The Bone Palace

by Downum, Amanda

  It had begun to snow. Fat flakes snagged on his cloak as he crossed the courtyard. The first snow of winter. If it didn’t melt, it might last clean and untrampled till the New Year, when children would build forts with it.

  Then the wind changed, carrying whispers of rage and blood and distant torches, and he knew the city wouldn’t stay clean.

  Kiril paused in front of the stables—he’d thought to beat Mathiros there, but others had beaten him in turn. The princess and the pallakis Savedra waited in the courtyard while Captain Denaris gathered horses. Isyllt was with them. Riding after Nikos, through whatever chaos Phaedra had wrought in the city.

  Isyllt lifted her head, scenting the night, and glanced unerringly toward him. She stood straight and slender as a blade, and the wind unraveled her braid in black ribbons. Through snow and shifting, torchlit shadows her eyes met his, and he felt the weight of her name on his lips.

  She turned from him, the shape of her shoulders a shutting door.

  CHAPTER 20

  Isyllt had no time to regret walking away from Kiril; as soon as they neared the palace gates she knew something was wrong. A moonless night, but snowlight washed the sky soft and grey as a mourning dove’s breast. Except to the east, where clouds seethed red and angry. Something was burning.

  “Don’t go out there, ladies,” called a guard at the gates. “Oldtown is rioting.”

  “What happened?” Isyllt asked, drawing rein. Her gelding, a compact warmblood, responded easily. These were the same sort of horses the Vigils used, bred to be nimble on city streets, and unflinchingly calm above all else.

  “We’ve only rumors still,” another said, “but word is that some opera singer turned up dead, her throat slit. A Rosian girl. Now all of Cab—Little Kiva is up in arms.”

  Some opera singer. A Rosian girl. Isyllt remembered Anika Sirota’s pale pretty face raised in song, remembered the thunder of applause as the curtains fell. Oh yes, Little Kiva would rise to avenge her death, or to give her a pyre worthy of an opera.

  “Shadows take them,” Isyllt swore. At the moment, she meant it for the murderers and the vengeful refugees alike.

  “Thank you for the warning,” Savedra said, steering her black mare closer. “We’ll be careful.”

  The guards looked at one another unhappily, but finally unbarred the gates and let the riders pass.

  The city was dark and silent, though Isyllt glimpsed faces peering through shutters as they passed. The closer they grew to Oldtown, the more citizens left their homes to see what was happening. Spirits clustered too, shadows moving across rooftops, iridescent ripples in the air at the corners of Isyllt’s vision. Nothing that could challenge her, but she’d lay odds that more than one of the gawkers would come to harm before morning.

  Snow caught and melted in her horse’s sorrel mane; it had begun to stick to the cobbles and eaves, softening the lines of houses. As they neared the city’s heart, the flakes that drifted over them were grey and unmelting—ash.

  They passed Vigils and a few brave runners as they rode, and pieced the story together one scrap at a time. Sirota’s body had been found at sunset, sprawled on a street outside Little Kiva. The crowd that gathered ran to the nearest police station, only to be turned away because of the day and the hour. Shouting turned to thrown rocks; windows were smashed. It only worsened from there. Most hearths were cold on the dead days, but they still found fire for their torches. Now Oldtown was burning and Vigils and citizens alike were dead, but no one knew how many.

  The last runner they met was a boy no older than fourteen, cocky with youth and the urgency of his news, blind to the grinning spirit perched on his shoulder. Skrals, her mother had called such, malicious spirits usually too weak to cause harm. This one bared ephemeral black teeth in a grin, daring Isyllt to challenge it.

  She could have destroyed it easily, or banished it beyond the city walls. But Ashlin and Denaris were already urging their horses on, and she had no time. She let a little of the night’s chill into her heart, and rode on.

  The smell of ash worsened as they neared the city’s heart, and the shouts and crashes grew louder. The sorrel flicked his ears but didn’t slow. At the end of the street they met a police barricade; torchlight washed the Vigils’ orange coats bloody. Constables wheeled at their approach. Isyllt caught the shine of a raised pistol before Captain Denaris rode forward in her white-and-grey uniform.

