Bone Crier's Dawn

by Kathryn Purdie

  “Ailesse!” My blood lights on fire. I turn furious eyes on Odiva. She’s dead. I’ll make sure of it.

  I fly at her, wildly slashing and stabbing with my father’s knife. Her staff blocks me at every turn. “I will kill you, too, boy.” Her black eyes are flat, no life or Light, just darkness. “The same way my famille killed your pitiful father.”

  My heartbeat roars in my ears. “Don’t you dare speak about his death.”

  The side of her mouth curves. “Very well.” She pummels me backward until I fall to the ground. She plants her staff in the sand, draws her bone knife, and pins me with one knee. “Then I will speak of your death, Bastien. Or better yet, I will deliver it.”

  She aims her blade at my heart. Rain slides off the sharp tip. “And this time, I will make certain you die.”

  42

  Sabine

  THE LIGHT INSIDE ME RADIATES with the graces of the silver owl. The night sky brightens—I’m seeing even better in the dark—and my hearing also sharpens. But it’s the changes in my bearing and frame of mind I notice most.

  I walk along the sand on silent huntress feet, no longer weighed down by lies or doubts. My new graces don’t compel me to feel differently; they gently persuade me to own who I am and what I believe in. And I’ll sing of that confidence now.

  The siren song pours out of me, each note articulate and unwavering. I lend it strength from my lungs and the power of my convictions. I give it Elara’s rage at a millennia-old marriage to a tyrant god.

  I turn away from the sea. Some instinct inside me says the Gates don’t need a sunken land bridge to stand on. I am the bridge. The Ferriers of my famille are the pillars of its foundation. We carry the torch of Elara’s Light. It shines brightest in us. We are the daughters of the goddess.

  In the middle of our gathering, two brilliant columns of flame shoot up from the sand. They curve at the top and join together to form a towering fifteen-foot arch.

  Prickling awe showers over me. It’s a Gate of fire—the missing element, like Marcel said. Or more accurately, the last element that could create a doorway to the Underworld.

  The rainfall lashes at the blazing arch, but its fire doesn’t hiss or extinguish. It’s inexplicably stable, like the wind that blasted up from the cavern pit and held the glittering dust together, or the silky black wave that stayed hovering when it should have crashed. I look to my right and see that Elara’s translucent Gate has also risen. The silvery shimmer of her spiral staircase stretches high to the Night Heavens.

  “Sing with me,” I say to Pernelle and Roxane.

  “We don’t know the siren song,” Pernelle replies.

  “The Gates are already open,” Roxane adds.

  The silver owl hops near the Gate of fire. Her feathers dry in its rippling heat. She faces Tyrus’s Underworld, unfurls the full span of her wings, and points the feathered tips toward the sand. It’s a battle stance. She’s declaring war. She’s ready for her Unchained souls to come home.

  “She still needs us to sing,” I tell Pernelle and Roxane. I turn to the rest of the Ferriers. “She needs all our Light and strength.”

  The Leurress gather closer, positioning themselves behind me. They’re bruised and bleeding and drenched from the storm, but they’re also stalwart and noble, my unified famille.

  I start singing again. I follow a new melody, a song of my own creation. It’s wordless, a cry in the night set to a fervent melody. I infuse it with what I believe in most: human dignity, respect for life, sisterhood, devotion.

  The Ferriers join in, one by one, falling into its rhythm and repeating the musical phrases. But then their voices grow bolder. They add their own harmonies and soaring descants. Our chorus swells, more beautiful than any siren song played on bones, more powerful than the deep and angry chant that pulses from the Underworld, resisting us.

  I take Pernelle’s hand. She clasps Roxane’s. Soon all thirty-two Ferriers and I are linked in a winding path. Chantae and I stand at each end. I’m nearest to the Gate of fire, and she’s closest to the Paradise. She seems to understand what to do next, because she grabs a bar of Elara’s scrollwork Gate. I turn to the rippling arch of fire and hesitate, feeling its heat scorch my face.

  The silver owl lifts into the air and flaps her wings at me. She’s urging me, telling me I’ll be safe.

  I grit my teeth. Our Light is stronger than your flames, Tyrus.

  I seize the column of fire.

