The Bones of the Earth

by Rachel Dunne

  She thought on that a while, before finally asking, “But your old friends, they’re looking for these pieces, too?”

  “They are.”

  “So I suppose putting Fratarro back together would make him strong again, and that’d make Sororra strong, yeah? That’s what they’re trying to do?”

  “That’s a piece of it,” Joros said. Reluctant as he was to admit it, she was hard to stop once she began chewing on a puzzle, and seemed to have a knack for solving problems—those could be useful qualities in a follower, if cultivated properly. “The Twins need to be restored to power and freed.”

  “So everyone knows how to get ’em back to power,” Rora mused. “Do the Fallen know how to free them?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Do you?”

  “I believe the leaders of the Fallen know of a way to free the Twins, provided Fratarro is pieced back together, and provided they have a pair of mortal twins.”

  That jostled the merra to attention, her head swinging up to look at him sharply. “You ‘believe’?” she repeated. She was close enough that she could reach out to touch the two patches of red sewn over Joros’s heart, and her fingers felt like fire even through his black robe, like a bellows into the furnace of his anger. She didn’t seem to notice the flare in his eyes. “You were one of the Ventallo, weren’t you? Shouldn’t you know?”

  “The Ventallo are very careful with their secrets,” Joros snapped. “Only Uniro holds the entirety of the Fallen’s knowledge.”

  “What do they need twins for?” Aro asked, breaking his silence.

  Joros could have throttled him for that question. It had been easy enough, until now, to keep Rora and Aro pacified with vague promises of possibilities and plans that might never come to fruition . . . but now he was left with those last-gasp plans, and running out of room to avoid giving the twins uncomfortable answers. Still, there was plenty of room between an outright lie and the complete truth—plenty of room, even, between the complete truth and enough of the truth.

  “Mortal vessels,” Joros said, and both twins stared at him blankly. Joros pinched the bridge of his nose. “Even if Fratarro is made whole, the Twins’ bodies are too damaged to be of any real use to them. I believe that the solution, and the course of action the Ventallo plan to follow, is to give the Twins human bodies to inhabit, human twins to act as their hosts.”

  Rora and Aro exchanged looks, a whole conversation passing silently between them. Joros scrambled to think how he could keep them from leaving if they turned uncooperative, nudged Anddyr with his boot to ready the mage for any containing he needed to do . . .

  “So that’s what we’re for, yeah?” Rora asked.

  “If we get to the point where I need you to play host to the Twins, then everything else has gone horribly wrong.”

  “But that’s why you brought us along. Why you need us.”

  Joros popped his jaw, wading carefully through the layers of truth. “Yes. But it would only be for a short time. Only long enough for Anddyr to fight the Twins on more equal footing.”

  “Right,” she said, and stared down at her hands. When she looked back up, there was a sharpness in her eyes. “Right. So this is the big secret. Doesn’t seem like too good a secret, if you could figure it out.”

  “There are likely other components I don’t know. A ritual. I can guess at the shape of their plan, but I don’t know the details.”

  “But you said there’s only the one man, this Uniro, who does know all of it? Just one man who knows how to bring back the Twins?”

  “Possibly. No more than five others know the whole of it, I would guess.” Joros’s thoughts were skipping ahead, the same thoughts he could see flickering behind Rora’s eyes.

  “So no more’n five people knowing this one secret . . . and I’m guessing all of ’em live nice and convenient in this big mountain you keep talking about, yeah?”

  They reached the same conclusion within moments of each other, eyes locked in understanding.

  Vatri looked between them, a frown making deeper creases in her fire-scarred face. “What? What are you thinking?”

  “It’d be easier,” Rora said, “than hunting all around, trying t’find the pieces and burn ’em and fighting any of the preachers who found ’em first.”

  “What would be?” the merra demanded.

  Joros almost smiled. “Killing the Ventallo.”

  In the silence that followed, Anddyr resumed his typical mumbling, the ravings of a madman.

