A Lair of Bones

by Helen Scheuerer

  ‘I’m guessing they were given copies to peruse at their leisure prior to signing,’ Harlyn said bitterly. ‘This is so —’

  ‘Unfair?’ Roh gave a dark laugh. ‘We should have known.’ She massaged her temples, shocked to find that her fingers didn’t brush her circlet, before she remembered that it wasn’t there anymore.

  Would she be forced back into one, if she didn’t become queen now? She traced her naked forehead once more. Could she go back to that?

  ‘What can I do?’ Her voice was small. Just how she felt.

  ‘You can forfeit,’ Orson said. ‘You’ve risked your life enough, Roh. Forfeit and live.’

  ‘Or,’ Harlyn interjected, her eyes fierce. ‘You can fight. Do the tasks, find the gems, become queen and punish them all, Roh.’

  The room fell silent as Harlyn’s brutal words lingered between them. Roh felt a flicker of gratitude for her friend, as she herself certainly couldn’t muster up the strength to rage the way she knew she should. All the energy she had felt in her chambers with Orson and Harlyn while they dressed had evaporated, replaced by utter exhaustion. Her limbs felt heavy from the effort of racing through the currents, but more than that, her heart felt raw and swollen, as though there was no way she’d be able to repair it or return it to its previous state where it fit snugly inside her chest.

  Ames pushed a card towards Roh. ‘These are the official rules of the next stage of the tournament, should you choose to continue.’

  Roh stared at the list before her. They had been prepared for this from the very beginning. She cleared her throat, forcing herself to sit up.

  ‘The competitor will have seven moons to obtain the three birthstones of Saddoriel. The competitor may choose up to four travelling companions to assist their quest. The competitor may be challenged thrice throughout their journey. Once for cunning, once for strength and once for magic, the very virtues cyrenkind reveres …’ Roh trailed off and scanned the tight-lipped faces around her. She knew nothing of the other cyren territories. Nothing of travel, save for the brief venture to the edge of Talon’s Reach with Odi. She ran her fingers over the crown of bones, tracing the settings where the jewels would sit. Seven moons … Seven more moons fighting for something she had already rightfully won. Her warring thoughts must have been etched across her face.

  Harlyn placed a firm hand on her forearm. ‘You wouldn’t be alone this time,’ she pointed out. ‘You can take companions with you. To help.’

  ‘But she can be challenged at any time, Har,’ Orson argued. ‘And in foreign territories. It sounds like a deathtrap.’

  ‘We said the same of the trials just past, did we not?’ Ames offered, straightening his collar.

  Together, they debated the options, as though picking apart each aspect of the trial would somehow lead them to a solid conclusion. The conversation seemed to go around and around in circles, and Roh felt more trapped here than she had her whole life in the Lower Sector. She sighed heavily. ‘I have survived three trials. Surely, I’m due to run out of luck any day now?’

  ‘Who says it’s got anything to do with luck?’ Harlyn quipped.

  ‘Doesn’t it?’

  ‘Only you know that for sure.’

  Roh glanced at Odi, who had remained quiet throughout their debates. She nudged him with her elbow. ‘You’re not going to say anything?’ she asked. ‘You’re usually all about the questions.’

  Odi gave her a blank stare. ‘You’re not officially queen.’

  ‘Is that a question?’

  Odi just continued to stare.

  ‘No,’ Roh said sharply. ‘I’m not officially queen.’

  ‘So, you can’t grant me my freedom.’

  Guilt, hot and harsh, hit Roh in the chest. ‘No … I don’t think so,’ she said, quietly this time. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Odi shrugged defeatedly. ‘Then I have nothing to ask you.’

  ‘Ignore him,’ Harlyn snapped, dismissing Odi with a wave. ‘There is hope here, Roh. Look how far you’ve already come.’

  Roh glanced between Harlyn, Orson and Ames, unable to look Odi in the eye. She was increasingly aware of the minutes ticking away, just as she had been out in the currents of the sea. With each passing moment, the pressure and panic rose within her, as the water had in Odi’s tank. She felt as though she were about to be submerged, without the ability to breathe under water.

