The Bone Charmer

by Breeana Shields

  She turns to Bram as if to say, Can you believe this? But he’s not looking at her. He’s studying me with an expression that’s maddeningly unreadable. “Saskia’s right,” he says, finally.

  Linnea rears back as if slapped.

  Bram turns toward Tessa. “Don’t worry about it. Really.”

  Her shoulders relax and she lets out a breath. “Thank you. And I’m sorry.”

  Linnea’s gaze skips from me to Bram and back again. There’s something calculating in her expression, something almost frightening. I get a glimpse of how fierce she’s going to be as a Breaker. And then, like clouds parting, she smiles and is suddenly radiant, as if her anger was never there at all. She laughs. “I can get a little intense sometimes,” she says.

  Talon, who has been silently observing us during the whole exchange, suddenly perks up. “I heard the Mixers accidentally started a fire,” he says. “So it sounds like they had a worse day than all of us put together.” The tension dissipates and we all laugh.

  Even Bram.

  The sound is rich and deep, like the lowest notes of a melody. My eyes flick to him and I catch the barest hint of a smile before it fades away. For a moment I forget that I have good reasons for avoiding Bram, and I feel a pull toward him, as if he’s just one of the others. Just someone I’m getting to know. Someone I might want to spend more time with. But then he scratches his forehead and I see the tattoos on his knuckles. It’s like a kick in the stomach.

  Bram is dangerous. I’m dangerous. And the two of us together would be a disaster.

  I can’t let myself forget.

  I was twelve years old the first time I saw a prison boat docked in Midwood.

  The worst criminals in Kastelia are sent to Fang Island—a prison at the far reaches of the country, beyond the point where the waters of the delta melt into the sea. It gets its name from the giant bones that encircle the island’s perimeter—bones that are pointed on one end, like enormous tusks, and seem to sprout from the ground and stretch higher than the treetops.

  Prisoners are taken directly from their sentencing at Ivory Hall to make the long journey to Fang Island. Bone Breakers transport them down the branches of the Shard to their final destination. The boats stop along the way to replenish food and supplies, but one had never docked in Midwood before.

  So, when it was spotted, whispers and rumors spread through town like wildfire, and soon a big group was gathered near the shore, gaping.

  Compared to the trade ships that usually landed on our shores, this vessel was tiny. A boat only big enough for a small crew. But the most remarkable sight was the cage made of bone that sat on deck.

  A cage with a man inside.

  “What do you think he did?” asked one of the Poulsen brothers. They were twins and I could never tell them apart.

  “He probably killed someone,” said Ami.

  The other Poulsen brother laughed. “He must have done worse than that. My gramps was a Breaker at Fang Island, and he said hearing the things the prisoners did would keep you awake at night for the rest of your life.”

  Both Ami and I shuddered.

  “I dare someone to go on board and touch the cage,” Peder said. He was two years younger than I was and prone to issuing dares, but not to accepting them.

  “No way,” said Ami. “I don’t have a death wish.”

  “I’m out,” said someone behind me.

  “How about you, Saskia?” Peder said.

  I started to shake my head, when one of the Poulsen brothers laughed. “Saskia? She’ll only do it if she can get a bone reading from her mama first.”

  The others—all except Ami—laughed, too.

  It was as if someone had lit a match inside me, and my shame was combustible. Hot tears prickled at the backs of my eyes, but I refused to let those boys see me cry. To them, I’d always be the girl whose mother knew the future. The girl who had fate on her side.

  And then I felt a tickle at the back of my mind. I saw myself dashing away from the ship after touching the bones, a triumphant smile on my face. The others watched with expressions of grudging admiration. This had happened at least half a dozen times in the last year. Small premonitions—a feeling that Ami was about to come over just before her knock fell on the door, a thought that my father would prepare roast goose for supper as he walked in from the garden with a handful of onions and a parcel wrapped in brown butcher paper.

  Blossoming magic, Gran called it when I told her what was happening. “Though it won’t really be yours until it’s bound to you,” she said with a wink.

