Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace, #1)(13)
I’m unconvinced. Ailesse chose Castelpont for the same reason she killed a tiger shark. Out of all the bridges in South Galle, Castelpont presents the most challenge: it’s closest to Dovré. A rite of passage here will impress the other Leurress. Once Odiva forgives Ailesse, it might impress her, too.
Ailesse twirls around and takes both of my hands. “I’m so happy you’re with me, Sabine.”
Though her smile is radiant, her hands betray a slight tremor. “I’m happy I’m with you, too,” I lie. Whether I hate this rite of passage or not, she’ll never back out of it, so I wish her to be sure and swift about her kill. If it’s clumsy and her amouré suffers a slow death, Ailesse will regret it for the rest of her life.
She unclasps her necklace, slips it off her shoulder, and passes it over to me. “Shall we begin?”
The rite of passage is the only time a Leurress can access her power without wearing her bones. But she must stay on the ritual bridge.
I inhale a deep breath and offer her a small yew chest. She opens the lid. Inside, the ancient bone flute rests on a bed of lamb’s wool. Ailesse reverently withdraws the instrument, and her fingers run over the tone holes and trace the engraved symbols. The Leurress claim the flute was made from the bone of a golden jackal, but the sacred beast is mythical, at least in my mind. No one in my famille has ever seen one in Galle.
A sudden gust carries the sound of faint voices. Something rustles in the trees, and I glance behind us. “Ailesse”—I grab her arm—“someone is here.”
As she shifts to look, a silver owl swoops from the branches and arcs overhead. A nervous laugh spills out of me, but Ailesse grows solemn. Owl sightings portend either good or bad fortune.
You don’t know which until the inevitable happens.
“Go, Sabine,” Ailesse says, as the owl screeches and flies off. “We can’t delay.”
I kiss her cheek and hasten away to do my part. “Good luck.” A witness does more than bear record of the ritual sacrifice. I must also bury Ailesse’s grace bones beneath the bridge’s foundations and retrieve them afterward. When she plays the siren song on the bridge, the gods will choose a man for her. Whether her promised lover is near or far, whether he hears the song or feels its music inside him, the two of them will be bonded, and he’ll be drawn to meet her. Our famille has been known to attract amourés from all quarters of Dovré, and even miles outside the city walls.
Ailesse kneels on the bridge, closes her eyes, and lifts her cupped hands to the Night Heavens.
She murmurs a prayer to Tyrus’s bride, Elara, separated from him at the dawn of time by the mortal world that formed between their kingdoms.
I steal a glance at Elara’s milky veil of stars and offer up a prayer of my own. Help me endure this night. I rush away, fumbling with Ailesse’s shoulder necklace. All three of her grace bones are tied onto it with waxed cording. I feel none of their power.
I unravel the knots, remove the bones, and I climb down the steep bank of the riverbed. The soil at the bottom is cracked and dry, so I grab a jagged rock to dig the first hole. I bury Ailesse’s first bone, the wing bone of a peregrine falcon, then hurry to the second foundation corner. I’m grateful I don’t have to get wet. If Ailesse had chosen a bridge over water, I’d be swimming right now. I’d have to tie her bones to the foundations beneath the waterline.
Every flutter of the wind makes me flinch and scan our surroundings. If anyone other than Ailesse’s amouré comes this way and grows suspicious, Ailesse might not be able to defend herself —not until I’m finished down here and she plays the siren song. She can’t wield her graces until then.
I bury the second bone and rush to the other side of the riverbed to bury the third bone. Each hole is shallower than the last, but I don’t trouble myself to dig any deeper. I leave the fourth corner undisturbed, reserving that spot for the man Ailesse will kill. It will be his grave—the last honor he’ll receive in this life. Yet another reason to be grateful this isn’t a bridge over water. Casting a dead man in a river, to be washed up who knows where, seems a poor form of thanks after taking his life.
“I’m finished!” I call, and throw one more handful of earth over the last grace bone. “You can begin.”
“I’ll wait until you’re back up here.” Ailesse’s clear and relaxed voice echoes back to me. Her prayer must have calmed her. “Otherwise you won’t be able to see me.”
I stifle a groan and start climbing the riverbank. “It’s not as if your amouré is going to materialize when you play the first note. He could live on the other side of Dovré for all we know.”
She lets out a loud sigh. “I didn’t think about that. I hope this doesn’t take all night.”
As much as I want her rite of passage to be done with, part of me wishes her amouré never comes. The gods demand enough of a Leurress over her lifetime. They shouldn’t ask us to make a sacrifice like this, too. But Tyrus is said to be exacting. His cape is made from the smoke and ash of oath breakers and cowards, the worst sinners in the Underworld, those caught in the eternal fire of his wrath. Even murderers suffer a better fate on the Perpetual Sands, Tyrus’s scorching desert where thirst is never quenched.
I finally reach the top, panting, and brace my hands on my hips. “I’m here. Go on.”