The Bone Maker

by Sarah Beth Durst

  Maybe Zera would give them an extra day to deal with all their issues. And an extra day to quit feeling so . . . she wouldn’t say “hurt.” That was giving Kreya too much power over her. An extra day to quit feeling so disappointed. But then she’d go back.

  Of course she would.

  Wouldn’t she?

  After dealing with a few business details and soaking in a bath, Zera retired to her room. She collapsed into her bed with a sigh and then stretched like a cat. It felt wonderful after the last few uncomfortable nights. She was almost sorry when Guine let himself into the room—he’d take up a portion of the bed, and she wasn’t inclined to share.

  “You don’t plan to stay in Cerre?” he asked.

  She hadn’t told him her plan to return to Stran’s farmhouse. “What makes you say that?”

  “You completed all the payment forms for the next three weeks. I know because I filed them.”

  Ahh, yes, he was not as dumb as he looked. Sometimes it was difficult to remember that. Zera smiled. “A vacation. It’s been a while since I’ve taken one.”

  “You’ve never taken one. I’m pleased to hear it. I have thought for a while you work too hard.” Dropping his robe, he climbed nude into bed beside her. She decided she didn’t mind sharing the bed after all as he began to massage her shoulders. “But you were away already, and you don’t seem rested. In fact, I see bruises.” He gently kissed a bruise on her upper arm. She hadn’t even noticed that one was there.

  “It was a far more active visit than I’d expected,” she admitted.

  “And was your friend in danger?”

  “She needed my assistance, and I helped her.” And him. She thought of Jentt and how amazing it was to see him again. He was exactly how she remembered him. Prior to dying, of course.

  “Does she need your help again?”

  Guine was indeed smarter than he looked. Also, he excelled at getting the knots out of her muscles. She curled to give him better access to her back. “She might.”

  “Haven’t you given her enough of your time? She was your friend decades ago. That hardly obligates you to jeopardize your health for her.” He paused, adding as if afraid she’d be offended, “I only say this because I worry.”

  “I’m not as young as I used to be, am I?”

  “You are twice as beautiful.”

  She smiled. “Good save.”

  He returned to massaging her. “What I mean to say is that you’ve built a life here. This is your future. She’s your past. You don’t owe her anything more, but you owe yourself, what you’ve built and created in the years since you knew her, as much as you can give.”

  Zera rolled over to face him, as a sudden thought occurred to her. “You missed me.”

  He took the opportunity to kiss her. She let the kiss continue for a while, nearly distracting her from the topic at hand, but then she pushed back and said, “Is that what this is really about? You missing me? I warned you not to fall in love with me. I bore easily and will break your heart.”

  “What about your heart?” He laid his hand on top of her heart. “I won’t break that. Can you say the same about your friend, the same friend who abandoned you for twenty-five years? You were so angry with her. So hurt. I don’t want you hurt again.”

  She considered that. What did she owe Kreya, Jentt, Marso, and Stran? Yes, they had been a team long ago. And together they’d done their best to protect Vos.

  It was tempting to stay with Guine, be the successful bone wizard, and leave Eklor and the fate of Vos to the next set of heroes hungry to make a name for themselves. As far as she knew, that could be the very conclusion that her old friends were reaching in the farmhouse: perhaps it was time for another team now to step forward and sacrifice. If Eklor lived, then others should face him. He was no longer their responsibility.

  Except that he was.

  Defeating him was her greatest achievement. It was what she’d built her empire on. Once it was known he lived, all this adoration could disperse like a cloud in wind. That’s not true, she thought. My life’s work is not so fragile. There had to be another reason why she felt the pull to return. “You don’t know Kreya. She wants me to come back, and I can’t say no.”

  “You can say no to me,” Guine said.

  She wondered if she was truly breaking his heart by leaving again so soon, even though it wouldn’t be permanently. She doubted it. “Yes, that’s true, isn’t it?”

  “You’re breaking my heart.”

  “But I’m not, am I? You don’t love me, Guine, do you?”

