Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace #1)(29)

“I will kill you slowly,” I promise. “And when you beg for mercy, I will cut out your tongue.”

The water stirs as he wades closer. His hot breath is in my face. “You’ll never get the chance. After I kill your mother, I’ll find a way past your magic and stop your heart. Your body will rot until you’re nothing but bones, just like all the men you’ve slaughtered.”

“I’ve never killed a man,” I snap. “Each member of my famille kills only one.” For someone who knew enough about my strengths and weaknesses to kidnap me, Bastien has surprisingly slim knowledge about the Leurress. He probably studied how to kill me without bothering to learn why my people do what we do in the first place—and how difficult it is.

He scoffs. “How generous.”

I wish my glare could burn holes through this blindfold.

The water burbles behind us. Marcel has caught up. “How far ahead is Jules?” he asks.

“Just past our ring of light,” Bastien replies. He releases a tight exhale and pushes me along. “Let’s go.”

I take care not to slip as my flared sleeves trail through the water. Every time my feet hit an obstacle, I shudder, fearing it’s a human bone.

We slowly press forward. The path forks at least fifteen times until it inclines and I’m back on dry limestone. Praise the gods. From here, we only change paths six times, then a hand grabs my shoulder to make me stop. “Are we here?” I ask. All I want to do is to lie down and dream I’ve completed my rite of passage and become a Ferrier of the dead.

I want to wake up from this nightmare.

“Yes.” Jules’s voice is strangely sweet. “You can take off your blindfold now.”

I hesitate. She’s up to something.

“Wait until we’re inside the chamber,” Bastien says.

My jaw tightens. I’m tired of submitting to him. I yank off my blindfold and cast it on the ground. No sooner have I done so than I wish it back again. Twelve feet before me, the tunnel widens and dead-ends into a massive wall of stacked skulls.

I clap my hands over my mouth and shrink backward. My eyes pool with tears. “Where—?” I choke on my words. “Where are their other bones?”

Marcel removes his pack. “There’s a gallery of femurs in the west catacombs.” He rolls out his shoulders. “But most of the bones—ribs and clavicles and the like—are lying in heaps behind monuments such as these.” He shrugs lackadaisically. “I suppose our ancestors couldn’t spare the time to arrange all of them.”

“Are all their skeletons separated like this?”

“Mm-hmm.”

My tears spill over. This is sinful, abhorrent, revolting. The Leurress bury men whole. The gods forbid us to remove human bones from their bodies. If we did, their souls would suffer a state of endless unrest in the afterlife. They wouldn’t be reunited with their bodies. They wouldn’t be able to touch or act upon things. They wouldn’t be able to embrace their departed loved ones.

“Why are you offended?” Bastien’s brows furrow. He grabs a crate tucked against the wall and passes it over to Jules. “Your kind wears all sorts of separated bones.”

“That’s different. Animals are ordained for us by the gods.” I wipe away another rush of tears. “Their souls were granted inferior glory.”

Jules snorts. “She’s unbelievable.”

“But humans were crafted in the image of the gods,” I go on, ignoring the disgusted look she gives me as she crouches and removes several clay lamps from the crate. “We’re destined for a higher place in the eternal realms.”

She rolls her eyes. “Naturally.”

Why am I explaining sacred things to hateful people? My gaze drifts back to the wall of skulls, and I tremble, numb with shock, sick with horror. I drop to my knees and lift cupped hands to the Night Heavens, somewhere above all this rock and death.

“What is she doing?” Jules asks. I hear the whoosh of flame as she lights all the lamps with hers.

“She appears to be . . . praying,” Marcel says.

Grant these souls peace, Elara. Tell them I mourn for them.

After a brief spell of silence, Bastien mutters, “Watch her, Jules. Come on, Marcel. Help me carry in these lamps.”

As their footsteps retreat, Jules scoots beside me. “So let me guess—you Bone Criers receive the most glory.” Her snide laugh grates on my ears.

“My soul chose this path, just as you chose yours. Do not mock what you don’t understand. To be a Leurress requires great sacrifice.”

“Yes, but not for your people. You consider the men you kill to be your sacrifices—my father, Bastien’s father. But we’re the ones who have suffered, not you.”

I meet her hard gaze, and guilt nicks my stomach. “Is that why the three of you banded together? Because you all lost your fathers?”

Jules roughly swipes a hand under her nose. “We were only children.”

My guilt cuts deeper, but Jules doesn’t understand. None of them do. “Your fathers are in Elara’s Paradise, a place of great joy and beauty.” I recite what I’ve been taught. “They’re happy, and they accept their deaths.”

Jules spits in my face. I recoil with wide eyes. “Do you know what does comfort me?” She pushes to her feet and walks to the dim edge of our circle of lamplight. She withdraws something tucked under the neckline of her bodice. I squint and barely make out that it’s long, slim, and pale. “Knowing you Bone Criers won’t be able to lure another man without your flute.”