Find Me Their Bones

by Sara Wolf

  “It’s settled, then. We’re keeping you. Father won’t be happy about it, but I’m sure I can—”

  “Zera!” A voice suddenly cuts between us—Malachite. I turn to see his paper-skinned, lanky figure standing on the edge of the clearing, a curly-haired girl with a cane at his side. Fione?

  “Lady Zera!” Fione calls, both of them running toward us. Fione’s expression is fuzzy in my exhausted vision, but I clearly hear her choke on her next word. “V-Varia?”

  At my side, Varia’s smile grows like the sun rising over a hill.

  Exhaustion grips me—iron shackles clamping my lungs. The world becomes a blur of green grass and Malachite’s snow skin and Lucien’s and Varia’s identical midnight heads of hair and Fione’s fractured words like a stream—“A spell, a trick, no, it can’t be!”—and then the sensation of someone catching me before finally, mercifully, darkness.

  2

  Unborn Again

  You would think I’d be used to waking up in strange places by now.

  But the truth of the matter is that no one really gets used to waking up alone. There is bleary panic and utter confusion, until all the brain parts in my skull settle into place and remember for me:

  I am Zera Y’shennria, and I have betrayed the Crown Prince of Cavanos.

  A prince whose sister is still alive.

  A prince who knows I’m a monster.

  we are going to be punished. The hunger laughs, somehow quieter and more even than ever, not a trace of the instability I had after I got cut with Lucien’s blade anywhere to be heard. at last.

  Lucien’s cold gaze haunts the backs of my eyelids, the void of my unheart threatening to expand and swallow me whole.

  No.

  I am Zera Y’shennria, niece of Quinn Y’shennria. I have many weaknesses—a well-made silk dress with just the right number of ruffles, the idea of family, the idea of my heart, a warm cup of chocolate drink and a slice of cake. But I won’t allow myself to be weakened by despair.

  I shoot up to a sitting position, my spine supported by something soft. My eyes take in everything slowly, methodically: plush carpets, fragile curtains, maroon velvet and white lace adorning every inch of the room. I’m on a sofa propped between a mahogany table and an ironwood sitting chair. Vases of fresh lilies bloom next to gold sandclocks and strangely childish dolls with real curled hair and miniature silk gowns. The room has a haze of dust to it, as if it was tended to but never considered fit to live in. Until now.

  I don’t recognize the room, but I recognize the walls—how could I not? The pale cream color, the lavish embossing: this is the royal palace in Vetris. How did I get here? I try to shift my legs to the floor, but something metal yanks me back into place. Chains. Someone’s cuffed my arms and legs to the feet of the impossibly heavy ironwood sofa.

  “Well,” I say up at the ceiling, “this is new.” I rattle my chains. “Secure. I kind of like it.”

  There’s a pause as the ceiling seems to stare down at me questioningly, and I experience several riveting seconds of my new stationary life.

  “Okay,” I decide. “I hate it.”

  I twist my entire body, rocking against the cushions. I might not be strong enough to break the chains, but if I can reorient the couch—

  My stomach flips as I roll one last time, and the couch heaves, tipping over and sending me crashing to the ground. The cushions smother me, and I cough and blink up at the couch now firmly on top of me. The chains weren’t beneath the couch at all but rather hammered into the ironwood legs of it.

  I consider the positives as I’m inhaling copious amounts of goose down stuffing. I’m still alive. My body aches with effort, but it’s healed of all cuts and bruises. Gavik’s sword wound in my chest is gone. I’m left with only the exhausted feeling from fighting Gavik’s men.

  My iron determination to not succumb falters. Gavik’s men. Their body parts, strewn on the grass of the clearing. How many did I kill? Five was my old number—I murdered the five bandits who killed my parents and me. I swore I’d never kill again. And yet…

  I swallow regret. One thing at a time, Zera Y’shennria. You should know by now it’s very hard to make amends in shackles.

  I can’t send word to Y’shennria trapped like this. Who knows how many hours have passed? It must’ve been dozens, considering my wounds have been healing slower than normal thanks to the magic-suppressing white mercury wound I sustained from Lucien’s sword at the duel weeks ago. To heal such bad wounds with the connection between Nightsinger and me so weak…it must’ve taken days.