  She massaged her aching temples again and looked to her friends in despair. ‘I just wish I knew what was right …’

  She didn’t hear the click of the door opening. ‘Perhaps a game of Thieves would help you decide.’ Neith stood in the doorway, her eyes bright.

  ‘What?’ Harlyn said, the crease in her brow deepening.

  Roh’s stomach dropped to her feet and she was wrenched back to the moment when she had placed her final cards upon the bench.

  ‘Well, Roh had some luck with that last time, didn’t she?’ Neith leaned against the doorframe, her arms folded over her chest. Long gone was the timid water runner. Here stood a cunning, vengeful cyren, who had waited until the very last moment to play her own final hand.

  Roh’s face heated. ‘Neith …’

  ‘What’s she talking about?’ Orson asked quietly.

  ‘Neith.’ Ames’ voice was low in warning. ‘Take your petty squabbles elsewhere.’

  But Ames was not Neith’s mentor. She did not answer the master of the bone cleaners.

  ‘You don’t know?’ she continued, looking at Harlyn and Orson and resting a taloned hand against her breast in mock surprise. ‘Here I was thinking she shared everything with you two.’

  Roh felt it, the moment the web of lies she’d spun began to unravel. She knew she should say something, do something to shut Neith up, but any words she offered now would be inadequate. It was too late.

  ‘Rohesia cheated,’ Neith said, her cold, triumphant gaze meeting Roh’s, her words a final knife to the heart. ‘I heard the confession from the isruhe herself.’

  A pebble skittering across the ground, echoing off the walls. Someone hadn’t been coming, someone had been there, listening to her spill her guilty guts to Odi in the passageway before the final trial. Neith.

  ‘Roh?’ Orson’s eyes were lined with silver. ‘Tell us it’s not true?’

  A palpable silence weighed over the room as Roh looked at her hands, unable to swallow the hard lump in her throat. She could feel their eyes on her, and Odi’s and Ames’, too. The beast of panic raging within clawed at her throat. She opened and closed her mouth, trying to find the words, an explanation, anything that would stop her from losing them.

  A loud shredding noise filled the air and Roh flinched. Pieces of parchment fluttered around her, tickling her face, raining down upon her shoulders and her hands resting on the table.

  ‘Of course it’s true,’ Harlyn snarled, pieces of the ripped contract still in her talons. ‘Look at her face.’

  ‘I —’

  In a flash of movement, Roh found herself shoved up against the wall, pinned there as Harlyn clenched a fistful of her shirt. ‘No,’ Harlyn cut her off. ‘I will not listen to another lie from you.’ Her words were venomous blades, cutting long and deep. ‘How could you? Has a lifetime of friendship and acceptance meant nothing to you?’

  Harlyn’s face was mere inches from her own. From the corner of her eye, Roh saw Neith give a satisfied smirk before she slipped away.

  ‘Harlyn,’ Ames’ voice sounded. ‘That’s enough. Leave her.’

  Harlyn’s grip loosened. She gave Roh a rough shove against the wall as she tore her talons from Roh’s shirt and crossed the room in two short strides. She turned back at the doorway only to look at Orson, waiting.

  Hurt shone in her friend’s glassy eyes. ‘You … you cheated us.’ Orson’s hands withdrew from the table as she stood, shaking her head.

  ‘Wait —’ Roh croaked.

  But they were gone.

  With a ragged gasp, Roh collapsed over the table, burying her head in her a
rms, fighting the onslaught of panic, struggling to take in enough air.

  ‘Roh …’ Odi’s voice sounded, his half-gloved hand gently gripping her arm. ‘Roh, you have to calm down. It will be —’

  ‘Your hour is up.’ Ames’ soft voice cut through Odi’s attempts at reassurance. ‘What are you going to do?’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A pair of fierce, green-speckled lilac eyes stared out at Roh from behind bars of bone. Dark hair, chopped at odd lengths and angles, framed an intense expression, a gaze that flicked from the jagged scar on Roh’s face to the crown of bones atop her head. Knowing she had succumbed to her weakness once more, Roh felt utterly depleted. It was against the wishes of Ames and Odi, the only two friends she had left, but she couldn’t not see Cerys, not on the cusp of this pivotal decision and not in the wake of losing her friendship with Harlyn and Orson. At the thought of them, a dull ache pulsed right at the centre of her chest, a beat of pain that dragged inside her, trying to pull her to the floor. Now, more than anything, she wanted to cry. She wanted to feel that release cleave through her. But as always, the tears did not come. Roh sighed, the noise rasping and weary, sounding as heavy as she felt. She hadn’t spoken to Cerys yet and she wasn’t sure if she was going to. Every time she did, she felt like a fool, trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. Roh had heard cyrens say that was the very definition of madness. She blinked at Cerys, whose head was tilted to one side, hands grasped around the bars of her cell.