  “What’s going on, Sergeant?” asked the captain, finding the coat with the most black bars on the sleeve. Isyllt kept her eyes on the nervous constable.

  “The refugees started the riot, but now half of Birthgrave has joined in.” The woman spat in the thickening snow. “Those bastards are always looking for a reason to start trouble. Now they’re looting and burning anything they come across.”

  Isyllt’s hands ached. Leather creaked, and she realized she was twisting the reins. How often had this woman ever been in Birthgrave? Orangecoats were notoriously rare on those streets, especially when trouble was near. Her horse snorted, unimpressed by her temper, and she forced her shoulders to relax.

  “No,” said the sergeant in response to something Denaris had said. “This is our jurisdiction, Captain, and we’re not opening this barricade. Find another way in. Or better still, go home.”

  “Is there another way?” Savedra asked, leaning close.

  Isyllt shook her head. “It would cost us hours at this rate.”

  “We don’t have hours!”

  “Don’t worry.” She tugged off her right glove. “I’ll get us through.”

  Ghostlight flared brighter than the torches. This the horses didn’t like, but she stroked her gelding’s neck and he held steady.

  “You’re correct about jurisdiction, Sergeant.” The witchlight’s pale glare washed the woman’s face sallow and ghastly, and showed her fear very well indeed. “But the royal guard and the Arcanost would both appreciate your assistance in this matter.”

  The sergeant’s resolve folded before Isyllt could press further. “Of c-course, Necromancer.” She lifted a hand, but her men were already scurrying to move a section of the barricade.

  Isyllt smiled; the cold made her teeth ache. Denaris led her horse through the gap, and Ashlin and Savedra followed. Isyllt’s cruelty wasn’t entirely spent. “Thank you, Sergeant. We would welcome assistance, if you have anyone to spare.”

  “I—” The other Vigils shifted backward nervously while their leader stammered. “That is, my men are needed here, to hold the line.”

  “Of course.” She nudged her horse toward the barricade, then paused. “Oh, have you any word of Inspector Shar’s cohort?”

  The sergeant shook her head. “I think they were among the first to respond, so they may be deeper inside this mess. Beyond that—” She shrugged.

  Isyllt nodded and urged her gelding through the gap. The Vigils were replacing the barricade as his tail cleared the opening.

  Once Isyllt would have thought the scene inside something from a nightmare, a Mortificant’s vision of hell. She’d seen worse since, but not much. Flames licked from rooftop to rooftop, and gouts of smoke shredded in the wind to choke them. Snow was trampled to slush, grey with dirt and ash and sometimes dark with blood. Broken glass glittered vermilion amid the filth.

  “Saints!” gasped Savedra, even as Isyllt’s ring chilled with a different flavor of death.

  Gaunt shapes crouched on a rooftop across from the barricade, eyes blazing by firelight. Razor teeth flashed with their laughter. Vrykoloi, at least four. More than Isyllt had ever seen outside of the catacombs. Spider’s young rebels, come to feast in the chaos.

  “What are they?” Ashlin asked, her hand on her sword.

  “Vampires.”

  “What do we do?”

  “Ride on,” Isyllt said, her mouth dry and bitter with smoke. “We have no time, and we’re not their prey tonight.”

  Ashlin’s eyes narrowed. “Who is?”

  “Anyone without swords or spells.”
Isyllt set heels to her unhappy horse, leading them deeper into the burning quarter.

  They passed tendrils of the mob, shouting and smashing windows and pounding on doors, and smaller clusters of looters. Some families fled burning apartments; others lingered, faces ghostly behind barred windows. Praying, no doubt, that fire and violence passed them by. Victims and instigators both turned to the riders, but Denaris urged them all away. She and Ashlin carried naked blades, the steel not yet stained—boots and warnings and the bulk of their mounts would only protect them so long.

  When hands closed on Isyllt’s leg and tried to unseat her, she conjured ghostlight, a web of unearthly fire that unfolded around the four riders. Her attackers fell back, crying out as the cold singed them. The horses whickered and drew closer together, away from the web, but their steady canter didn’t slow till they reached Desolation Circle and the grey bulk of the Hecatomb wall.

  “Isyllt!”

