Bone Crier's Moon

by Kathryn Purdie

  Our eyes collide. He looks startled, questioning. I’ve never thanked him for anything, not directly.

  I give him back the tumbler, and this time when our hands touch, it’s Bastien who shivers. “Do you want more?” he asks. Before I have a chance to answer, he adds, “I can get you some more.” He walks over to the water bucket and peeks inside. “Oh. Empty, too.” He shoots me a nervous look. “That’s all right.” He wags his thumb at the door and walks backward toward it. “I’ll just— I won’t be long.” I suppress a smile as he trips out of the chamber. He’s never this awkward.

  It’s almost adorable . . . for someone who wants me dead.

  Marcel lifts another piece of parchment from the table and mumbles something about moons, earth, and water.

  I tilt my head at him. “It’s strange . . . I didn’t think anyone knew about the Leurress, until I met you three.”

  He turns around and blinks twice, still half lost in his thoughts. “Some people do. There are legends, superstitions, the occasional folk song . . . but not really much to go by.”

  “Yet you know so much.”

  He gives a modest shrug. “It’s a bit of a hobby, really. I’m restless unless my mind has something big to chew on.”

  Marcel, restless? My shoulders tremble with stifled laughter. He grins, unsure why I’m amused. I can’t help warming up to him. Unlike Bastien and Jules, Marcel doesn’t seem to have a natural prejudice against me. “What if I told you that you didn’t know enough?”

  “I’d admit that’s no surprise. Can anyone really know enough—about anything?”

  I bite my lip. “What if I also told you I’m willing to add to your knowledge?”

  His brows crinkle, and he darts a glance at the door. “Is this a trick?”

  “It’s an offer. Believe it or not, I don’t wish to die. And since I can’t kill my amouré at the moment, I want to help you break my soul-bond with him.” I shut out the ingrained voice in me that says that’s an impossible task. Instead, I listen to Sabine’s voice: Don’t give up, Ailesse.

  Marcel slides a hand in his pocket. A sign he’s getting more comfortable. “All right.” He drifts nearer, mulling over his sheet of parchment. “Can you tell me what an upside-down crescent moon means?”

  “What does that have to do with the soul-bond?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the problem—but maybe it’s the answer, too. I often find solving one mystery unlocks the next.”

  That makes sense, and I suppose we need to start somewhere. “An upside-down crescent is a setting moon. But it can also represent a bridge.”

  “A bridge . . .” Marcel scratches his jaw. “I hadn’t thought of that. And what if it’s touching another symbol?” He shows me his sheet of parchment, and my brows rise. It’s a drawing of the bone flute. I didn’t realize Marcel had a chance to study it before Jules broke it. “See here?” He points below the lowest tone hole on the flute to an inverted triangle that’s balanced on an upside-down crescent moon—right in the spot where the engraving was on the real instrument. “That triangle means water, right?”

  I nod. “When the symbols are placed together like that it means the soul bridge.”

  “Soul bridge?”

  “The bridge the dead must cross to enter the Beyond.”

  “Ah, where you Bone Criers do your ferrying.”

  “Yes.” Bastien must have told Marcel what I told him.

  “Not on Castelpont, obviously. No water in that riverbed.” He sits beside me and taps on the inverted triangle of his picture.

  “The soul bridge is beneath the Nivous Sea.”

  “Beneath the sea?”

  My mother would disown me if she heard me now, revealing the mysteries of the Leurress. But then I remember she already gave me up. I have tried, Ailesse. This is the only way. My chest pangs, and I swallow against the tightness in my throat. “The soul bridge is a land bridge.” I pause, concentrating on the effort it takes to slide my legs off the slab to make more room for Marcel. He scoots closer. “It only emerges from the sea during the lowest tides.”

  “So during the full moon and new moon?” he asks, once again impressing me with what he’s stored in his mind.

  “Yes, but the Leurress can only ferry on a new moon.”

  “Tonight?”

  I nod. “That’s when the dead are lured to the soul bridge. The bone flute . . . it was used for more than luring amourés to bridges. It also lured the dead to cross the soul bridge.” I sigh. My mother must be beside herself with worry. If the dead aren’t summoned tonight, they’ll rise from their graves on their own and feed off the Light of the living. They’ll kill souls. Eternally.

