The Bone Maker

by Sarah Beth Durst

  “Wear this,” Amurra said, pushing a thick fuzzy coat on her.

  “It isn’t my style.” In fact, it was hideous. She’d look like a sheep with arms. “But thanks.”

  “Better than freezing,” Kreya said as she passed by, carrying an armful of wood for the fireplace. “Take the coat, Zera. Even if it makes you look stupid.”

  Zera scowled at Kreya’s grin but took the coat.

  She hugged each of them.

  Last, she hugged Kreya. “I’ll be back. That’s a promise. You . . .” She didn’t know what she wanted to make Kreya promise. Every time she thought about the future, she couldn’t imagine it without Kreya in it. We have time, she thought. I’ll see her again. She wouldn’t have to say a final goodbye for almost three years. She repeated: “I’ll be back. Don’t you dare leave before then.”

  “I’ll wait for you,” Kreya said.

  And that was as good as any promise.

  Using a combination of speed and flight talismans—several dozen new ones that she’d made from chicken bones during her time at the farmhouse—Zera traveled home much faster than their journey in the crawler. It used up the weak, fragile bones quickly, but she had no intention of reselling such inferior talismans anyway. She’d only made them to occupy her hands while she’d been at the farmhouse.

  Arriving at Cerre, she gave her name to the guards at the first gate and asked for their discretion, in exchange for silver coins, and she walked through the tiers with the hood of Amurra’s fuzzy coat up.

  In the coat, she wasn’t recognized, and so she was free to stroll and note the damage. Every tier bore scars. At first, on the lowest tier, she thought it wasn’t so bad. The poor district looked about the same as it always had: ramshackle houses smushed together. A few more were caved in than usual, and she thought she saw more people camped beneath makeshift tents of scrap metal and wood. It wasn’t so bad, but it was clearly a problem in its own right.

  Something to think on.

  On the second tier, though, it was harder to pretend life was back to normal. People were trying. Markets were set up. But only a few houses were still standing. Most looked as if they’d been ripped apart—Which they have, she thought. Construction workers swarmed over many of them, but a few were clearly abandoned. She hoped their owners had fled, but she had the feeling that the reason was worse—no one who’d lived there was left alive to return. On the third tier, the sturdier halls were intact—the hospital and various guild headquarters—but Zera couldn’t ignore the smashed buildings, the torn-up streets, or the way everyone walked a little too quickly, as if they were afraid they might have to break into a run at any moment. The fourth was equally scarred, despite all the gold being poured into rebuilding.

  She at last reached the fifth tier and was pleasantly surprised to see that workers were reconstructing her home. Higher up on the tier, she could see other palaces were still in ruins, including Grand Master Lorn’s. Pushing her hood back, Zera approached her house.

  A construction worker stopped her at the gate to what had once been the statue garden. “Private construction zone, ma’am. The owner is not present, so no visitors—”

  “Zera!”

  She saw Guine, closer to fully clothed than she’d ever seen him, scramble over the tools and stacks of wood, skirt a pile of stone, and jog toward her. She felt a flood of relief. “Guine, you’re alive!”

  “You’re alive! We didn’t know!” He wrapped his arms around her hard, and she laughed at how enthusiastic his squeeze was. It was lovely to know he cared too.

  “Yet you proceeded with reconstruction anyway.”

  “What can I say? I’m an optimist.” He grabbed her hand. “Come! I’ll show you everything we’re doing. You’re going to love it. I told them to double the size of your office. You’re going to need it.”

  She let him pull her through the construction zone that was her house. He pointed out all the improvements he’d ordered: ordinary columns to support the foyer (so no helpful friends would be tempted to make her ceiling collapse again), extra bedrooms instead of the extraneous music and sitting rooms (for her friends who wanted to visit), and her new office. It wasn’t complete yet—the workers were framing out a large window with a view of the valley and mountains. “It’s all fantastic, Guine,” she told him. “You’ve done an amazing job.”

  He preened. “I hoped . . . I knew you’d come back to us. The city needs you.”