  Y’shennria might’ve told Nightsinger I’m a lost cause already—any moment now, she could shatter my heart. Unlike most, my witch is a soft thing; she doesn’t want to shatter me, but for all she knows, I’ve been caught and am being eternally tortured by the humans.

  And that’s…not too far from the truth, actually. The fact I didn’t wake up in a dungeon is promising. But waking up in the palace could mean anything. Princess Varia and Lucien obviously brought me back to question me, but that could mean torture if I don’t cooperate. And when they’re done with me, when Lucien is done with me, they’ll no doubt burn me as an enemy of all humans. Apart from the newly discovered white mercury, burning is the only way a human can slow down a Heartless’s magically fueled regeneration.

  My head still spins—why did the prince ask his sister to spare me, the traitor? Why did he ask her to appeal to the king for me?

  he wants something from you.

  The hunger echoes in my skull, as it always has, for the three years since I became Heartless. It’s a terrible, dark voice that haunts every Heartless, rushes in and fills the gaps when a witch takes our heart and makes us their immortal thrall. It wants only to kill, to maim, to feast on humans. It thrives on my sadness, my pain, kept at bay and suppressed only by my witch’s magic. On every other day that ends in a y, it wants to break me. But right now, its words ring true. Lucien is a logical person. And no logical person would ask his sister to spare someone who tried to kill him. He must want something from me. Something. What could he want now that I’m a traitor in his eyes?

  your body.

  The fracture in my willpower yawns wider and wider and then shatters me. Is that all I am to him now? A thing to be trapped and used? I can’t get the look on Lucien’s face, as he watched me transform into the monster, out of my head, the sheer horrified expressions of those men as I ripped them to nothing but shreds. After everything. After I promised to never kill again.

  My eyes brim with hot tears. “Wh-What a way to go,” I choke. “Trapped under a couch and crying.”

  pathetic, the hunger taunts. it’s better this way.

  Once more, the hunger is right. Dying is better—I’ll never have to see Lucien again. His lost trust, his disappointment in me—I’ll never see it. Malachite and Fione will learn I’m a Heartless from him, I’m sure. I won’t have to see their hurt, betrayed faces, either. I failed Nightsinger. I didn’t stop the war like I promised Y’shennria. I did nothing but let the people in my life down. I failed them all.

  And now I die for it.

  I close my eyes, a bitter peace washing over me.

  The clicking noise of someone’s tongue resounds. “Tut tut. What a mess you’ve made.”

  I squint to see through the small gap between the couch and the floor, but suddenly the couch lifts off me, and five pairs of legs in armor reveal themselves as palace guards. They put the couch to one side, the chains yanking me up and contorting my limbs painfully. But at least now I can see who the voice belongs to—Princess Varia in the flesh, her black hair sleek and combed. She no longer wears the dusty traveling robe; a brilliant shimmery purple ensemble hugs her adult curves. She is an adult, isn’t she? I’m so used to looking at her teenage death portrait, I forgot she would’ve aged in the time she was presumed dead. By five years, to be exact. He
r dark, lustrous eyes look down on me, a faint smile on her lips as she dismisses the guards.

  I have nothing to lose. I lost it all in the clearing.

  “Is this your room?” I croak. “Terribly sorry. I’d offer to take the dents out of the floor myself, but I don’t think I’ll be around much longer.”

  Varia quirks a brow and clips over to me in high riding boots. “Lucien is resting, in case you care. Malachite and Fione have graciously filled me in on everything that’s transpired. I knew you had to have bravado to even attempt to infiltrate the Vetrisian court, but I didn’t anticipate a sense of humor, too.”

  “That’s all right. After seeing what the court has to offer, I wouldn’t anticipate humor, either. Zealotry? For certain. Beauty? In spades. The ability to string two words together and make them funny? Much rarer.”

  “True,” Varia agrees, walking around me at a slow clip. “I could hire you as the court’s new laughing boy. But that would be a waste of your…talents.”