  She tugged on the reins, turning to look down at Khelséa’s blood-and-ash-smeared face. She let the web fall.

  “Are you all right?” Isyllt asked. The inspector’s pistol was in her hand, her face dull beneath the mask of grime.

  “Oh, splendid. I’m glad you made it to the party.” Her eyes glittered in the too-near firelight as she glanced at Denaris and Ashlin and Savedra. “And in such company, too.”

  “We need inside the palace, Khels.”

  “Are you looking for the king?”

  Ashlin and Savedra swung around in an identical motion. “Is he here?” Ashlin asked, leaning over her horse’s neck.

  Khelséa nodded. “He came through with three octads of soldiers.” Her mouth twisted, the grimace ghastly in the shifting shadows. “They rode warhorses—the crowds didn’t have a chance. They broke open the main gate—I think his men are still guarding it.”

  A frown passed between the four riders.

  “We would prefer not to meet the king just yet,” Isyllt said. “Is there another way in?”

  “Follow me.”

  Khelséa led them to the walls of the ruined palace, where a handful of her cohort had put their backs to the stone. Beside them was a wagon carrying lumber and sandbags, the makings of a barricade. The cart’s horse was nowhere in evidence, severed harness straps hanging uselessly against the ground.

  “It’s not graceful,” Khelséa said, gesturing toward the cart as Isyllt swung down from the saddle, “but you can brace the planks and climb to the top. I’m not so sure about the drop on the other side.”

  Isyllt stared up at the walls—twenty feet high, at least, granite blocks moss-veined and weathered smooth. The ice and rusty iron that crowned them glittered bloody in the firelight.

  “Do we have ropes?” Ashlin asked.

  Khelséa shook her head. “Not enough to lower you safely. I wouldn’t trust the rock not to slice them, anyway. You can take your chances with the king’s guard, but the gate is on the far side of the circle.”

  “Blood and iron. All right,” Ashlin said. “This is the fastest way.”

  “No!” Savedra’s hand closed on the princess’s arm. “You can’t risk it, not with—”

  A weighted glance passed between them. “Hush, ma chrí,” the princess said softly. “You can’t coddle me forever. Besides, I’ve done this sort of thing before. The trick is to crumple and roll when you land—don’t try to keep your feet.”

  Isyllt and Denaris left them to argue and helped the Vigils brace the lumber against the wall. Between the cart and the boards they had just enough height to reach the top of the wall.

  “Nikos won’t thank me if I get his wife and mistress killed trying to rescue him,” the captain muttered as they hoisted planks.

  “They’ll kill themselves just as easily without you,” Isyllt said.

  Denaris went first, scrambling up the makeshift ramp and leaping the last few inches with the grace of a girl a third her age. Isyllt held her breath as the woman’s boots scrabbled for purchase on slick stones, but with one good hoist the captain hauled herself up and writhed between the spikes.

  They waited when she disappeared over the edge, ears straining against the cacophony of the riots. After a moment with no screams, Ashlin shrugged and started up.

  The princess waited at the top to help Savedra, who was hampered by skirts. When Ashlin’s fair hair vanished from sight, Isyllt began her own ascent. Splinters caught and broke in her leather gloves, speared through her trousers into her knees. Plays and operas were full of sorcerers who flew on cunning wire contraptions—she would have traded all the souls in her ring for one of those now. Her crippled hand slipped on the top of the wall, but Savedra caught her wrist and tugged while Isyllt wedged her toes into chinks.

  They balanced precariously at the top, holding each other as snow danced and spun around them. Isyllt laughed, and the wind whipped the sound away.

  “You’re as bad as Ashlin,” Savedra gasped, steadying herself against a corroded iron spike.

  The top of the wall was a yard across; a small mercy in the ice-slick dark. Several spikes had rusted away, leaving only jagged nubs of iron protruding from the stone. Peering over the edge, Isyllt saw Ashlin waving. The ground was a shadowed tangle of snow and briars and saints only knew what else.

  “Go on,” she told Savedra. “They’re waiting.”

  “You go first.” The woman’s hair had come free of its pins, tangling around her face in a wild black cloud. Her face was grey as the falling ashes beneath.

  “And leave you alone, too scared to jump or climb back down?”