  “A soul bridge that’s a land bridge . . .” Marcel shakes his head. “Fascinating. Do you think that’s what this means?” He reaches into his pocket, and my heart nearly leaps out of my chest.

  He’s holding the bone flute.

  It’s whole. Intact.

  He turns it over to show me a symbol, but my vision rocks with dizziness. “How did you . . . ?” A flush of adrenaline seizes me. “That was broken. I watched Jules break it.”

  Marcel chuckles. “Oh, she told me about that.” He bats a dismissing hand. “She was just trying to rattle you. What you saw her break was a random bone from the catacombs. The flute was in my pack the whole time.”

  “What?” My mind reels as I think back on my first terrible day down here. I never really saw what Jules was holding—not in detail. She said it was the flute, and I believed her, but in the dim light of her oil lamp, I only made out that she was holding a slender bone.

  I’ve been such a fool.

  “So is this a symbol of the soul bridge, too?” Marcel points at the side of the flute without the tone holes. My mind finally clears enough to register it. This symbol has a horizontal line carved through the middle of the inverted triangle—the symbol of earth, not water.

  “Um . . . yes,” I mumble, just to say something. I’ve never thought much about the small difference between the symbols, and it still seems unimportant. All I can picture is my mother’s amazed and grateful face when I set the flute in her hands. She’ll welcome me back. She’ll smile one of her rare smiles. She’ll touch my cheek and say, “Well done.”

  A riptide of clarity flashes through me. I have to escape. Tonight. At midnight, the Leurress must ferry the dead, and my mother will need the bone flute.

  “I had no idea there was a land bridge around here,” Marcel says, still caught up on that fact.

  My gaze strays to his cloak, but it’s not parted wide enough for me to see if any knife glints within. “No one knows but my famille. It’s off a shore that’s hard to access.” I’m blurting now, telling him anything I can to keep him captivated. “The cliffs above the land bridge are impossible to descend unless you know where the hidden stairway is.” I shift to directly face him.

  “Oh?” He mirrors my movement, and his cloak opens farther. My pulse races. I see a knife on his belt. It’s small, but that doesn’t matter.

  “And that place can’t be used as a harbor; the water is ridden with sea stacks and jagged rocks.” I’m going to have to be quick. Grab the knife—which will be difficult with my wrists tied; threaten Marcel so he stays silent; cut my own bonds; grab the flute, and then my grace bones. Bastien hid them in a chipped pitcher when he thought I was sleeping. “The most hallowed part of the land bridge is what’s at its end,” I say, casting my final lure. “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you. This knowledge is sacred.”

  Marcel leans closer. “You can trust me, Ailesse.”

  “Can I?” My body thrums with nervous, almost frenzied energy. I grasp his cloak and pull him nearer, as if to search his eyes. He gulps, but I don’t let go. The hilt of his knife is a fingerbreadth away from my hand. “You must swear an oath never to share what I’m about to tell you,” I say, though this secret isn’t any more significant than what I’ve already revealed.

  “All right. I—I swear.”

&n
bsp; I bring my mouth to his ear. I curl my fingers around the fabric of his cloak. “A pair of Gates divides the mortal realm from the eternal.” I close my hand around the hilt of his knife. “They aren’t made of wood, earth, or iron.” I carefully withdraw his weapon. “Tyrus’s Gate is made of water, and Elara’s Gate is made of . . .” I really don’t know, except it’s unearthly and almost invisible.

  “What are you two whispering about?”

  My heart jumps.

  Bastien is back. He’s standing just inside the chamber by the door, his eyes suspicious. The water bucket in his hands drips on the ground.

  I jerk back from Marcel. I slide his knife under my thigh. The pooled fabric of his cloak conceals the move.

  Marcel offers Bastien a casual smile. “Ailesse was just telling me about the symbols on the bone flute,” he replies, keeping his promise not to mention the Gates.

  Bastien’s frown deepens. “Why would she do that?”

  Marcel lifts his hands, baffled. “To help us figure out how to break the soul-bond.”