  She squeezed his hand. “I . . . Thank you.” She hesitated before asking the question she’d been dreading. “The others . . . Who is . . . Who didn’t . . .”

  He knew what she was asking. Soberly, he listed off those who had lived and those who had died. Many had lost family members. She realized as he went through the list that she only recognized about half the names. They worked for me, they lived with me, and I didn’t know them . . . I have to do better.

  She made a mental note to send them funds to help pay for whatever expenses they had. At least those who’d worked for her and befriended her shouldn’t have to worry about where to live and how to eat while they pieced their lives back together. She’d visit them eventually, she promised herself, and make it clear they always would have a place with her, if they wanted it. This time, she promised herself she’d learn their names. Friends deserved that much. And more. “The hospitals will need more money,” she said. “We’ll send it to them, yes?”

  “I’ve already set up my office,” Guine said. “I’ll run through your finances with you, after . . . When you passed through the gates, you used your name? People know you’re here?”

  “Yes, shouldn’t I have?” Zera immediately thought of Kreya and the lines she’d crossed. No, the lines we crossed together. What did people know about what they’d done? And what would they be most unhappy about?

  “The bone worker guild has been asking for you daily,” Guine said. “Very insistent. If they know you’re here, they’ll be sending someone for you soon.” He wrinkled his nose at her coat. “We have to get you into something more appropriate to wear.”

  She laughed to hide her concern and let him choose more elegant clothes for her. He frowned when she donned her once-exquisite bone worker’s coat, however. Much of it was stained with blood, soot, and dirt. But he said nothing.

  “Did they give any indication as to why they’re so anxious to speak with me?” she asked.

  He hesitated. “I . . . have my suspicions. But I think it’s best if they tell you themselves.”

  Zera raised her eyebrows at him. He’d changed, perhaps because of the battle, perhaps because she’d left him to handle the aftermath. Before this, he never would have pushed back on any question or request. She liked this change in him. “You’re in need of a promotion. How do you like the title ‘manager’? Or perhaps ‘director’?”

  He grinned. “Ooh, director of bones? Senior manager of skeletons?”

  “Your choice. But I want it official. You are my right-hand man.”

  That affected him. For an instant, she saw through all the artifice—he cared that she valued him. It made her all the more certain she was doing the right thing by promoting him. She should have recognized his worth long ago. Perhaps in a few years, she’d make him her business partner. “I won’t let you down,” he promised.

  “You never do.” She clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Now I’d better go see what Lorn and the council want.” She could avoid them, stay and rebuild, until they forced the issue. Or she could return to the farmhouse, avoid them altogether, and leave the business exclusively to Guine. Except that feels more like running, Zera thought. And she had no reason to think the guild wanted to blame her for any of this.

  They wouldn’t care about the things she did bear the blame for: For not being certain Eklor was gone. For not staying closer to Kreya and Marso and Stran. For wasting those twenty-five years, harboring old pain. Squaring her shoulders, Zera left her palace and returned to the third tier.

  This time, in her bone w
orker’s coat, with her hood back, she was recognized. Men, women, and children drew closer to her. A few thanked her. A few merely touched the edge of her coat as if they were touching a relic. Most stared with expressions that were a mix of so many emotions that she couldn’t read them: exhaustion, pain, hope. Even some anger. She understood it all.

  She reached the Bone Workers Guild headquarters and climbed the familiar steps. The massive doors stood open—mostly because they’d been smashed down and still hadn’t been fixed—and the guards greeted her with: “Oh thank the bones, you’ve returned! They’ve been waiting for you.”

  Zera wasn’t certain that was a good sign.

  Walking with purpose, she swept through the main hall to the guild masters’ offices in the back. She wasn’t stopped, though many called out a greeting. Later, she told herself, she’d ask for a list of who had survived. For now, though, she needed to know what the guild wanted of her. And whether she was able—and willing—to give it.

  She pushed through the door to find three masters she knew moderately well clustered around the grand master’s desk. It was overflowing with papers, as if it had erupted. All three of them jumped away from the desk as she approached.