  It burns and sears, but I can endure it. I continue singing with my sisters, and each of us transforms, incandescent with chazoure. The silver owl zooms overhead and screeches triumphantly. The channel between the Underworld and Paradise is open.

  Unchained souls crash through the Gate of fire like a battering ram. They flood out in wave after wave, crying with a surge of freedom.

  More souls flock near from the cliffs and the cave off the shore, the Chained and Unchained still trapped in the mortal world. The open Gates are calling them back.

  “Some of you need to break away and ferry them,” I shout to the Leurress. “The rest of us will keep the Gates linked.”

  Roxane, Nadine, Dolssa, and eleven other Ferriers pull away from the channel, but not before the Leurress on either side of them scoot together and join hands. The fourteen Ferriers grab their staffs and start guiding the oncoming souls.

  I see a beautiful chazoure woman with a bracelet of dolphin teeth drift down the beach with the other Unchained. I gasp, seeing the Leurress who died at the cavern bridge. Maurille.

  Damiana embraces her and gently leads her to Paradise. My eyes sting. I wish I could ferry her myself, but I’m more grateful she can be at peace now. She smiles at me before she passes through the silvery Gate. “Stay strong, child,” she says, and shimmers away inside.

  I draw a steeling breath and continue singing with my sisters. The song builds, thrumming faster and sharp edged and raging. It’s our demand that Tyrus free every last one of Elara’s Unchained in his realm. Her trapped souls keep coursing out of his Gate of fire, weeping tears of relief.

  Hope builds inside my chest. Maurille being ferried feels like a sign. We’re going to win. Victory is almost in our grasp.

  A crack of lightning flashes. It pulls my gaze to the distant shore where my friends are fighting. But the only one I see standing is Ailesse. Bastien is crumpled at her feet. And Cas . . .

  My heart gives a hard pound.

  Cas is lying in the blood-soaked sand.

  43

  Ailesse

  FIFTEEN YARDS BEHIND ME, CAS crawls out of the pool of his own blood. He rises to face Godart again. I don’t know where he’s found the stamina to keep battling him for so long. Godart can’t access my mother’s graces anymore, but Cas is still the weaker of the two. He was already badly injured when he crushed the salamander skull, so it hasn’t been a fight of equals, after all.

  I wish I could do something to help, but I can’t leave Bastien to fight my mother alone. At my feet, he’s been unconscious for over a minute.

  Wake up, wake up. His left temple is bruising from my mother’s staff strike. She came close to stabbing him—I barely shoved her away in time—but she’s still intent on killing him. The only thing preventing her is a group of eight Unchained. They rushed to my aid when I called for help, but they won’t be able to hold my mother back for long. She’s swiftly fighting them off, and the relentless lure of the Beyond also pulls them away, one by one.

  Down shore, the rest of the Unchained are flooding to Paradise through the open channel between the Gates. When the arch of fire blazed up from the sand, my mother audibly gasped. I almost burst into tears. I’ve never been prouder of my sister.

  Bastien’s eyes finally crack open. I release a huge breath. Thank you, Elara.

  I reach to pull him up, my broken ribs smarting, and my mother sneers as she fends off the last three Unchained. She wants Bastien dead before she kills me, I’m sure of it. That way I’ll suffer more. She’s become monstrous, noth
ing like the woman I once admired as a child. But I’m done with suffering at her hand. I can channel Light like my sister, like I did in the Miroir and when I fought my mother on the cavern bridge.

  I call on my own soul, my own name. My mother gave it to me, but its power runs deeper than the word uttered at my birth. My name is separate from her now. It’s bright with Light passed down to me from Estelle, and before her, the goddess Elara. And it’s me, not my mother, who chooses to keep that glory in me burning.

  Strength flows into my limbs, more graced than my tiger shark or alpine ibex or peregrine falcon. But I hold on to that power, too. I’ll fight with everything I can draw upon. My mother’s dark reign ends tonight.

  She strides toward Bastien, staff raised. He’s kneeling, barely coherent. He’s not ready for her.

  I am.

  I bury the pain of my broken ribs and bleeding arm. I charge at her before she can reach him. We’re two raging forces about to collide.

  She yanks her staff up like a skewering pike. I grab hold of its end and swing around it. I kick away her upper hand, then jerk the staff down. Its other end slams into her chin with a loud crack.

