Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace, #1)(29)

“Groundwater,” Marcel replies faintly. I cock my head to him. He’s probably closer than he sounds. “At least half the catacombs are flooded.”

I shudder. Up until now, I haven’t touched any human bones, but the water must carry decomposed fragments like the sea carries salt. Odiva forbids our famille to enter the catacombs because bones are sacred to us. We only take what we need, and we honor the creatures we hunt.

But no honor was given to the people whose bones fill this place. In the days of Old Galle, after a century of wars, the mass graves in Dovré started caving in on the limestone quarries beneath the city. The quarries were shored up so Dovré wouldn’t collapse, and the bones in the unmarked graves were dumped inside them. Abominable.

“Move.” Bastien shoves me hard. I stagger forward.

Two steps, five steps, nine. Elara, protect me. My foot hits an edge where the slick ground drops away. I flail to catch my balance; Bastien does nothing to help. With a small shriek, I plummet. The fall isn’t far—maybe three feet. My stomach slaps the water, and my knees graze the ground. My head surfaces, and I cough up a mouthful of lukewarm water. It’s gritty with limestone silt and probably the dust of human bones. I cringe and stand, shaking some of the wetness off my arms. The water reaches the level of my thighs.

Slosh. Swish. Bastien eases into the water. For the sake of preserving his lamplight, dimly glowing through my blindfold, I resist the urge to knock him on his backside. “Go on.” He jabs my spine.

“I will kill you slowly,” I promise. “And when you beg for mercy, I will cut out your tongue.”

The water stirs as he wades closer. His hot breath is in my face. “You’ll never get the chance.

After I kill your mother, I’ll find a way past your magic and stop your heart. Your body will rot until you’re nothing but bones, just like all the men you’ve slaughtered.”

“I’ve never killed a man,” I snap. “Each member of my famille kills only one.” For someone who knew enough about my strengths and weaknesses to kidnap me, Bastien has surprisingly slim knowledge about the Leurress. He probably studied how to kill me without bothering to learn why my people do what we do in the first place—and how difficult it is.

He scoffs. “How generous.”

I wish my glare could burn holes through this blindfold.

The water burbles behind us. Marcel has caught up. “How far ahead is Jules?” he asks.

“Just past our ring of light,” Bastien replies. He releases a tight exhale and pushes me along.

“Let’s go.”

I take care not to slip as my flared sleeves trail through the water. Every time my feet hit an obstacle, I shudder, fearing it’s a human bone.

We slowly press forward. The path forks at least fifteen times until it inclines and I’m back on dry limestone. Praise the gods. From here, we only change paths six times, then a hand grabs my shoulder to make me stop. “Are we here?” I ask. All I want to do is to lie down and dream I’ve completed my rite of passage and become a Ferrier of the dead.

I want to wake up from this nightmare.

“Yes.” Jules’s voice is strangely sweet. “You can take off your blindfold now.”

I hesitate. She’s up to something.

“Wait until we’re inside the chamber,” Bastien says.

My jaw tightens. I’m tired of submitting to him. I yank off my blindfold and cast it on the ground. No sooner have I done so than I wish it back again. Twelve feet before me, the tunnel widens and dead-ends into a massive wall of stacked skulls.

I clap my hands over my mouth and shrink backward. My eyes pool with tears. “Where—?” I choke on my words. “Where are their other bones?”

Marcel removes his pack. “There’s a gallery of femurs in the west catacombs.” He rolls out his shoulders. “But most of the bones—ribs and clavicles and the like—are lying in heaps behind monuments such as these.” He shrugs lackadaisically. “I suppose our ancestors couldn’t spare the time to arrange all of them.”

“Are all their skeletons separated like this?”

“Mm-hmm.”

My tears spill over. This is sinful, abhorrent, revolting. The Leurress bury men whole. The gods forbid us to remove human bones from their bodies. If we did, their souls would suffer a state of endless unrest in the afterlife. They wouldn’t be reunited with their bodies. They wouldn’t be able to touch or act upon things. They wouldn’t be able to embrace their departed loved ones.

“Why are you offended?” Bastien’s brows furrow. He grabs a crate tucked against the wall and passes it over to Jules. “Your kind wears all sorts of separated bones.”

“That’s different. Animals are ordained for us by the gods.” I wipe away another rush of tears.

“Their souls were granted inferior glory.”

Jules snorts. “She’s unbelievable.”

“But humans were crafted in the image of the gods,” I go on, ignoring the disgusted look she gives me as she crouches and removes several clay lamps from the crate. “We’re destined for a higher place in the eternal realms.”

She rolls her eyes. “Naturally.”

Why am I explaining sacred things to hateful people? My gaze drifts back to the wall of skulls, and I tremble, numb with shock, sick with horror. I drop to my knees and lift cupped hands to the Night Heavens, somewhere above all this rock and death.