Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace, #1)(24)

She hastens to me. “What happened?” A slight tremor skims across her lower lip. “Is Ailesse hurt, as well?”

I suddenly can’t meet her gaze. My throat runs dry, and tears flood my vision. “We were unprepared,” I choke out, not knowing where to begin.

Odiva steps closer, and the noctule bat skull fastened to her asp vertebrae crown looms over me. “Unprepared? For what?”

“Her amouré. He was ready for us. So were his accomplices—two of them. They knew what we were. And they wanted us dead.”

Lines of fury and confusion form between the matrone’s dark brows. “I don’t understand.

Ailesse is the most promising Leurress our famille has seen in a century.” I agree, though it’s a compliment she’s never paid my friend. “How could mere commoners—?” Her voice breaks like she can’t find her breath.

“A girl stole Ailesse’s grace bones under the bridge.” I withdraw my hand from behind my back and present Ailesse’s depleted shoulder necklace. My final task as her witness would have been to tie her grace bones back onto it. Shame burns from deep inside me and scalds my cheeks.

Until tonight, I believed my best friend was invincible, but I should have buried her bones deeper, guarded them better. Then Ailesse could have defended herself. “The girl claimed her father was killed by Ashena, so Ailesse’s amouré must have been helping her seek vengeance.”

Odiva grows statuesque. The funneling breeze wisps through her raven hair and sapphire dress, but her body is motionless. Finally, her lips crack apart. “Is she alive?” she whispers. “Did they kill my daughter?”

A broken sob rips out of my chest. “I don’t know.”

She grips my chin. “Where is the bone flute?” Ice crawls up my spine as her black eyes bore into me. I’ve never seen Odiva so vicious and desperate.

“It’s” . . . lost in the riverbed. “They took it.”

Her teeth grind together. “Are you sure?” she asks slowly, pointedly.

“Yes.” My stomach quivers. I’ve never lied to the matrone. I’m not sure why I am now, except for an ominous feeling that warns me Odiva shouldn’t have it yet. Especially when she seems more concerned about the flute than her daughter. “We should start tracking Ailesse now. If she’s alive, she needs our help.”

She whirls away from me. “Have you any idea of what you’ve done, Sabine?”

“I—?” I shrink back. Odiva’s never scolded me before. She saves that for Ailesse.

“How could you let this happen? Did you lose your grace bones, too?”

Grace bone, not bones. Singular. Pitiful. “I tried to help, but I was injured.”

“That’s no excuse. You should have trusted your grace to heal.”

I stare at her, my mouth slack, completely at a loss for words. I’m covered in dried blood and struggling to stay upright. My salamander grace may have quickened my healing, but my wounds were deep at Castelpont. “I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head and paces the courtyard, her dress rippling as she changes directions every few feet. I scarcely recognize the woman before me. She’s nothing like the cool and collected matrone who rules my famille. “Is this your sign?” Her furious shout echoes off the cavern walls. I wince, even though she isn’t speaking to me. I don’t know what sign she’s talking about, but her onyx eyes stab a glare of accusation toward the ground.

Within moments, three of the elders—Dolssa, Pernelle, and Roxane—race into the courtyard from various tunnels. Their hair and clothes are bedraggled, but their eyes shine alert. They scan the cavern like they’re searching for a source of danger. “Is everything all right, Matrone?” Dolssa asks.

Odiva clutches the lump of a red gem—or whatever it is she’s hiding beneath the neckline of her dress. “No, it is not.” She takes a labored breath and releases her grip.

Pernelle’s gaze turns to me and latches on to my blood-smeared face. “Ailesse . . . is she?”

“She’s alive.” Please let it be true, Elara. “But she needs us.” In as few words as possible, I repeat what I told Odiva.

The matrone wrings her hands and paces another length of the courtyard. “Wake the rest of the elders,” she commands the three Leurress. “Go track my daughter. Start at . . .” She looks to me.

“Castelpont.”

Odiva shuts her eyes. “Of course, Ailesse chose Castelpont.”

“We’ll find her, Matrone.” Roxane motions to her companions. They quickly leave to gather the others. I hurry to join them.

“I’m not finished with you, Sabine.”

I freeze and turn around. Odiva has regained her composure, but something about her pale, almost bloodless skin—gleaming even more pallidly in the moonlight—makes my scalp prickle.

She wanders toward me. “Have you been taught the difference between the Chained and the Unchained?” she asks, like I’m a child still learning the concept of ferrying—like this is an opportune time for a lesson.

“Yes,” I reply warily, and steal a glance over my shoulder. The elders are already gone from the courtyard, and I don’t want them to leave the castle without me. Why is Odiva bringing this up right now? “The Unchained are those who led a righteous life and deserve an eternity in Elara’s Paradise,” I say. “The Chained are the sinister souls, those who were wicked and merit punishment in Tyrus’s Underworld.”