  Vatri’s mouth hung open in shock. “You’re talking of murder,” the merra finally said. “Cold-blooded murder.”

  “Blood’s plenty warm,” Rora said. The women had reached a strange sort of peace after trying to persuade the Northman to stay with them, but it seemed that time had passed. They glared at each other with renewed animosity.

  “We’re talking about keeping the Twins bound,” Joros said levelly. “That’s your wish, too, is it not?”

  The merra shook her head, not in denial, but as though the movement could jar the words into making better sense. “You know where to find Fratarro’s limbs. You said destroying them will keep the Twins from their powers.”

  “And I believe it would, provided we could find the limbs first, which is far from a guarantee. The hand we found was fairly far-flung, and if my . . . former colleague was able to track it down, others have had just as much time to find the other limbs. For all I know, the rest have been found.”

  “You could find out.” Vatri reached her hand toward the pouch at Joros’s hip. It held the sliced-off toe from one of Fratarro’s legs, which Joros had stolen from the Ventallo on his departure as a key of sorts, a way for Anddyr to search for the god after Valrik had stolen the seekstones from them. She was wise enough to pull her hand back before touching the pouch. “Like calls to like, you said. Anddyr could search for the other pieces, see if they’ve been found yet.”

  “He could,” Joros agreed, and made no move to give Anddyr the pouch.

  “It’d still be a lot of hunting around,” Rora said, “even if none of the other pieces’ve been found. That’s a lot of time.”

  Vatri spat toward Rora, her spittle fizzling in the fire. “Eager to kill, are you?”

  “Eager to be away from you. To get my life back.” Rora suddenly yelped in surprise, loud enough that fear quickly swallowed them all, until Joros’s searching eyes finally found the reason: Anddyr crouched near Rora, clutching at her arm, his face twisted in the throes of the drug that kept him docile.

  “Raturo never sleeps,” the mage hissed desperately. “It knows, it always knows . . .”

  Joros reached between Rora and the fire to swat at Anddyr until the mage crept away, taking his mumbling to the edge of the firelight’s circle. Rora rubbed absently at her arm where the mage had grabbed her, staring after his curled form. “I take it he’s met your old friends, then?”

  “Anddyr has been my servant for many years.”

  Vatri spat again, making the flames dance. “It seems like following you around doesn’t do anyone much good.”

  Joros felt his teeth grinding, forced them to stop. “I’ll remind you again,” he said tightly, “that I didn’t ask you to be here. You’re welcome to return to your Northman. I can promise we won’t miss you.”

  “I’m here to do the Parents’ bidding,” the merra said with a glare. “We have the same goal, shocking as that may be, so I’ll see this through to the end. But I can’t condone murder.”

  “It really doesn’t matter what you can or can’t condone.”

  “Five people?” The soft voice sounded like Rora’s, but it came from the other side of the fire. Her twin alternated between never speaking and speaking too much, no middle ground for that one. He was staring into the flames with the same intensity as the merra when she searched for the future. “Out of how many of these leaders?”

  “There are twenty of the Ventallo,” Joros said.

  “Not counting you?”

  “I’m very
certain I’ve been replaced by this point.”

  “Then not counting the ones out looking for limbs.”

  “Yes. There will be fifteen of the Ventallo inside Raturo.”

  Aro’s eyes finally lifted to meet his sister’s over the flickering tips of the fire. “Fifteen isn’t all that much more than five.”

  Rora was looking at him, thoughts racing behind her eyes once more. “If we’re talking of killing—” Vatri spat, and Rora threw her a brief glare “—the thing is to not leave loose ends. If we kill the five who know the most secrets, that still leaves plenty of others to try to find those secrets again. But if we kill everyone who even knows the secrets exist . . .”

  “You truly are shaped in the Twins’ image,” Vatri growled.

  Rora’s hands turned to fists at her sides, and Joros thought he saw a flash of metal in one of them. “I’ve spent my whole life hiding from your people, who’d kill me without even thinking, just for what my face looks like. I bet you’d take a knife to me, too, if I gave you half a chance. How’s that any less murder?”