  Madness … I certainly have some experience with that.

  Cerys was watching her intently, an unhinged smile tugging at the corner of her mouth as her eyes lingered on the hollows in the crown of bones. Roh’s fingers went to them automatically, tracing the vacant spaces, picturing the birthstones of Saddoriel as they had appeared in Delja’s coral crown. Cerys followed the movement, still smiling crookedly.

  Roh matched her mother’s stare. ‘Surprised?’

  Cerys smiled wider, her cracked lips parting, revealing surprisingly white teeth. ‘No.’

  Roh froze. An icy hand had reached inside her and clutched her heart. Her heart pounded within its grip, threatening to burst as she gaped at Cerys.

  ‘You …’ But the words wouldn’t come. After all this waiting, after all this time, the words wouldn’t come. The ice within had frozen her tongue, her mind, her ability to process what had just happened. It had sounded … like her mother had answered her question, completely lucid.

  ‘What did you …?’ Roh rasped, taking a step closer to the bars, reaching out with a shaking hand. She didn’t break eye contact, terrified that if she did, reality would come crashing in around them.

  ‘I am not surprised,’ Cerys said clearly, releasing her grip on the bones and taking a step back into the shadows of her cell, as though she couldn’t bear to have Roh close to her. ‘I am not surprised to see a crown upon your head. Nor am I surprised to see that it is not complete.’

  ‘You …’ Roh stammered again. ‘You can talk …’

  ‘She hid the stones. The keys to the tome.’

  ‘How do you …?’

  ‘He has already come.’

  Roh threw herself against the bars, clutching the lengths of bone in her hands as Cerys had done so many times before. ‘What? What do you know of the stones? Of the Tome of Kyeos?’ she pleaded. ‘Who has already come?’

  ‘Marlow,’ Cerys said simply.

  Roh’s heart sank instantly. Marlow. Her supposed long-dead uncle.

  ‘You’ll find another like him,’ Cerys prattled eagerly. ‘Another like him amidst the gilded plains.’

  ‘What do you mean, “like him”? What are the gilded plains?’

  A bark of manic laughter burst from Cerys’ lips as she leaped back, her body convulsing in an erratic dance as she dragged her ruined talons across the stone, creating an ear-piercing screech. ‘It’s begun. It’s begun!’ she sang.

  Roh shook the bars of the cell desperately. ‘Come back,’ she yelled, her voice trembling as she rattled the bones in her grip. ‘Answer me!’ But the ember of sanity was gone, Roh realised. Her mother flung her arms open grandly at the carvings on her walls, something innately childlike about her in this state, a proud nestling showing off her drawings to her education master. The etchings were more of the same: the same design over and over, layered one on top of the other, so at first they seemed like senseless scribbles, but upon closer inspection showed hundreds of mask sketches peppering the stone. Roh squinted through the bars, so that her nose nearly pressed against bone.

  All she felt was emptiness throbbing within. She released her grip on the bars and stepped back, feeling as though some part of her had been ripped away. She had to get back. Odi was waiting for her in their chambers. But as she turned away from Cerys, she found herself face to face with the dead water warlock at the centre. Roh’s blood ran cold, a small detail catching her eye. She studied the man she had seen so many times before: the blue tinge of his preserved skin, the curl of his thin lips in a half-snarl suspended in time, the specks of blood on his worn cloak – the smear of red jogged Roh’s memory and her eyes went to his hand. It was frozen in the same grip it had always been, but … What he usually held, the quartz dagger … It was gone.

