Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace #1)(8)

My mother’s serene face swims in my tear-blurred vision. “Thank you.” My voice is a croak, barely an utterance. It’s all I can manage. All I want is for her to fold me in her arms. If she’s ever embraced me, I’ve lost the memory.

I’m about to shift closer when she abruptly pulls back. I blink and collect myself with a quick swipe under my nose. My mother turns to Sabine, who hangs back a step, uncomfortably present during our conversation. “You will be Ailesse’s witness at her rite of passage.”

A small gasp escapes Sabine’s mouth. “Pardon?” I’m equally stunned. The elder Leurress always serve as witnesses.

Odiva lifts Sabine’s chin and smiles. “You have proven unwavering loyalty to my daughter, even in the face of death. You have earned this right.”

“But I’m not ready.” Sabine shrinks back. “I only have one grace.”

“That doesn’t matter,” I say, my stomach fluttering with excitement. “You just need to watch me. Witnesses aren’t allowed to intervene.” I must be tested on my own.

“Ailesse is my heir,” Odiva adds. “The gods will protect her.” Warmth surges through my limbs, even though my mother doesn’t look at me. “Your role is to bear sacred record, Sabine. You might find the ritual inspires you to finish earning your own grace bones.” My friend’s strained expression says she seriously doubts that. Odiva releases a quiet sigh. “I have been patient with you, but the time has come for you to accept who you are—a Leurress, and very soon a Ferrier.”

Sabine tucks a loose curl behind her ear with trembling fingers. “I’ll do my best,” she murmurs. Earning graces, completing a rite of passage, and becoming a Ferrier are supposed to be choices, but the truth is they’re expected of us. No one in our famille has ever dared to shun the life we lead. Not unless she dies along with her amouré, the way Ashena and Liliane did.

Odiva stands taller, looking back and forth at us. “I want you both to prepare for the full moon in earnest.”

“Yes, Matrone,” Sabine and I answer as one.

“Now take that shark meat to the kitchen and tell Ma?a to prepare it for supper.”

“Yes, Matrone.”

With a skeptical arch in her brow, Odiva leaves us. I wait, lips pressed together, until she’s deep in conversation with Isla on the other side of the courtyard. Then I turn to Sabine and release a squeal of happiness. “You’re my witness!” I grab her arms and shake them. “You’re going to be there with me! I couldn’t wish for anyone better.”

She grimaces as I rattle her. “Far be it from me to deny anyone the chance to watch you slaughter the man of your dreams.”

I giggle. “Don’t worry, I’ll make it clean and quick. You’ll barely see it happen.” I shove the image of the de-finned tiger shark from my mind.

“What if your amouré is more than you bargained for?” Sabine squirms. “I’m not convinced you’ll be able to resist him. You swoon at even the ugliest boys we spy on the roads.”

“I do not!” I slug her arm.

She finally laughs with me. “Your amouré will probably be a foot shorter than you and smell of sulfur and bat dung.”

“That’s better than the scent rolling off you.”

Her mouth falls open, but then she smirks. “That was low, Ailesse. It was your idea to harvest the shark meat.”

I grin and heft up the sack from the floor, ignoring the flare of pain in my hand. “I know. Come on.”

She begrudgingly joins me as we walk toward the east tunnel to the kitchen. “I hope that rope cuts your wounds wide open.” She nods at the handle of the sack, then bumps my shoulder with hers. We both giggle again.

As we trail away into the tunnel and out of earshot of the other Leurress, Sabine slows her footsteps. “Are you sure you don’t want to bear a daughter? What if you grow old and regret your one chance?”

I try to picture becoming intimate with a man. How much could my graces help me? And then to feel his offspring growing inside me until she’s so large she has to rip out. “I can’t . . .” I shake my head. “I’m just not maternal.”

“That’s not true. I see how you are with Felise and Lisette. They adore you.”

I smile, thinking of the youngest girls in our famille. They fight over who gets to sit on my lap while we pluck quail feathers. When the clover blooms, I weave them through their hair. “I’ll be a better aunt. We’re practically sisters, right? Why don’t you have a child one day, and I’ll dote upon her?”

“I don’t know.” Sabine places a hand over her stomach. “The rite of passage should happen when we’re . . . thirty-seven.” She throws out a random age, well removed from her own sixteen years. “Right now it’s hard to imagine any of that.”

The word “that” speaks volumes and hangs heavy in the air. “That” is the hardest path a Leurress can choose. If she decides to live with her amouré, she’s given exactly one year from her rite of passage to do so. Regardless of what happens afterward, the man’s life is forfeit. If she doesn’t kill him by the year’s end, they’re both cursed. The magic of the unfinished ritual will cut his life short and hers. It is how Ashena died. It is how Liliane died five years before her. It’s the ultimate disgrace.