  “Of course I do!”

  “The truth.”

  He hesitated. “I admire you. I enjoy you.”

  She should have been disappointed to hear it, but instead she felt relieved. He wouldn’t suffer while she was gone. “Kreya needs me.”

  “I think it isn’t about Kreya at all. I think she’s an excuse. You want to go for you.”

  That was a troubling thought. It was much easier to simply blame Kreya. The idea that Zera would want to put herself in danger again . . . It was absurd.

  I’m returning for the sake of my friends. And my reputation. And the future of Vos. She certainly wasn’t returning to the farmhouse for any other reason.

  “You want a second chance at being a hero,” Guine said, far too perceptive for a man who was so often shirtless. “But you don’t need one. You’re a hero in my eyes already.”

  “And you . . . talk too much.” While her hands caressed his lovely muscles, Zera kissed him until he stopped talking and she stopped thinking.

  At dawn, Zera stocked her coat with all the talismans she thought they’d need. She hadn’t had time to make more, but she had a healthy supply to draw from. Plenty of strength talismans for Stran, plenty of speed talismans for Jentt, and an assortment of others that could come in handy if Kreya persuaded everyone to return to the plains.

  Using a bit of a speed talisman herself, she departed Cerre without looking back and traveled across multiple mountains to Stran’s farmhouse. She had plenty of time for second and third thoughts on her journey, and she also had plenty of time to decide that Guine was right:

  She wasn’t doing this for Kreya or Vos or even her reputation.

  I’m doing it for me, she thought.

  It was a somewhat extraordinary revelation. She had thought her hero days were long behind her. She’d become a businesswoman and had thought she was happy with her role in life. Who knew she still had an adventurer within her, yearning for a second chance to come back into the light and shine?

  Waltzing into the farmhouse, Zera sang, “I’ve returned! Are we ready to save the world? You know, again?”

  Everyone turned to look at her. And Marso burst into tears.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Knock it off, Marso,” Kreya said.

  He slumped into the kitchen chair, buried his face in his hands, and moaned more quietly, which was fine—Kreya could think with a little moaning in the background. Full-throated sobs were harder to ignore.

  Zera dropped an embroidered bag on the table. It clattered with the familiar sound of bones. A beautiful sound. “Okay, well, I’m ready,” Zera said. “I vote we give everyone ten more minutes to pull their shit together, and then we leave.”

  A smile tugged at Kreya’s lips. She hadn’t been one hundred percent certain that Zera would even return. It was good to have her here, especially since Stran and Marso continued to be resistant to the idea of trying to be heroes again. “I’m glad you’re back,” Kreya said. “About what I said before you left . . .”

  “Forgiven and forgotten,” Zera said breezily.

  Kreya hesitated. She wasn’t sure if Zera meant it or not. She’d seen the hurt in Zera’s eyes when she’d left. Kreya hadn’t meant to sound as if she doubted her. She’d only meant to say that it was her choice whether to return or not, but all her words had come out wrong. I’m out of practice talking with people. Truthfully, she wasn’t certain she’d ever been good a
t it. Barking orders, yes. Handling emotions, not so much. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure we need to stop Eklor. Sooner rather than later.”

  That wasn’t exactly an answer, but she’d take it.

  By the hearth, Stran’s children were playing with her rag doll constructs while their parents, set off again by Zera’s return, argued in the other room, loud enough that everyone could hear every word:

  “You already completed your destiny,” Amurra was saying. “It’s over. Eklor is dead!”

  “Of course he’s dead,” Stran said. “Everyone knows this. Everyone except Marso and Kreya and Zera and Jentt. And that’s why I have to go! For them!”

  “But it’s crazy!”

  Kreya met Zera’s eyes. She’d never been overly fond of that word. It had been used too often as a weapon against those she cared about. And against me, she thought. A better phrase might be: “experienced in the ways life can screw with a person.”