  And now here was the feeling again, like a reassuring good omen. I’d show them I wasn’t a coward. I took off at a dead run toward the boat and leaped aboard. Someone onshore started shouting at me, but so much blood was pounding in my ears that the words faded into the background. The boat rocked beneath me, but I pressed forward and laid a palm on the side of the cage.

  The bones were blazing hot.

  I yelped and yanked my hand back. They must have been magicked for security. I turned to run again, but something caught me, pulled me backward.

  The prisoner was holding a fistful of my skirt. Each of his knuckles was imprinted with a black triangular tattoo. “Where do you think you’re going, pretty lady?”

  My heart slammed against my rib cage. “Let go of me.”

  He laughed, and it sounded like the crunch of glass beneath a boot. “Does a spider let a fly go when one ventures too close to his web?”

  I could feel the heat rolling off the bones of the cage as he tugged me closer. The skin on my palm was already beginning to blister. I grabbed his wrist and dug my fingernails into his flesh. “Leave me alone!”

  The prisoner grunted as a few drops of blood welled at the cuts I’d made. He twisted away from my grip and used the momentum to pull my hand against the enclosure. Fiery heat burned through my fingers.

  My vision tunneled and went dark.

  Suddenly I was standing in a cavern far belowground. Rippled walls rose around me like cresting waves, snow white and starkly beautiful.

  A salt mine.

  My lips were dry, thirst begging at the back of my throat. My muscles ached as if I’d been working all day, but a rage burning in my chest overshadowed it. I turned to the man next to me—a stranger, though somehow I felt as if I’d seen him before. And that’s when I realized: It wasn’t me who knew him. The prisoner did.

  I was trapped inside his mind. It was his thirst. His sore muscles. His anger.

  “No one crosses me and lives to talk about it,” the prisoner said as his hands circled the man’s neck. I could feel the contours of the stranger’s throat against my skin—his rough stubble, the rise of his Adam’s apple, the taut cords of muscle straining against death—as if it were my own fingers cutting off his breath.

  It took all the strength I had, but I wrenched myself from the vision just as the stranger fell to the ground.

  The prisoner sat in front of me, still trapped in the bone cage, a wicked sneer on his face, as if he were deliberately thinking of the worst thing he’d done and forcing me to bear witness.

  “Please,” I said, “let me go.”

  He didn’t. He pressed my wrist against the side of the bone cage again and I was sucked into another vision. My mind flashed through a series of horrifying images that made my stomach turn: I watched him carve the still-beating heart out of a woman’s chest, saw him bury another victim alive and then sit quietly by the grave until the sounds of struggle subsided. I could feel his emotions as if they were my own—his hunger to destroy, the way he fed on the fear of his victims, his sick satisfaction as the life drained out of them.

  “Let go!” This time the words weren’t mine, and they were accompanied by a hand reaching through the bars of the cage, followed by a hiss of pain from the prisoner. He released me, and his fist hit the bottom of the cage with a thud. His arm hung limply at his side, broken.

  Relief flooded through me, and I turned to see
Bram Wilberg.

  “Thank you,” I said, a bead of sweat slipping down the back of my neck.

  Bram lightly touched my elbow. “Why did you do that? He could have killed you.”

  But I didn’t have time to answer. The prisoner reached through the bars with his undamaged hand—a hand with the same four black tattoos as the first—and grabbed my ankle. Bram’s eyes went wide at my sharp intake of breath. He pulled on my arm, but the prisoner was stronger. My whole body pressed against the bone cage, and a searing pain shot up my side.

  I was plunged into another vision, but this time I wasn’t in the prisoner’s mind—I was in Bram’s. He was maybe four years old, in front of a small, flame-blackened home, his face streaked with soot and tears. His mind was filled with rage, pulsing with the desire to destroy everything he saw. A man approached him and laid a hand on his shoulder. “It could be worse,” he said. “You could have been in there, too.”

  Bram’s eyes went wide. Unbelieving. “I wish I were with them. I’d rather be dead than out here with you.”

