Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace #1)(26)

Odiva turns away, signaling the end of our conversation, and she withdraws to the place where I first saw her praying. She starts to murmur an unfamiliar chant. I can’t make out all her words, but I hear Ailesse’s name as Odiva lifts her hand to her bat skull crown. She cuts her finger on its teeth and drips her blood onto the limestone below, where the Leurress have etched the face of Tyrus’s golden jackal in the curve of Elara’s sickle moon. My stomach turns. I’ve never seen or heard of a ritual like the one she’s doing.

The matrone’s pitch-dark eyes slowly rise to me while her blood keeps spilling. “Goodnight, Sabine.”

My knees wobble. “Goodnight.”

She turns her back to me again, a mirror reflection of before—her arms outstretched in prayer, her cupped hands tipped downward. A marrow-deep shiver runs through me, and I hasten away.

In my room, I grab my bow and a quiver of bone-tipped arrows. I have no intention of sleeping tonight. I’d only toss and turn. Instead, I sneak through a side tunnel, bypassing the courtyard, and I leave Chateau Creux.

Clutching my wounded side, I run as fast as possible. Once I clear the castle by a mile, I remove my salamander grace bone and tie it onto Ailesse’s shoulder necklace. The act of clasping it around my own neck and shoulder seals my vow to her.

I will save you, Ailesse.

I can’t rely on the elders or Odiva to do what I must, especially since my matrone is more concerned about the bone flute.

As I begin my journey to Castelpont, Elara’s Light, like courage, seeps inside my soul. Even stronger is my fierce determination. I’ll search for the flute in the riverbed, then I’ll strike out for the hunting grounds of the forest. I’ll kill to obtain my last two grace bones, if that’s what it takes to save my friend. And this time I won’t weep.

I will be like Ailesse.





11


Ailesse


CURSE BASTIEN AND EVERY BONE in his body. I can’t see anything through this blindfold. My foot catches on a tree root—or maybe a rock—and I pitch forward. He hoists me back up before I hit the ground. I thrash against his iron grip on my arm. “Let go!” But he won’t. He hasn’t since we left Castelpont—since I failed to kill him.

Humiliation scalds my cheeks. My mother will never believe I’m capable again. Far worse than losing my grace bones, I lost the bone flute. Sabine will go back for it—that’s my only consolation—but I can’t shake the image of my mother’s furious eyes when Sabine tells her what happened.

I struggle to stay on my feet as Bastien continues to drag me through the forest. His two friends hedge us in, helping to guard me as we travel, Marcel in front and Jules behind. Their footsteps fall loud and clumsy. Marcel shuffles as he walks, and Jules limps on her hurt leg. Thank you for that, Sabine.

“You’re playing a game you’ll never win,” I warn them. “If you three had any wisdom between you, you’d let me go while you still have the chance. My mother will come looking for me, and you do not want to face her wrath.”

Bastien’s grip tightens, and my arm prickles with numbness. “If your mother wants you back, she’ll have to come to us in our territory.”

“You really think you can hide me?” I scoff. “There is nowhere you can dream of that my mother won’t find.”

“I’m counting on it.”

We come to an abrupt stop in the forest. I’ve tried to track my steps over the past hour and a half, but we’ve changed directions too many times. We’ve even walked through streams, with the current and against it. Bastien is trying to disorient me, and without my falcon, shark, and ibex graces, it’s working. Maybe he fears my mother will see through my eyes—impossible—and he thinks his tactics will help outrun her. Fool.

“You first, Jules,” Bastien says. “Then you can guide the Bone Crier through to the other side.”

“I say we let her squirm.” I startle at the nearness of Jules’s voice, just behind me, deep and scratchy for a girl. If I had my shark tooth, I’d have sensed her closeness. But my grace bones are in her possession now, a fact she keeps gloating about when she’s not hissing about her hurt leg. I hope it falls off.

“Our first priority is to get her deep underground,” Bastien replies.

Underground? My chest tightens at the suffocating thought. The courtyard beneath Chateau Creux is different from wherever Bastien means; it’s at least open to Elara’s Night Heavens and the breeze from the Nivous Sea. “Where are you taking me?”

His spicy scent hits me as he shifts nearer. “The catacombs. I’ll let you guess by which entrance.”

My heart hammers. The catacombs are rumored to have several entrances, and some sections don’t join up with others and lead to dead ends. “No, you can’t . . . I can’t . . .” I’ll be starved of moonlight and starlight, my last sources of strength. I have to get away. Now.

I shove Bastien hard in the chest. His hold breaks, and I run—only four feet. He grabs my other arm and twists it behind my back. I suck in a sharp gasp of pain.

He chuckles. “You were right, Marcel,” he calls a little ahead of us.

“Was I?” Marcel replies. “I mean, I usually am, but what about this time?”

“Bone Crier magic comes from more than just bones.” Smug satisfaction drips from Bastien’s voice. “They’re creatures of the night.”