  Savedra scowled, but didn’t deny it. “I can’t do this.”

  “Oh, yes you can, Pallakis. Your prince is waiting in there, remember?” She swept one arm toward the shadowed white ruin.

  “Damn you,” Savedra whispered. And, more softly, “Thank you.” She edged closer to the drop. “What do I do?”

  “Hold on and lower yourself down. Push off and let go, and remember to crumple when you hit the ground.”

  “Easy for you to say,” she muttered, but sank to her knees and backed slowly toward the edge, both hands white-knuckled on the barbs. “Oh, saints—”

  She shrieked as she let go, followed by a muffled whump from below. Isyllt gave the others a moment to drag her out of the way.

  The fall lasted long enough for her to regret every part of this plan. Then the ground met her boots with a jolt, and the shock of landing rippled up her legs and spine and snapped her head back. She rolled, curling her arms around her head as a knot of brambles stopped her. She lay still, winded and throbbing, while black and red spots swam across her eyes. When she had her first breath back she spent it on curses. The taste of copper filled her mouth; she’d bitten her tongue.

  “I am never doing that again,” Savedra muttered somewhere nearby. Ashlin laughed.

  “I’ll make an adventurer of you yet,” the princess said.

  Isyllt sat up, wincing at the rectangular bruise her kit had left on her hip. A heartbeat later she realized the ringing in her ears wasn’t from the fall—it was silence.

  The noise of the riots ended at the wall; within the stone boundary, a preternatural hush reigned. A red fog drifted over them, spice-sweet and charnel. Isyllt coughed as the smell coated her nose and mouth, mingling with the taste of blood. Savedra gagged, muffling the sound with one hand. A conjured witchlight did nothing to drive back the haze, only stained it porphyry.

  “Saints and specters,” Denaris gasped, and Isyllt frowned at the strain in her voice. “What is that?”

  “Phaedra’s magic.” She rose to her knees, peering through the red-tinged darkness till she found the captain sitting at the base of the wall. “Meant to disorient anyone who makes it this far. What’s wrong?”

  The woman snorted. Her face glistened with sweat, and a muscle jumped in her jaw. “My ankle. Broken, I think. I’m too old for tumbling.”

  “Shadows,” Savedra breathed. “What can we do?”

  “Go on,” she said. “Fi
nd the prince and take care of this witch. Then send me some handsome soldiers with a litter, and tell stories of my valor.” Her hands shook as she touched her injured leg, belying the words.

  Isyllt nodded. “Stay here. Stay quiet. You may see things in the shadows, spirits trying to trick you. Ignore them. Even if they look like your dearest friend.” She brushed her hand across the woman’s slick brow and whispered a word of obfuscation.

  “Keep them safe, necromancer,” Denaris whispered, closing her eyes.

  Isyllt looked at the seething crimson fog, at the ruins rising from it like a giant’s bones. “We’re far past safe, Captain.”

  The silence didn’t last. The fog was full of spirits, hissing and chittering and laughing as the three women pressed deeper into the ruin. Voices carried through the haze, some frightened and angry, some tearfully imploring. Isyllt heard Dahlia’s voice pleading for help, and Ciaran’s, and Khelséa’s. From the grim expression Ashlin and Savedra shared, they heard their own loved ones in danger.

  They tried to follow paths, but the stones were cracked and overgrown, and turned or ended unexpectedly. Crumbling walls and broken pillars loomed around them, and voices mocked them from the shadows. The fog thickened, till the world drowned in red an armspan all around. The echo of sour magic lessened in the open air, but the pulse of it from the ground still made Isyllt’s stomach twist and drove a splinter of pain between her eyes. Amidst all the distractions, she felt someone watching, a familiar whisper at the edge of her awareness. Spider.

  “We could be going in circles,” Savedra said after they stumbled through a second knot of thorns. Her eyes were liquid, her jaw clenched tight. Ashlin’s free hand reached for hers and squeezed.

  “Here.” Isyllt drew her exorcist’s kit from her coat pocket and fumbled a silk-wrapped lump from the leather wallet. Phaedra’s ruby glittered as she unfolded it. “Take this. It will seek out its own.”