  Shocked, she staggers backward. Before she can recover, I tear away her three-tiered necklace and its tooth band, claws, and pendants; her epaulettes of feathers and talons; her skull and vertebrae crown. I cast them out of reach beyond a cluster of boulders. The grace bones of her whiptail stingray, albino bear, eagle owl, noctule bat, and asp viper—they’re gone.

  Her black eyes are pits of seething rage. “You wretched, abominable girl.” It’s a violation to remove a Leurress’s grace bones without consent, but I’ve done nothing more than my mother did when she stole Sabine’s salamander skull.

  She pulls out her bone knife, but she’s lost her speed and strength. I grab her wrist and wrench the blade away. I place its sharp tip at the base of her neck. Her pulse flutters madly. She inhales a careful breath through her nose. “I brought you into this world, Ailesse. Is this how you will honor me?”

  I scoff. “I’ve learned no honor from you. You’re the hypocrite who cast me out of this world. You’re a threat to your own famille and a danger to every Unchained who ever walked this earth. This can’t go on, Mother. You . . . you can’t go on.”

  My knife trembles. I’ve never killed another person, but I need to now. Surely that’s what Elara has sanctioned me to do. But this feels wrong, premeditated. My mother is defenseless. She’s small and thin without her formidable grace bones. She looks younger, too. It’s easy to imagine her being a novice once, a girl who never played a bone flute, or lured a man onto a forest bridge, or conceived a daughter before she killed the father, or met and fell in love with another man, or lost him before she could make a life with him.

  “Do not taint yourself with my death,” my mother says, her voice a shameful croak. “Be better than me, Ailesse. You cannot want what I have endured.”

  I scrutinize her shimmering tears. She’s manipulating me, I know it. So why does my chest pang, my throat tighten, my own eyes blur with emotion? “I wanted so very much to love you,” I whisper.

  A tear streaks down her cheek, but it’s quickly swept away by the rainfall. “I know.”

  My shoulders curl inward. I exhale and pull away the knife. It hangs from my limp hand. “Go. Take Godart with you. Leave South Galle and the Leurress forever. At least you can be with your love.”

  I start to turn away. She can’t hurt me or my friends anymore.

  “Ailesse!” Bastien shouts a cry of warning.

  My sixth sense pounds. I glance behind me. Odiva whips out another knife from a hidden sheath on her back. Her tears still fall, but they’re tears of fury.

  Her knife slashes for me. I’m faster. Just before she can kill me, I stab her through the base of her throat.

  Her eyes startle wide. Her grip slackens. Her own knife drops. She collapses to her knees and tries to speak. No words come out, just a horrible ragged gasp. I’ve cut through her windpipe and sliced an artery.

  Crimson blood blooms down her neck. She chokes on it, drowns in it. Her enraged and astonished gaze bores into me. She careens to the sand.

  My mouth is agape, my hands splayed. I’m unsure what to do. I openly stare at my mother as she writhes and gags, my knife still stuck in her neck. I’ve given her a fatal wound, but it could be minutes more before she finally dies.

  Bastien rushes over to me. I stifle burning sobs as my mother gurgles on more blood. I can’t bear watching her like this. “Make it stop,” I say, my voice a frail whisper.

  He slowly pulls away from me and kneels beside my mother. He points the sharpened end of his father’s knife directly over her heart. The simple hilt trembles in his grip. She stares frantically at him, convulsing harder. He looks to me for permission. Hot tears stream down my face. I nod.

  The knife drives into my mother’s chest, sure and swift. She buckles with one last convulsion. Then her expression goes vacant. Her body stills. Her head droops to the side.

  I clap my hand over my mouth and shake my head again and again.

  “Ailesse . . .” Bastien’s eyes fill with pain. He comes to me and folds me into his arms, kissing the top of my head.

  Anguish racks my broken ribs and turns all my muscles to water. It’s Bastien who holds me up now, like I held him in the sea. He strokes my rain-drenched hair and whispers words of comfort. This can’t be how he imagined culminating his revenge, but that makes his gentle embrace all the more meaningful.

