bodies fills the silence.

The Councilmen are as stupid as I had hoped.

Rather than staying on the relative safety of the stage, they leave their platform to hunt me, breaking a blood vow, making it easy to leave them to their fate, however gruesome.

If even one had honored his promise, I would have had to try, would have been bound to, but am grateful for their predictability.

They have not noticed the dying fire, have not heard the fluttering wings, have too much faith in the promises of a dead man to keep them safe.

With nothing left in me to go further my legs suddenly give way beneath me, pulling Marrin with me. We collapse in an awkward knot; I keep him wrapped in my arms, pressed against me.

“No, Keeper,” he tries to protest. “I can cover you with my body. I am your Protector.” He fights against me weakly, but I shush him.

“The blood moths won’t attack me, Marrin. But it takes all my energy. So please. Rannoch? Tahrik?”

Rannoch comes immediately to my side and sits silently beside me, shooting a questioning glance my way; Tahrik takes longer, and I am breathing in strained, stuttering gasps by the time he reaches me.