Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace #1)(70)

“Please tell me that has a bottom,” Ailesse says.

“It’s a forty-foot drop to the ground,” I reply. Still enough to kill a person if they took a fall, but the lines of worry smooth from Ailesse’s forehead.

We climb down scaffolding on the near side of the pit. She’s still weak. Her legs are shaking, and she has a strained expression like she can barely keep herself upright. I want to carry her again, but that’s impossible at the moment. When we’re twenty feet down, we step off the scaffolding and into a quarry room, half the size of our last chamber and open to the pit on one side.

I set my lantern in the middle of the floor. It barely casts enough light to fill the space. Ailesse looks around at what will be her home for the next who-knows-how-many days, and heat creeps up my cheeks. I shove a few crates aside and shake the dust from a moth-eaten blanket. “We’ll make this place comfortable, I promise.”

“Who made this?” Ailesse asks reverently.

“Made what?” I turn around and find her staring at the far wall of the room. It’s a relief of Chateau Creux. My chest twinges with pain. I’ve only seen the castle ruins from a distance. The old fortress looks nothing like it does here—majestic, with tall towers. On one side are the sun god and earth goddess, Belin and Ga?lle, and on the other side are Elara and Tyrus, the goddess of the Night Heavens and the god of the Underworld. I fold my arms and unfold them. “My father carved that.”

“Your father?” Ailesse turns to me. For a moment, I stop breathing. I can’t look away from her large and beautiful eyes, her wavy hair, the fullness of her upper lip . . . If I had my father’s talent, I’d carve a statue of her.

I finally nod and dig my hands into my pockets. “He was a sculptor, a struggling one.” I tip my chin at eleven figurines I salvaged after he died. “He sold these at the market to make ends meet. He couldn’t afford blocks of limestone, so he snuck down here and quarried them out for himself.”

Ailesse’s gaze travels over the figurines I’ve arranged on the ledge of the right wall. Eight are sculptures of the gods, two are miniature carvings of Beau Palais, and five are forest animals and sea creatures.

A soft smile lifts the corners of Ailesse’s mouth. “Your father was a master, Bastien.”

Warmth stirs deep inside my chest. Then I remember that a Bone Crier—someone like Ailesse—killed my father and a rush of coldness chases it away. The hunger for revenge I’ve harbored for so long hasn’t stopped gnawing at my gut, but I don’t know what to do about it anymore. I sit down and lean against the wall, opposite from her, putting as much distance as I can between us. “My father’s name was Lucien Colbert,” I say, my voice suddenly hoarse. “Did anyone in your famille ever mention it?”

Ailesse’s auburn brows draw inward. She shakes her head slowly and eases down on the ground to sit across from me. “I’m sorry. Not everyone in my famille speaks about their amourés. Some never take the opportunity to know them before they . . .” She lowers her eyes.

I shrug a shoulder like it doesn’t matter, when of course it matters. “If the gods truly singled out my father to die, then no one should worship them.” The edge in my voice is back. Good.

Ailesse winces. “You can’t speak like that.”

I shoot her a dark look. “Are you joking?”

She presses her lips together and rubs the lump on the back of her head. It’s probably bigger now. “Maybe there’s another way to complete a rite of passage . . . I don’t know.” Her words come haltingly and with great effort. She pulls her hand away and folds it in her lap. “Maybe no one prayed hard enough to find out.”

My brows twitch. I’m openly staring at her. Did she just admit a pivotal event of her life could be wrong? “If you pray hard enough, do you think you can break our bond?”

She cracks the smallest smile. “So you believe the gods should be worshipped, after all?”

“Depends.” I suppress a grin.

Her shoulders shake with silent laughter, but then her expression falls. “Our bond is already set in motion, Bastien. Praying can’t break the inevitable outcome.”

“Is it really inevitable?” I scoot closer. “I mean, if we protect each other—and promise not to kill each other—then we’ll both come out of this alive and kicking, whether we’re soul-bound or not.”

She tugs on a thread of her ruined dress. “Actually, the outcome is more complicated than that.”

“How?”

“Once an amouré is claimed, his life is forfeit.”

“Claimed . . . as in killed?”

“No, claimed from the moment the siren song calls him to the bridge.”

My throat closes on a forced laugh. “Well, I’m still living, right?”

She swallows. “For now.”

“What do you mean?”

Ailesse tips her head back, like she’s staring at a sky I can’t see. “You have one year, Bastien.” Her chest sinks in. “If I don’t complete the ritual before then, you’ll die regardless. The gods always find a way.”

I grow silent for a moment, thinking about how Jules and Marcel’s father died. “And how are you punished if you fail?”

She draws a long breath and holds my gaze. “The gods find a way to kill me, too.”