  That hungry gleam in her eyes returns as she looks me up and down. I’m reminded painfully of my position—far below her. She’s a princess, and I’m a prisoner of war at best. A thing. A body. She could do anything she wanted with me.

  I watch her walk over and stroke one of the dolls sitting on the dresser, her delicate finger coming away with dust.

  “Shame on you, and shame on the witches for taking advantage of my brother.” She sighs lightly. “Though I have to begrudgingly admit—they sent the best one for the job. They hit all his high points—blond, tall, sharp as a tack. He was doomed to lust after you from the start. And you of course went with it, because it seemed like a simple job. A bitter young man, jaded and lonely. Easy prey for someone like you.”

  She’s laid out in plain words what’s been haunting me these last two weeks. I flinch but try to sit up higher on the couch cushions.

  “How many did I…?” My dry throat breaks. “How many did I kill? In the clearing?”

  She brushes her hands off. “Nine lawguards.”

  I let out a breath. Fourteen men.

  I’ve taken the lives of fourteen men.

  there will be hundreds more, the hunger taunts.

  The princess continues. “I thought it was strange—the trees kept telling me two people had intruded on my clearing. One of them was Lucien; I was used to that. He’s been to those woods nearly every year, scouring for me.”

  I speak, brittle words a welcome distraction. “Why didn’t you say hello before, then?”

  “He asked me the same thing.” Varia shakes her head. “As if the answer isn’t obvious.”

  “Gavik,” I breathe, remembering she’s made him her Heartless. “Where is he now?”

  “Around,” the princess says cryptically. “Regardless, I saw Lucien with a girl in my clearing this time, and so I stopped to watch you two. I was thrilled at first—my brother, finally moving on from my loss and embracing love again. And then Gavik made his sordid entrance. And like an Old-God-sent miracle, you did what I couldn’t. After all those years of hating him while growing up, what I dreamed of finally happened. You dragged him out of Vetris, out of the seat of his power, and you so graciously killed him. I didn’t need to hide anymore. That’s the only reason I even deigned to listen to Lucien’s pleadings for me to ask Father to spare you—you freed me, and so I’ll keep you from the jaws of Father’s torturers. You’re welcome.”

  “I can’t take all the credit.” I force a thin smile at her. “Fione did most of the ‘dragging him out of Vetris’ bit.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Varia muses, pressing on. “Lucien…he’s always been easy to read. He was smitten with you, you know. I saw it in his eyes in the clearing, before you turned on him. But that heart wasn’t good enough for you, was it? You took what he offered and threw it under a carriage wheel.”

  Her words might as well be poisoned arrows, riddling me with holes that burn all the way through. I flinch, the chains rattling. Suddenly she kneels next to me, pulling my chin up so my ashamed eyes meet her molten ones. They burn exactly like Lucien’s—all dark brimstone.

  “I lived with the witches for five years, Heartless. I know their secrets. I know their strengths. I know the way they pull at your strings to make you dance.”

  Breathing is painful as I speak. “Get your insults in while you can. My witch is going to shatter me any moment now. That was our agreement—if I didn’t contact her, she’d assume me captured and mercy-kill me. It’s been days. My death is right around the corner.”

  “Days?” She barks a laugh in my face. “You think it’s been days?” My muscles go tauter than a crossbow string. Varia drops my chin, her cool fingers leaving my skin as she stands. “Nightsinger, right? That’s your witch’s name?”

  Something in her confident tone makes me uneasy.

  “Did you know”—the princess picks up the doll she touched earlier from the shelf—“that a Heartless is never supposed to say their witch’s name aloud to another witch?” She twines a finger in the doll’s hair lovingly. “Of course you don’t. If a Heartless says their witch’s name aloud, you’re essentially giving other witches permission to steal you away. We can use the sound to create a spell to transfer ownership. But Nightsinger never told you that, did she?”

  A cold pit hardens in my stomach. Varia twirls the doll around as if she’s dancing with it.