  “Amurra,” Stran pleaded, “I had a chance to heal. You healed me! But they’re still stuck in their old pain. If I go with them and prove that the past is the past, I can help them move on.”

  “Can’t they move on in a way that doesn’t mean breaking the law and endangering your life? There are guards posted on the wall! Why do you have to risk yourself?”

  “If I didn’t help my team when they need me, I wouldn’t be the man you married.”

  “You don’t have to prove anything to me!” Amurra cried. “You don’t need to be a hero anymore. You’re a father, a farmer, and a husband. Why can’t that be enough?”

  Stran’s reply was lost beneath Vivi’s squeal of delight when a rag doll construct danced with another—she had been trying to teach them to dance for the last few hours, while her brother Jen repaired some of their loose stitches. He was neat with a needle.

  Quietly, Kreya admitted to Zera, “I don’t know if Stran and Marso are up for this.” She’d been talking with them, arguing with them, and listening to Stran and Amurra argue with each other ever since Zera had left.

  Helping herself to tea, Zera sipped and added honey before saying, “We could leave them here. Just go ourselves. You, me, and Jentt. This time we’re prepared—”

  “We’re a thousand times less prepared,” Kreya said. “Zero training. Out of practice. Out of touch.” Maybe she was a fool to think they could do this at all. They’d been heroes such a long time ago.

  Zera chugged her tea, slammed down the mug, and upended her bag of bones. Glittering talismans spilled out onto the table. “We may be out of practice, but at least we have firepower.”

  Gawking at the array of hundreds of gorgeously carved bones, inlaid with gold and jewels, Kreya picked up one of the stealth talismans. She examined the markings, a variation on any she’d ever seen before, with rubies to enhance the grooves. Holding it up to the light, she admired it and barked in a voice loud enough to carry throughout the farmhouse, “All right, people. Enough dithering! Let’s prep to move out! If you’re coming, come. If you’re not, fuck you.” Belatedly, she glanced at the kids. “Pretend you didn’t hear that.”

  Both Vivi and Jen covered their ears and grinned.

  Kreya hauled out her pack and checked over her supplies. Knives, sharp. Canteen, fresh and full. She was certain Amurra would supply them with food, even if she didn’t want to supply her husband.

  While she weeded through her pack, Zera divvied up the talismans: the strength ones for Stran if he came, speed for Jentt, and an assortment for Kreya and Marso. Each of them would take a few for emergencies, but as she’d done the last time they’d adventured together, Zera would hold on to the majority of them. They’d discovered it was much more efficient to have her distribute them than to ask the others to dig through their pockets in the heat of battle. She always doled out the appropriate talisman to the right fighter—she had an incredible instinct for it. She was like an archer’s quarrel that always supplied the most perfect arrow. Finishing her own task, Kreya watched her. It looked as if Zera had chosen their supplies wisely.

  Coming into the kitchen, Jentt added his emergency stash to the pouches that hung around his waist. “These look amazing, Zera.”

  “They are amazing,” Zera said. “And worth a bloody fortune. So don’t use them casually and don’t waste the power. They’re not infinite.”

  He winked at her, whispered a word to a speed talisman, and zipped around the kitchen as fast as a blur of light. When he stopped by the sink, he wore a rag doll construct on his head like a hat. The kids laughed and clapped. Bowing with a flourish, he deposited the construct on the floor. Wobbling, it toddled back to the hearth.

  Opening her coat, Kreya whistled to her constructs. “Three of you. Volunteers only.” She didn’t know if they knew the word “volunteer,” but they whispered to one another and three of them tumbled forward, climbed up the inside of her coat, and stuffed themselves into pockets. Raising her voice, she asked, “Amurra and Stran, may the rest of my constructs stay here?”

  Vivi chirped, “Ooh, can they? Please, please, Mama! Please, Papa!”

  Coming into the kitchen, Amurra halted when she saw her children playing with the remaining dolls, as well as the skeleton bird. Her eyes widened, but to her credit, she didn’t scream. Kreya liked her even more for that. “Will you two be responsible and take care of them?” Amurra asked.