  I steady my gaze on Bastien and add, “You’re not the only one who wants to end this relationship.”

  His grimace lingers a moment, and then he lowers his eyes. I stifle a prick of guilt. “Relationship?” he mutters, setting down his bucket. “That implies I had a choice to enter into it.” He strides to the shelves and peeks into a few random pots and jars. “Next time you have something important to say, say it to me, too.”

  “Fine.” My chest tightens. The blade of Marcel’s knife is cold beneath my leg. I could fling it at Bastien now. Maybe I don’t need a ritual weapon to kill him and end our soul-bond.

  He looks back at me and crosses his arms. “Well?”

  I shrug. “I’m out of important things to say for the day. I need to rest now.”

  Marcel sighs, a little disappointed. “Well, this has all been most helpful, Ailesse. Thank you.” He eases off the slab, and my stomach tenses as he pockets the bone flute again.

  I shift, little by little, struggling to keep the knife out of sight as I lie down. I close my eyes, conscious that Bastien’s skeptical gaze is still upon me.

  I feign sleep for the rest of the day. By what must be nightfall, Jules returns, and my three captors discuss all that I told Marcel. At length, they fall asleep, one by one. Even Bastien drifts off, though it was his turn to keep watch. He must trust me a little by now.

  I tamp down the guilt that gives me. I cut apart my ropes and tiptoe over to Marcel. I slide the flute from his pocket and sneak to the shelves. When I pull down the chipped pitcher, my pulse races. My bones are within.

  I grab a small leather pouch that Jules uses for coins and replace the coins with my bones. Energy tickles me as I touch each one. The pendant of an alpine ibex. The wing bone of a peregrine falcon. The tooth of a tiger shark. When I pull the necklace cord over my head and the pouch settles against my chest, I breathe in deeply and close my eyes. I feel my power steel inside me.

  I’m whole again. Balanced.

  I’m Ailesse.

  My graces are weaker than before—I’ve been in the darkness too long—but I can remedy that.

  I fetch an oil lamp and quietly push the small door of our chamber open. I tighten my grip around the hilt of Marcel’s knife and look back at Bastien. His dark hair has tumbled across his closed eyes, and it flutters with his heavy breathing.

  A flood of sensations rushes into me. The coolness of the water he gave me. The strong press of his hand when he pulled me out of the pit. The echo of his words: Pull yourself up. Take my hand.

  I find myself softly smiling at him.

  I tuck the knife into the sash of my dress. I won’t kill Bastien. For now. I’ll return to my mother, give her the flute, and ferry the dead at her side. And before the year ends, I’ll track Bastien down and do what I must.

  I sneak outside the chamber and take one heart-pounding glance at the wall of skulls, then face the looming tunnel ahead.

  Elara, help me find a way out of this prison.

  22

  Sabine

  MY FULL QUIVER BOBS AGAINST my back as I race across the cliffs above the Nivous Sea. I haven’t shot one arrow since I killed the nighthawk. I don’t know what I’m hunting for, but my heart pounds with a deep sense of urgency. I need to decide and make my final kill.

  Ailesse has been underground for fifteen days. I can’t wait any longer for the silver owl to come back and give me a sign that I made the right choice of grace bone. So far I’ve pursued a wild boar, a feral horse, and even a rare black wolf, but I hesitated when I had an opportunity to seize them. Would that animal give me enough ability to rescue Ailesse? Why won’t the silver owl tell me? I haven’t seen her since she showed me the vision of my friend.

  The smell of salt and brine fills my lungs as I run faster, scanning the plains that sprawl out before me. Each blade of swaying wild grass comes into clear focus. I’m still amazed by my nighthawk grace to see well in the dark. It looks as bright outside as it does during a full moon. But this is a new moon. Ferrying night. None of the Leurress were able to hunt a golden jackal in time, so as a last resort, Odiva carved a new flute from the bone of a ritual stag, giving it all the same markings as the original flute. Whether or not it has the same power remains to be seen. My famille has been on edge about it for days.