  “After all, what use was there? She didn’t live in the last witch enclave—Windonhigh—with the rest of the witches. She lived stubbornly alone in a forest. There were no witches who would steal you away. And she knew there’d be no witches left in Vetris to try to steal you, either. She must’ve wanted so badly to keep you under the illusion that you weren’t chained to her. A useless kindness and, in the end, one that sealed your fate.”

  Varia suddenly stops spinning and drops the doll, the porcelain body shattering into a million pieces, shards of arms and legs flying. A piece slips by my cheek and cuts it, hot blood oozing down my face. But as soon as the cut splits my flesh apart, the familiar feeling of a wound being stitched closed by magic surfaces, knitting me back together again in a blink. Faster than Nightsinger’s magic. Faster than any magic I’ve ever felt. The cold pit in my stomach blossoms into sickly horror as I look up at Varia, the princess smiling down at me.

  “Congratulations are in order, Zera. You are now the Second Heartless of the Laughing Daughter.”

  …

  It takes my brain three frozen seconds to fall into place and begin working again. It hasn’t been days. I’ve healed immediately. If I was still Nightsinger’s Heartless, it would’ve taken much longer.

  “No,” I blurt.

  “Yes,” Varia says patiently.

  “You can’t do that,” I snarl. “The Crimson Lady—that tower out there would’ve detected any magic spell you tried to do—”

  “I have someone taking care of that for me,” she chimes, kicking through the shards of the doll idly. “It’s incredible, really, who your father the king will approve for a position in that red eyesore once you rise from the dead and plead with him.”

  She has someone in the magic-detecting Crimson Lady—the polymath-controlled tower that’s kept Vetris safe from all magic and witches since it was built. I’m not entirely sure how it works, but it senses magic, and the guards perform arrests depending on the information it gives via the watertell system. The elaborate array of water-fueled pipes ferries messages to and from every corner of the city in a blink—meaning the guards can move on the information even faster. If Varia has someone in the tower covering up the information for her…

  “No one knows,” I hiss, “that you’re a witch?”

  Varia’s smile is self-satisfied. “No one but you and Lucien. I’m sure Lucien will tell his bodyguard eventually—what’s his name? Mallory?”

  “Malachite,” I snap.

  �
�Oh yes.” She shrugs. “And I’ll tell Fione when the time comes. But why are we talking about petty interpersonal affairs when we have so much to do? There’s a war brewing on the horizon, and you’re going to help me stop it. This time, without some risky gamble involving my brother’s heart. Something more secure, I think, and without so many High Witches hovering about it.”

  She sweeps over and unlocks the shackles on my arms and legs. I’m so busy staggering to my weary feet, I barely catch the cotton tunic and breeches she throws at me until they’re in my face. “Wear these. We can’t have you strutting about in bloodstained things and startling my people, now can we?”

  I stand there, paralyzed by fear, my eyes roaming over the stitches of the clean outfit, the holes of the bloodstained dress I’m wearing, and my skin through them. I’m not Nightsinger’s Heartless anymore. My reins have been forcefully taken by Varia. It was easier to resign myself to death than to consider living with my mistakes. My betrayal. But now? Now I’ll have to keep going. Now I’ll have to face the people I’ve hurt.

  And that’s far more terrifying than dying.

  “What are you waiting for?” Varia’s voice cuts through my shellshock. “Put it on. We have places to be. Don’t make me command you this early.”

  Commanding.

  A witch can order their Heartless to do anything they want. Nightsinger never used it on me or with her other Heartless—the adorable children Crav and Peligli. Godsdamnit—Crav and Peligli. How will I ever see them again? I chew on my lip and desperately try to focus; Varia isn’t Nightsinger. I saw how she commanded Gavik. I hurt her brother. In theory, she could command me to jump off a cliff into the maws of a dozen ravenous sharks and I’d have no choice but to do it.

  Slowly, my limbs moving like rusted gears, I shed my tattered black dress and pull on the tunic and breeches. The golden heart locket still sits between my collarbones, heavy and somehow comforting. I’m not sure if it works—allowing me to physically go more than a mile and a half from my witch—but just having it around my neck gives me a strange strength, warming my cold, fearful bones ever so slightly. My witch is new, my unlife is uncertain, but the necklace remains.