  “We promise!” both Vivi and Jen chorused.

  “Then yes, they may stay.”

  Vivi danced in a circle with one of the dolls, hugging it.

  In a lower voice, Amurra asked, “They aren’t dangerous, are they?”

  Standing beside Amurra, Kreya watched the bird skeleton bump into a cabinet, switch direction, and bump into another cabinet. One of the rag dolls twisted its head halfway around to watch the bird. Even Kreya had to admit they were a bit unsettling. “I promise they won’t harm your children. Or anyone. Unless I ask them to.” She had a burst of inspiration. “On the contrary, I will instruct them to protect you.”

  Amurra looked surprised but then said, “Thank you.”

  As soon as Kreya finished instructing the constructs, Jentt crossed to Kreya’s opposite side and murmured, “Kreya, I don’t think Marso is up for the journey.” She looked over to where the bone reader was no longer moaning, but he hadn’t lifted his head off the table. He was tapping his fingers on the table in a random pattern that seemed to fascinate him.

  “Did you ask him?” Kreya asked.

  Jentt shook his head. “He’s in no condition to—”

  Kreya lifted her voice. “Marso? Want to come find Eklor with us?”

  He didn’t move. “If he lives, what do we do?” His voice sounded lost, but Kreya thought it was a sensible question. Maybe that was a good sign.

  “Kill him more thoroughly,” Jentt answered.

  Amurra yelped. “Not in front of the kids!”

  “Sorry. We’ll . . . tickle him relentlessly.” He winked at the kids, and Vivi and Jen giggled. “I didn’t get a chance to help with . . . the tickling . . . last time. I have a few leftover feelings about Eklor’s behavior that I’d love to work out . . . by tickling.”

  “He deserves it,” Marso said, with more passion than before.

  It gave Kreya hope. He’ll come, she thought.

  She turned to Stran and picked up the talismans that Zera had set aside for him. “I know you don’t believe he’s alive, but in case you’re wrong, I want you to be prepared.”

  He accepted the emergency talismans, securing them in pouches around his belt. With a shuddering breath, Stran said, “If he lives, we will ensure that Vivi, Jen, and Nugget will not grow up in a world where Eklor threatens the peace.”

  Amurra placed her hands on his chest and looked at him with wide eyes. “I love that you’re brave. I love that you’re noble. I love that you’re strong and self-sacrificing and heroic. But if he lives, I want you to come home and inform Grand Master Lorn, not try to stop him yourself. Someone else can take a t
urn at saving the world. Your children need you here!”

  Kreya had the strong sense that Amurra had never witnessed his facing true danger before. Stran’s past must have seemed like a collection of adventure stories to her. Until Kreya showed up at their door. I wonder if she regrets welcoming me in, Kreya thought. She glanced at the pouches of food that Amurra had prepared for them and noticed hers lacked the blackberry muffins she’d packed in the others—that was an answer, of sorts.

  “Kids, to your rooms, and take the constructs,” Stran said. “Everyone else, outside, please. I owe my wife a thousand promises and apologies, and I’d prefer the privacy.”

  Scooping up packs, Kreya and Zera scooted outside. Jentt helped Marso out the door. They settled on a bench near a woodpile, while Kreya and Zera looked out across the terraced fields.

  From here, Kreya knew the most obvious approach to the forbidden zone—the one they’d used twenty-five years ago. Unfortunately, since the war, it had become a popular historic trail. So that’s out, she thought.

  “You have a plan?” Zera asked.

  “Do you have any leftover lizard bone?”

  “Luckily for you, I do.” Reaching into a pocket, Zera pulled out a six-inch shard and handed it to Kreya. Crossing to one of Strand’s farm wagons, Kreya checked its bones. Outfitted with a few basic bones, it was designed for travel on well-worn paths, to the market and back. But she could fix that. Pulling out her tools, Kreya lowered herself to the ground and began tinkering. She hummed to herself as she worked.

  “Speed?” Zera asked.