  “Abomination, twisting my words—”

  “How many babies’ve you killed, huh? Is it less murder if they only get in three breaths before you throw ’em in a river?”

  “I’ve never—”

  “Does it count if they don’t even cry before you kill ’em?”

  “Enough!” Joros said, raising his voice over both of theirs. They fell into sulky silence, glaring over the fire.

  Aro slid closer to his sister, put an arm around her. Joros saw that flash of metal again, from one hand to another and away. Together the twins looked at the merra, their faces like a mirror, one hard and one soft. Unbidden, Joros thought of the great archway within Mount Raturo, stern Sororra’s face all angles and anger, Fratarro’s made with kinder lines. He thought, too, of another set of twins who’d shaped their faces to match those on the arch.

  “I would’ve expected you’d be happier about the thought of breaking up the Fallen,” Aro said softly across the fire. There wasn’t sympathy in his eyes, but there was less hate than in his sister’s. “Get rid of all your enemies, and you can spend the rest of your days singing praises to the Parents without a care in the world.”

  “The Parents do not condone murder.”

  Rora snorted. “Unless it’s their own kids, hey?”

  “They have enough love in their hearts that they could not bring themselves to exterminate even the most vile of creatures.”

  That brought a laugh from Rora. “It’d be nice if they passed that love on to their followers.”

  “Enough,” Joros said again, rubbing his hands over his face. When he dropped them, he looked to the merra. “This is my mission. We will do as I see fit, and I promise you, murder is not the darkest thought to cross my mind. If you will not keep your mouth closed, then leave. We don’t need you here.”

  She returned his glare. They’d reached their own sort of accord, after burning Fratarro’s hand, a peace borne by joint purpose. Already, though, that accord had frayed, shattered. That didn’t particularly bother Joros, but he could see her hurt lurking behind the eyes that were too pretty for her ugly face. That didn’t particularly bother him either. “I’m not leaving,” she said, soft but firm.

  “Then have the decency to remain silent.”

  She was wise enough to take that advice, turning her face to the flames.

  It was Aro, again, who broke the silence, speaking directly to his sister. “Fifteen’s too many for you alone.”

  Rora barked a laugh. “What, are you gonna help?”

  “No. But I know who can.”

  Her head snapped up, and there was something on the edge of fear in her voice. “No.”

  Aro turned away from her, leaning toward Joros, face earnest and the words tumbling out. “We lived in Mercetta, below Mercetta, I guess—”

  “Shut your fecking face, Aro!”

  “—and we know people. Plenty of people, fists and knives—”

  “Aro, stop!” She grappled at him, trying to cover his mouth—or, possibly, to punch him. It was hard to tell.

  “—people who are real good at killing for the right amount of coin.”

  Rora shoved him down into the snow, surged to her feet. “Damnit, Aro!” She stomped in a tight circle, her anger hotter than the fire.

  Joros watched it all with a raised eyebrow, waiting as Aro sat back up and Rora pushed him over again, waiting until Rora’s cursing had run its course. When her anger had burned down to coals, Joros said, “We’ll turn toward Mercetta in the morning.”

  “Like hells we will!”

  “We will,” Joros said, regarding her calmly. “Your brother’s right. You alone can only do so much, and Anddyr is . . . unreliable. If you have skilled contacts—”

  “We don’t, not ones that’d do us any favors anyway. They’d just as like—”

  “Quiet,” Joros snapped. “I understand difficult pasts. But you are under my protection and, more importantly, in my employ. If you wish for either to remain true, you will bring me to these ‘fists and knives’ you know, and help me persuade them to our cause. Do you understand me?”

  Her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides. He saw her realize there weren’t many options, and her shoulders slumped ever so slightly. “Yeah, cappo,” she said, dropping down to the ground—not too near her brother, and certainly not near the merra, who was smirking. “I understand.”