  My graced ears catch the sound of another person breathing, panting. My sixth sense patters up my spine from their weak movements. Then a stronger pummeling hits my lower back. I look behind me to where Cas and Godart are fighting. They’re both badly wounded and bleeding.

  Cas leans against a boulder. He clutches a stab wound on his side. Godart limps toward him, dragging his sword in the sand. Cas unhitches himself from the boulder, but he’s scarcely able to stand without support.

  “Go,” I tell Bastien, and quickly wipe away my tears.

  He nods, leaving his knife in my mother’s chest. He picks up her fallen blade, and I grab her staff. We run for Cas, but he’s fifteen yards away, and Godart is less than three yards from him.

  Godart flexes his jaw muscle. Raises his sword. Cas’s eyes are hooded, barely open. My keen vision focuses on the feeble twitch of his fingers over the hilt. He doesn’t even have the strength to lift his blade.

  “Cas!” Bastien shouts, urging him to not give up. My life is still at stake tonight, tied to his.

  Now three feet from my amouré, Godart hefts his sword overhead with both hands. Blood drips from his hairline into his mangled right eye. “Now you die, bastard prince.”

  “Cas!” I cry, as Godart’s sword plunges down.

  Cas’s expression flashes with steel. He jerks away from the boulder, spins to dodge Godart’s strike, and thrusts his own sword into Godart’s back. The silver blade runs clean through him and juts out of his chest. Godart’s face twists in horrific shock. Cas yanks out his sword. “Not a bastard,” he says. “Not a prince. A king. Son of Durand Trencavel. Ruler of South Galle.”

  Blood burbles from Godart’s mouth. He collapses facedown in the sand.

  Bastien and I finally reach Cas. Bastien pulls him into a fierce hug. “Well done.”

  Cas grins, but then his knees start to buckle. He clutches his bleeding side again. “Easy on the brotherly affection, all right?”

  Bastien chuckles. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  I wrap my arm beneath Cas’s to help him stand. “Come on. We’re not finished.”

  Bastien and I help him walk across the shore to where Sabine and the Leurress are still holding the channel open between the Gates. Only a slow trickle of souls now passes out of the blazing arch and into the delicate shimmer of Paradise. No more chazoure Chained or Unchained roam the inlet. The Ferriers’ work is almost done. Mine isn’t.

  Sabine’s eyes squeeze shut in concentration. H
er hand shakes, gripping the burning Gate. I call out her name, and she looks at me. She quickly takes in the three of us approaching—and who we’ve left behind. Our mother. Her father. Their souls haven’t risen from their bodies yet, but they’re bound to soon. “Oh, Ailesse.” Her brows lift inward.

  She says something to Pernelle, and the silver owl flies closer, hovering near the elder Leurress. Pernelle nods, breathing in deeply, and takes Sabine’s place holding the Gate of fire.

  Sabine races across the sand to me, and I break into sobs again, hearing her cry. I’m sorry to cause her fresh pain, but I’m also filled with overwhelming relief. The two of us have survived.

  She barrels into me with a powerful embrace. I hug her back with all my graced strength. “We’re going to be all right.” I stroke her hair. “You’re all the family I need.”

  “You, too.” She nods against my neck. “Thank you for believing in me tonight.”

  “I’ll always believe in you. You’re my sister, my matrone.”

  Cas comes over to us, and Sabine turns to him, still weeping. I let him comfort her, as well. As they embrace, I share a glance with Bastien. He nods. We haven’t conquered everything yet. We’ve restored the balance between the realms of the Beyond, and we’ve removed the dead from the land of the living, but I’m still soul-bound to Casimir. My famille is still enslaved to Tyrus, as well.

  I wait until the last of the Unchained escapes the Underworld, and then I plant my feet in front of Tyrus’s Gate. His flames lick at my dress and hair, but they don’t catch fire. I’m blazing with too much Light. The silver owl swoops in and lands on my shoulder, and I stroke her wings. “I think your bride has a message for you, Tyrus,” I call past the churning storm of embers. “She will not suffer her souls to be abused by you any longer.” The silver owl screeches.

  Tyrus ignores us. His siren song wafts its dark music without a hitch in the melody. I feel the lure of its pull once more, but the temptation to go to him is only a weak desire now. I’m too aware of his corruptness to be tricked into walking through his Gate.