  The man frowned. “That’s a terrible thing to say, young man.”

  Bram’s expression darkened and the man yanked his hand away. He screamed. Cradled his broken fingers in the opposite palm.

  “You’re a monster.” The man backed away.

  “You’re a monster,” Bram said under his breath.

  The vision shifted back to the prisoner. He walked through a barn with a torch in his hand, lighting bales of hay on fire. The air was filled with smoke and the panicked whine of animals.

  A tug on my arm shifted the vision back to Bram. Flame and rage. And then back to the prisoner. Flame and rage. The two faces blended into one until I couldn’t tell the difference. Fear climbed inside me and I felt as if I were on fire, too.

  A crack split through the air, and I was thrust back into the present. Bram and I were lying on the ground. The bone cage was broken—several of the bars split cleanly through the middle—and the prisoner crawled through the opening.

  Onshore, one of the Bone Breakers in charge of guarding the ship was screaming and running toward the boat. But he was too late. The prisoner had already run belowdecks.

  Another Breaker came aboard, grabbed me by the shoulders, and shook me like a rag doll. “What were you thinking?”

  “I— It was a dare,” I said softly.

  “What if I hadn’t gotten to you in time?” The Breaker’s voice was full of heat. My whole body trembled and I had to hold on to his arm to keep from toppling over. I wanted to tell him that he didn’t get to me in time, that the prisoner took something from me I could never get back: Fate wasn’t on my side. Magic had betrayed me entirely. I wouldn’t leave the boat triumphant. I would leave broken. But the words stuck in my throat.

  “And you”—the Breaker turned to Bram—“were you taking a dare, too?”

  “No.” Bram pulled on the back of his neck. “Just trying to help.”

  “You should have left that to the adults.” The Breaker leaned over to inspect the damaged cage. “This shouldn’t be possible,” he said more to himself than to us. He ran a palm just above the fractured bones. “Someone helped him escape.”

  A shiver of fear ran through me. “Who?” I asked. “Who helped him?”

  The Breaker waved a dismissive hand in my direction. I was about to press him for an answer when a commotion on the other side of the boat drew our attention. The prisoner—chased by a man in the Ivory Guard—raced back up the stairs onto the main deck. He barreled straight for me, hands already outstretched, as if he planned to strangle me.

  But before he could touch me, the Bone Breaker intervened. With one flick of his wrist, he snapped the prisoner’s humerus. The man wailed and swore and pronounced a curse on my house for a thousand generations.

  The guard who had been chasing the prisoner rounded the corner and wrestled him to the ground. “He killed three of the crew before I even made it belowdecks.”

  Time seemed to slow and stretch before dashing forward in a tumble. All the air left my lungs in a moment of swift, piercing horror. This was my fault. I trusted my premonition, and now three innocent people were dead.

  Nausea roiled in my stomach. I didn’t have a gift like Gran thought. Bone magic was dangerous in my hands. It couldn’t be trusted.

  The Breaker put his hands on my shoulders and turned me toward him, as if he’d been trying to get my attention. His lips were moving, but all I could hear was the rush of blood in my ears. And then, finally: “You need a Healer,” he said.

  I glanced down. My hands and arms were covered in burns, thick welts that oozed blood.

  “I’ll take her,” Bram said, stepping forward. But the moment my gaze landed on him, his face morphed into the prisoner’s.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t need help.”

  Bram’s eyebrows drew together. “Yes, you do.” He reached for my arm. “Let me …”

  I flinched away and hurried off the boat on my own. By then a crowd had gathered, and they all started talking at once—their questions tripping over one another in a furious stream. I felt light-headed.

  “Saskia,” Bram said, catching my elbow, “wait.”

  “Who died in the fire?” I asked quietly, spinning to face him.

  “What are you …?”

  “I saw you,” I said, loudly this time. A hush fell over the crowd. “You were angry and you broke that man’s fingers, and …”

  A slow horror spilled over his face. I felt like a monster for seeing his most personal memories and then using them against him, but when he backed away from me, I breathed a little easier. I didn’t want Bram Wilberg to touch me. Not ever again.