  ‘He has already come …’ Roh’s skin prickled. An ancient cyren, risen to rob a water warlock’s corpse? Did Cerys see the spirits of the dead now? Whatever she saw, there was no denying that the dagger was missing. If not a ghost, then who? Who had been here before her and taken it? And why? She whirled around to Cerys, but her mother was humming an off-key tune, swaying back and forth in some strange dance. Cerys had retreated back into her madness. Would she ever return? Would they ever converse like that again? Roh shook her head, dusting off her dirty palms on her pants. She couldn’t stay down in the prison forever to find out.

  Roh stood at the opening of a dimly lit cavern, waiting for the former queen. Stark against the dripping walls was a thick, circular iron door, a large wheel at its centre, embellished with an array of intricate locks, gears and mechanisms, like the inside of a clock. The Vault. The very place Roh had wished to go during the now infamous tour. One of the most elusive parts of Talon’s Reach, so elusive that many doubted its very existence. And yet here she was, the peaks of her crown of bones casting shadows across the door to the Tome of Kyeos. For a moment, she imagined the coloured reflections of the gems there, too …

  ‘You came,’ said Delja’s silken voice as she entered the antechamber alone, her gaze snagging on the crown of bones atop Roh’s head. Her wings were nowhere to be seen, but even without her crown, the cyren looked regal. ‘You’ve made your decision …’

  Roh’s eyes went straight to the pale-gold breastplate Delja wore, honed from the very scale Roh had retrieved, had nearly died for, that Odi had nearly died for. At the sight of its pale sheen, Harlyn’s voice rang in her ears: ‘Become queen and punish them all …’

  Roh met Delja’s gaze. ‘I mean to seek the gems,’ she told her, voice steely. ‘I mean to take what I have earned, what is mine.’

  Roh could have sworn she saw a flicker of pride cross Delja’s face before the ancient cyren bowed her head. ‘So be it, Rohesia.’

  The weight of her decision spoken aloud settled around her, but somehow it was a comfort. It felt right, like armour sliding into place.

  Delja cleared her throat. ‘It is customary for the new queen to be introduced to the Tome of Kyeos.’

  Roh raised her brows. ‘New queen?’

  ‘Well, perhaps that’s not the correct title for you … yet.’ She said the last word as though it were an apology, and Roh, for the life of her, couldn’t understand the ancient cyren’s place in all this, or what she wanted.

  Delja grasped the wheel at the door’s centre with a firm grip, turning it once, twice, thrice, before stepping back. The giant door groaned loudly beneath its own enormous weight and slowly began to spin, round and round. Its detailing blurred as
it spiralled, making a whirring sound that continued to amplify to the point that Roh thought it might shoot off its invisible hinges. Just as she was about to look away to stop the dizziness, it snapped to a stop and swung outwards.

  Roh’s gaze went straight to it as they stepped inside, towards the beam of light in the heart of the chamber, illuminating the very thing she wanted most in the world. The thick tome hovered in the light, as though weightless. It held all the answers she’d ever wanted. All of them, about her mother, her father and who they had been. About what her mother had really done all those centuries ago … But without the birthstones of Saddoriel in her crown, she couldn’t so much as touch the Tome of Kyeos.

  ‘What do you know of the book and its volumes?’ Delja asked.

  Roh gazed longingly at the enchanted tome that seemed to bask in the light. ‘It contains our histories,’ she said cautiously.

  ‘We both know that’s an understatement.’

  ‘It’s all-knowing, all-seeing. It writes itself.’

  ‘That’s better.’

  ‘How much does it record?’

  ‘As much as necessary.’

  ‘What about the card game?’ Roh swallowed. ‘How I cheated in Thieves?’

  Delja nodded.

  ‘That’s a small detail for a book that contains such epic moments in our history,’ Roh said slowly.

  ‘Is it? Was it not that small detail that led you to stand where you do now?’

  Roh didn’t respond. Would this be how she was remembered? The isruhe queen whose reign began with a falsehood? What else had the book recorded? How much of it had Delja read? Did she know … Did she know what lay hidden in Roh’s satchel under her bed? Delja could no longer access the tome’s pages, but …

  As though reading her thoughts, Delja faced her. ‘Curiously, your movements stopped being recorded the moment you entered that sea serpent’s territory.’

  The moment she’d picked up the … Roh schooled her face into an expression of neutrality.

  ‘You wouldn’t know why that is, would you, Rohesia?’