  “Masters Sirelle, Pudone, and Lamar.” She inclined her head. All three were well-respected bone workers, each of them advanced in years. She noted that Master Sirelle had wrinkles that folded onto other wrinkles, and Master Pudone held a black cane with a white-as-bone head.

  Politely, they bowed their heads at her. “Master Zera,” Master Sirelle said. “We are so pleased you have returned. Reports were . . . unclear as to your whereabouts.”

  “I needed time for recovery,” Zera said. She didn’t owe them an explanation, but she felt it might go smoother if they had one. “I was told Grand Master Lorn wanted to see me?”

  The three looked at one another. “Not precisely,” Master Pudone said carefully. “Master Lorn has resigned from his position as grand master, to spend more time with his son, he said. The council suggested it would be wise.”

  Ahh . . . Sensible of everyone involved. Lorn had shown a stunning lack of good judgment, even beyond what one could blame on Eklor’s persuasion talisman. She hoped his replacement would be less susceptible to blackmail and, equally important, uninterested in Kreya’s forbidden knowledge. She prepared herself to deny any knowledge of her friend’s whereabouts. “Who is the new grand master?”

  Master Sirelle said, “We were hoping that you would be.”

  The other two nodded vigorously.

  Zera laughed and then stopped. “Oh. You’re serious.”

  All three of them assured her they were, piled compliments and guilt trips on her, and continued talking until she contemplated putting her hands over her ears like a toddler. She thought about the damage suffered by the city and the guild, wondered at the list of the dead, and then remembered that Guine had believed she’d need a bigger office.

  “He knew,” she murmured.

  The three masters stopped. “Excuse me?” Master Pudone asked.

  Guine had known what they’d offer her. And he knew I’d say yes. “This was never my dream,” she informed them. “I never wanted this.”

  “But the guild, the city, Vos itself needs this,” Master Sirelle said. “We need you. You have the bone knowledge, the business skills, the reputation, the brains, the charisma, and the compassion to be an excellent guild master.”

  “And I am partial to flattery, so thank you for that.” She flashed a smile at them, but it faded quickly. Walking to the grand master’s desk, she touched it. She remembered Kreya’s coming to her all those weeks ago, reminding Zera that she’d always wanted to make the world a better place, and what had she done instead? Become rich? Become successful? Become someone who never left the fifth tier? That was before, she thought. Who am I now? Who do I want to be?

  Unlike Kreya, she didn’t know how many years she had left ahead of her. It could be three or it could be thirty. She could spend them as a working bone wizard, making more talismans and making more money and basking in the victories of the past. She could spend them in semiretirement with her friends at Stran and Amurra’s farmhouse or build her own place nearby. She could travel, see the world like Kreya and Jentt planned. She could even accompany them. Or she could stay right here, become a philanthropist, and pour her gold into rebuilding the city, starting with the first tier. Or she could try to do a little of all of it: Make time for herself, make time for her friends, make time to help those who needed her help. And possibly fail. But at least try.

  How do I want to use the time I have?

  The life she used to have . . . she knew she couldn’t go back to that. It wasn’t enough anymore. Maybe she’d outgrown it. It was funny to think she could still outgrow anything at her age. But everything she’d done since Kreya had come back into her life—Yeah, I don’t want to relive a lot of that—had meaning. What she’d done had mattered. That was what she wanted out of her life. Meaning, and the power to keep her friends safe.

  “I’ll be guild master,” Zera said.

  Kreya and Jentt were ready after two more weeks at the farmhouse, but they waited a full three for Zera to return, at Kreya’s insistence. “I promised,” she’d told him.

  She refused to think about what she’d do if Zera didn’t return.

  She and Jentt had said they wouldn’t stay long. At night, they’d whisper their plans to see the world, to taste foods they’d never tasted, to see wonders they’d never imagined, to breathe air far different from that of home. But she wasn’t going to miss her chance to say goodbye to her oldest and best friend. Some things were worth any amount of time. Some were too precious to ever take for granted.