  When I race another half mile, my path inclines on a rolling hill. I near the top, and a group of women holding staffs approaches from the other side. Ferriers, led by Odiva. My brows lift. They’ve left Château Creux already. Is it that close to midnight? I tense to run the other way—I shouldn’t be out tonight—but it’s too late. They’ve already seen me.

  We crown the hill at the same moment. I stop and come face-to-face with my matrone. She’s wearing her five grace bones in their epaulettes, rows of necklaces, and her striking crown, but she’s not wearing her customary sapphire-blue dress beneath. Tonight, she’s clothed in a white dress, like the other Ferriers, though the color looks unearthly on Odiva, not holy.

  “Sabine.” She looks me up and down, and thin lines crease across her forehead. “What are you doing here? You’re needed at home.” On ferrying night, I’m supposed to remain with the younger girls and those too old to ferry, while the majority of the Leurress attend to their duty on the soul bridge.

  “I’m on my way there, Matrone.” I don’t know why I’m lying; Odiva wants me to earn my third grace bone as much as I do. She might approve of why I’m out here. “I lost track of the time.” One disadvantage of night vision is that I can’t judge the light of the sky very well to determine the hour, even though I’ve had this grace for two weeks. I hope I’ll acclimate.

  “Hurry along. Your new grace bone should help with your speed.”

  “Yes, Matrone.”

  She passes by me, and the other Ferriers trail behind her. I know without counting there are thirty-four of them, including Odiva. As they walk, they assert a strong elegance, their staffs in hand and posture exact. Each of them maintains a rigorous training schedule to prepare for monthly ferrying nights. They don’t look prepared now. Their lips move quietly, and their pleading eyes glance to the Night Heavens—and even below to the Underworld. They’re offering desperate prayers, more anxious than ever about the new bone flute.

  When Odiva reaches the bottom of the hill, she turns to consider me again. “On second thought, Sabine, I would like you to come with us.”

  “Come ferrying?” My voice pitches higher.

  “No, to observe ferrying.”

  My breath bottles in my chest. I can’t summon a response. Novices aren’t allowed to come anywhere close to the soul bridge. It’s too dangerous to be near the Chained.

  Odiva beckons me with a subtle wave of her hand. I reluctantly go to her, my gaze dropping from her black eyes to the lump of her hidden necklace beneath her dress: the bird skull with a ruby in its beak. I bite the inside of my lip. What else is the matrone hiding from me—and all our famille? “You
will be able to see the dead now, thanks to this.” She lifts the nighthawk leg bone I wear on Ailesse’s shoulder necklace.

  “Yes, but . . . I don’t have my third grace bone. What about my rite of passage?” A sick flush of nausea cramps my stomach. “I’m not ready.”

  I don’t dare move. Odiva still hasn’t let go of my nighthawk leg. She traces its claw with her pointed fingernail, and my pulse throbs in my throat. “Some members of our famille have confided in me their concerns about you,” she says, shaking her head with false sorrow. “They say you are unsure if you want to become a Ferrier at all.”

  “I’m only sixteen.” My voice cracks. “I still have time to decide.”

  “No, Sabine. I am afraid time is the last thing you have.” She releases my necklace and tips up my chin. Her touch is gentle, but her fingers feel like ice. “Time is at an end for all of us.” My brow wrinkles. What does she mean? Her eyes glitter with anticipation, but it’s feverish and forced. “Come, we mustn’t delay.” She walks on, confident I’ll follow. “You will watch from a safe distance on the shore. Perhaps if you witness ferrying for yourself, you will understand the importance of your duty.”

  I consider sneaking away and facing punishment later, but then I think of Ailesse. This night would have been her first time on the soul bridge. Every long hunt she endured, every grace she won, she did to achieve her dream of becoming a masterful Ferrier.

  I draw a sustaining breath, fist my clammy hands, and join the sisters of my famille.

  I’ll go to honor Ailesse.

  We soon arrive at another set of high cliffs that drop into a sheltered inlet of the Nivous Sea. The Leurress lead me through a narrow gap between two boulders, and the space inside widens just enough so we can walk single file. A steep, carved stairway descends at our feet. I support my hands against the limestone walls and tread carefully, wishing for the balance of Ailesse’s ibex grace.