  “Good.” Joros wrapped his cloak tight around himself and lay back, staring up at the stars winking in the night sky. He was confident that this night had shattered any closeness that had formed in their little group. That was as it should be. In times of war—and if it wasn’t war yet, it certainly would be soon enough—trust was a luxury that none could afford.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The grass rose like a wavering wall, surrounding Keiro on all sides, shielding him from the world and the world from him. It had even swallowed the path his careful feet had borne, stalks springing back upright as though they had never been touched. Sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest, with only the green-brown of the grass and the sky stretching blue above, Keiro could feel as though he truly were separated from everything, lost among the rippling Plains.

  Teeth closed over the smallest toe on his right foot, and Keiro grinned down at the lithe gray form wrapping itself around his ankle. Cazi always found him, no matter how far he walked into the grass, no matter how high the stalks reached. The mravigi chirped at him, too young for speech, though Keiro thought he conveyed himself well enough. Keiro stretched his hand down and Cazi scampered into his palm, small still but growing so that he was almost too big for Keiro to hold in one hand now, almost too heavy to lift. He placed the little beast on his shoulder, claws pricking Keiro’s scalp as the Starborn stretched his snout farther toward the disk of the sky. His tiny wings, nearly translucent, fluttered in the air.

  Keiro hadn’t seen any other mravigi as young as Cazi; he’d glimpsed some that were larger, though not yet full grown, but they had been as wingless as all the other Starborn he’d seen. Cazi seemed to be an anomaly among them. He would ask Tseris more about it, if she ever came to speak to him again.

  Day after day he’d spent wandering the rolling hills, so incongruous in the flat Plains, but any mravigi braving the daylight scattered before Keiro could get close enough to them. He had called Tseris’s name, as she had bid him, but the only response he ever received was young Cazi twining around his ankles. The mravigi would not speak to him, and his gods had not summoned him, and he felt a stranger again among the plainswalkers.

  Easier, by far, to walk. To follow the beckoning of an open space, to see how long it would take Cazi to hunt him down. Walking made his heart feel light, kept his doubts at bay. Always, though, his feet led him back to the tribehome, where the children would beg him for a story as their parents watched from the sides of their eyes. Cazi never followed him there, always disappearing back into the
grass sea before Keiro’s feet touched the flattened stalks of the tribehome.

  Later, he and Cazi would part. For now, though, the day was new, and there was an itching in Keiro’s feet.

  He stood, Cazi rocking on his shoulder but keeping his balance. The mravigi pulled himself onto the very top of Keiro’s head with claws like needles, long tail winding around Keiro’s neck as he stretched himself forward like the prow of a ship. Cazi seemed to love the faint rush of air against his scaly face as Keiro walked. It made Keiro smile—such a little thing, and so easy, to give so much joy.

  It had been some days since last he had wandered over the hills, and so Keiro set off in that direction, the prick of tiny mravigi claws in his scalp as comforting as the hard ground beneath his feet, and the air in his face a simple joy worth savoring.

  The hills were desolate as always, the grass rolling like waves up and down the hummocks of land. Keiro wondered what tale Yaket had spun to keep her plainswalkers from ever wandering onto the hills, for none of them ever came close to the gentle slopes. Occasionally Keiro caught a blur of black, usually followed by a chirp from Cazi, as some other Starborn scurried out of sight.

  “Tseris,” Keiro called quietly. Even a whisper would carry over the hills. “I am here. I would speak with you.” Cazi trilled, as though trying to echo Keiro’s words, but there was no other response.

  Keiro had counted the days as they spun by, and he knew it had been almost a full moon-turn since he had emerged from beneath the largest hill, since he had met his gods. He was a patient man, but every man had his limits, and Keiro was near overflowing with questions. There was an aching in him that he could not give words to—it was in the place where a soft-voiced undercurrent had run always, a voice whispering into the void: Find me. The voice was gone now, for Keiro had found him, found poor lost Fratarro, but the need still thrummed in him. Each passing day that his gods did not summon him was like a stone in his soul.