Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace #1)(44)

The queen’s eyes linger on her. If there’s any love in her expression, I can’t read it. Maybe she won’t make this exchange. “What is it you want, Bastien?” she asks me.

I flinch at my name, startled she knows it. “The bones,” I reply. “All of them.”

“We are in the catacombs. You will have to be more specific.”

She knows very well which bones I mean. “The bones that give you magic.”

“Ah, our grace bones.” She folds her hands together. “The power you call ‘magic’ is a gift from the gods. It is not to be trifled with, lest the gods smite you. But if you insist—”

“I do. A small price for your daughter’s life.”

“My daughter and the bone flute,” the queen stipulates.

Ailesse opens her mouth to speak, but I hold the knife tighter against her throat, a silent warning not to reveal that Jules broke the flute. “Agreed,” I say, though I have no intention of keeping my promise.

The queen gestures to her attendants. They share troubled glances.

“One person at a time,” I order. “I want to see three bones from each of you.”

The queen lifts her chin, a challenge in her gaze, and nods at each Bone Crier. A basket lowers from a gap in the tunnel ceiling. The hidden pulley wheel screeches. Jules is up there doing her part.

The Bone Criers place their bones in the basket, and I count them. Some are set in bracelets, anklets, necklaces, earrings, and even hair combs. One woman blinks back tears, as if she’s passing over a child. Good. I want this to be painful for them.

I’ve lost track of the queen. She’s somewhere at the back of the group. She murmurs something to her attendants, and they part to let her pass. She glides forward to the basket, locks eyes with Ailesse, and removes her talon epaulettes, her claw necklace, and, last of all, her crown. It’s made from a twisting vertebra. Probably a deadly snake.

As soon as the queen sets her last bone in the basket, she grips the rope so it can’t be hoisted up. “We will make the exchange at the same time,” she tells me. “Lower another rope for Ailesse.”

“The terms are mine, not yours,” I counter. “Let go of the basket and come to the edge of the pit.”

Her black eyes narrow. She releases the rope and glances at the fractures on the floor. “I’ll do this alone,” she says to the other Bone Criers. They shift backward.

I hope Marcel is ready. There’s a second tunnel beneath us, a near copy of this one. At its end, the floor has also crumbled away into the chasm.

The queen slowly approaches the pit, her posture flawless. She’s four feet from the edge. Three feet. A hairline fissure cracks beneath her. She hesitates.

My chest tightens. The queen needs to come a little closer, where the ground is most fragile. We only have one cask of black powder.

Two feet.

“A clap of thunder,” Ailesse murmurs to herself. Her body goes rigid with understanding. “Run!” she screams at her mother. “The tunnel is going to rupture!”

The queen’s eyes fly wide. “Fall back!” she commands the other Leurress. “Roxane, the bones!”

“Now, Marcel!” I shout.

Roxane whips out a knife from a hidden sheath at her thigh. She cuts the basket free and races away with it.

I yank Ailesse back to the far wall of our small ledge and brace for the blow. My heart pounds three times. Nothing happens. How long is Marcel’s powder trail?

The queen grins. She hasn’t retreated like her attendants. She tenses to jump. I eye the fifteen feet between us. “She’ll never make it.”

“You’ve forgotten something,” Ailesse says to me. “A matrone wears five bones, not three.”

Five?

I never forgot—I never knew.

The queen leaps. Her arc is tremendous.

I release Ailesse and take a defensive stance. Ailesse rushes to the drop-off of the ledge toward her mother.

The queen is halfway across the chasm.

BOOM.

Chunks of stone burst in the air. I’m thrown on my back. Dust clouds choke my lungs. I push up to my feet, coughing. I wave away the smoke.

I can’t find the queen.

And Ailesse is gone.





18


Ailesse


I CLING TO THE CHASM wall, my hands tied. I’m barely able to keep purchase on the thin outcropping of rock. Rubble rains down on me. My muscles tense. Fingers cramp. If I fall, how long will it take before I hit the bottom and shatter every bone in my body? Don’t think like that, Ailesse. I’m not ready to die.

“Mother!” My ragged cry doesn’t echo. It’s swallowed by the settling debris and thick air.

All I see above me is a veil of dust, dimly lit by torchlight. How far down the wall did I slide? I glance across the chasm to the opposite wall to find my bearings. When I was standing with Bastien on the ledge, I saw another tunnel below ours. That’s where Marcel must have placed the black powder. But no sign of that tunnel exists anymore. It’s either fully collapsed or I’ve plunged far below it. I whimper at the thought.

My feet dig at the wall, groping for a foothold. Each time my toes catch a ridge, it crumbles away. I heave a panicked breath. If only I had my ibex bone.

Stop, Ailesse. Pining for what I’ve lost isn’t going to help me. I briefly close my eyes, trying to feel the strength and balance of my ibex grace. My muscles must remember.