  Kreya was outside sweeping a dusting of snow from the front step when she saw a speed-enhanced horse trot across the sloping fields. Zera’s multicolored hair and coat were unmistakable, even from a distance. Wrapping her own coat tighter around her, Kreya headed across the field to meet her halfway.

  Dismounting, Zera hugged her tightly. “Yay! You’re not dead!” She pulled back. “Yes, I’m going to greet you that way from now on. I think it should be how I greet everyone.”

  Kreya smiled. “Not dead and actually feeling well rested. You?”

  “I am not exactly well rested.” Zera unsaddled her horse and set him free to graze. She then hooked her arm through Kreya’s, and they proceeded to the farmhouse. “I seem to have become guild master, which comes with an alarming amount of work. I am delegating as much as humanly possible, and I’ve promoted Guine at least six times in as many days. Grand Master Lorn has ‘retired,’ and I do wish he’d been a lot better at his job before leaving me with his messes.” She went on to describe the heap of work, all the decisions, all the tests that had to be overseen for new bone makers, all the reviews of requests, all the meetings, all the paperwork.

  Only when she paused for breath did Kreya call, “Zera’s back!”

  Everyone came tumbling out of whatever part of the farmhouse they were in. Marso was already in the kitchen, an apron wrapped around his waist and cinnamon dotting his cheeks. Zera pronounced him delicious after she greeted him, and she told Stran he needed a bath—he’d been hauling wood for the stove and had worked up a sweat. “I brought you all more talismans,” Zera said. “Only a few. I haven’t had much time for carving them lately, but I thought they could be useful around the farm.” She dumped a handful of jeweled bones onto the table. “Unfortunately, I won’t be able to stay long. But I will visit again. I’ll visit often. And I hope you can make trips to the city, too.”

  They settled into talking, both reminiscing and sharing news. Marso served his cinnamon buns, which were drenched in sticky sugar—Amurra and Stran were teaching him how to bake. The two children managed to smear half the sugar on their cheeks and half on their chairs. Kreya wasn’t sure if any of it made it into their mouths.

  As her ragtag family talked and laughed, Kreya looked at Jentt across the table. He s
miled back, and she knew he felt the same thing she was feeling: full of cinnamon rolls, full of life, and full of love.

  It’s time, she thought.

  They spent the rest of the day and the evening all together, and then in the morning, shortly before dawn, Kreya gathered up all she’d need for journeying. Jentt packed his belongings as well, and he stuffed several extra cinnamon buns, wrapped in paper, into a side pocket of his bag. While he finished up, Kreya walked outside to check the weather. The sky was pale gray, with lemon predawn tinting the eastern mountains. Frost lay across the ground, but the wind was tame and she didn’t taste any rain or snow in the air.

  She saw a blur out of the corner of her eye, and suddenly Zera was in front of her. “So your plan is to disappear from our lives for three years and then die without us?”

  “Less than three years now,” Kreya pointed out.

  Zera snorted to show what she thought of that statement.

  “And I’m not leaving to die,” Kreya said. She tried to find the words to explain. “I’m leaving to live. We have plenty of sunsets and sunrises left. We’re going to see them from every part of the world we can.”

  “Will you come back?” Zera asked.

  Kreya thought about saying she couldn’t make any promises. She didn’t know how far they’d travel or what they’d encounter on the way. Even a bone reader couldn’t predict all the possibilities, so she couldn’t make any guarantees. But she could make plans and have intentions. “Yes, of course I will.”

  “Fine.” Zera sighed. “I suppose I couldn’t have expected everything to stay the same and for you all to stay put here, for me to visit whenever I can. But I’ll have Marso predict your return, and I’ll ask Stran and Amurra to send word the second you two walk back into our lives.”

  “Excellent plan. I couldn’t have come up with a better one myself,” Kreya said. “No wonder they made you guild master.”

  “I can’t tell if you’re serious or mocking me, but I will be an excellent guild master.”

  “Of course you will.” Kreya had no doubt about that.