  Peder pushed toward the edge of the throng and tugged at my sleeve. “So was Bram trying to help you or hurt you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, stumbling away from the crowd and falling into Ami’s arms.

  For months afterward I had a recurring nightmare—being chased through the streets of Midwood, grabbed by a pair of fists with black-tattooed knuckles, overcome by darkness and pain. Each time, I woke in a cold sweat, heart pounding, convinced I’d seen a premonition of my own death.

  The townsfolk started to whisper about Bram. They wondered why I avoided him, speculated he must be dangerous. They started giving him a wider berth than normal. And I almost corrected them. It was my stupid decision to race aboard the boat. My mistake that cost three innocent people their lives. But still, I was haunted by what I saw in Bram’s past. Did he start that fire? Could I really reassure the townsfolk that he wasn’t dangerous after the darkness I’d glimpsed in his heart?

  And then, a few weeks later, I saw Bram Wilberg competing in the rope pull at the Feast Day Festival, both hands clutched around the thick cord, black triangles on his knuckles that were edged in red as if they’d only recently appeared, and my throat closed off.

  His expression was intense. His brows furrowed in concentration. I was taken forcefully back to the day on the boat when his face blended with the prisoner’s, when I couldn’t tell them apart. And now they had a matching set of black tattoos.

  I stared at him wide-eyed until he glanced up and our eyes met for just a beat. He gave the rope an extra tug and the opposing team surged forward and toppled over.

  The crowd broke out in rowdy applause.

  But I turned and ran.

  My next session with Master Kyra goes even worse than the first. It takes me most of the morning to see what’s in her pocket, but finally a hazy shape forms behind my eyes.

  “It’s a key,” I say, equal parts relieved and triumphant.

  “Not even close.” She pulls a feather from her cloak and shows me.

  Icy fear trickles down my spine. Being wrong is worse than seeing nothing at all.

  “There has to be an easier way,” I say as Kyra scoops up the bones and slips them into the velvet pouch hanging from her waist. “Aren’t there more powerful bones I could train with?” I’m itching to tell her ab
out my progress with Latham, to beg her to let me use the training bones.

  “You don’t need more powerful bones for a task this simple,” she says. “It’s a crutch to use stronger bones than necessary. Not to mention unethical. Each bone you use for practice is a bone that can’t be used for something else.”

  “But—”

  “You’ll catch on,” she says, “and when you do, you’ll be all the better for the struggle.”

  I don’t see how failing is going to make me a better Bone Charmer, and I open my mouth to tell her so, but she puts up a hand. “I’m the master and you’re the apprentice for a reason. You do your part, and let me do mine. Now get to your next lesson.” And with that she turns her back on me and walks away.

  My gaze slides to the cupboard where the practice bones are stored. My fingers twitch at my sides.

  But there’s not time.

  I step into the corridor and join the swarm of other apprentices who are spilling out of training rooms from all directions. Our next lesson is a seminar—one of a handful of classes we all have together, and it’s supposed to take place in a room beneath Ivory Hall called the workshop.

  We all inch along in the same direction, winding through the passageways like a giant colorful snake, until we reach the top of the stairwell—a wide, elegant set of steps that disappears belowground after the first graceful curve. I stand on my toes and search for a familiar face in the crowd—Tessa, Talon, or even Bram—but there are too many of us in too small an area, and I can’t find anyone I know.

  Everyone is eager to see the workshop, and so we pour down the stairs, descending shoulder to shoulder, filling every square inch. By the time we reach the bottom, I can hardly breathe.

  I’m expecting a damp and musty room, but instead we step into a brightly lit, cavernous space that stretches farther than I can see. Dozens of fully assembled skeletons—humans and animals alike—hang around the perimeter of the room. Beside them are cases filled with identical bones that have been separated and neatly labeled, each with its name and what magics it’s most useful for. In the center of the room are worktables where, presumably, we’ll be tested on our knowledge.