Bone Crier's Moon (Bone Grace, #1)(36)

Ailesse is alive.

She has to be. Her amouré wouldn’t have taken the pains to drag her anywhere else, only to kill her when he could do it here. He abducted her, like I suspected. Which is terrible, but at least her heart is still beating.

A glimpse of white snags the corner of my vision—five feet to my right, tucked up against the parapet.

Ailesse’s bone knife.

I move to pick it up. This isn’t the ritual weapon she used to kill the tiger shark; it’s the knife she crafted for her rite of passage. Every Ferrier before her has done the same. I’ve never been taught if that’s because of custom or necessity. Will Ailesse need this knife to make her sacrifice acceptable to the gods? I slip it under my belt, just in case.

I hurry off the bridge and climb down the riverbank, praying I’ll see another flash of white.

Odiva’s warnings flood my mind.

The Chained need to be ferried. If they aren’t, they’ll feed off the souls of the living. Innocent people will die an everlasting death.

I walk the width of the riverbed, then back again several times, scanning any area where the bone flute could have fallen. I turn over rocks and kick the loose earth where I buried Ailesse’s grace bones. It’s no use. The bone flute isn’t anywhere. The lie I told Odiva must be true—Ailesse’s captors took it. I have to find them.

I race up the riverbank, but stop short when I see an elder Leurress peek out from the forest, using a different trail than mine. “Sabine,” Damiana calls quietly. Her wolf fang bracelet glints in the sunlight as she motions me closer with a rapid wave of her hand.

I rush over to her. “Where are the others?” I glance around for the six elders she set off with last night. “Have you found Ailesse?” Desperate hope fills my chest.

She steals a look at Beau Palais over the wall of Dovré and pulls me off the road, under the cover of the trees. “We’re still searching for her. We followed her captors’ trail for six miles, but they kept changing paths.” Her deep-set brown eyes lower. “We eventually lost their tracks where they merged into a stream.”

I give her hand a comforting squeeze. Damiana tried her best, but I hope the other elders didn’t give up so easily. “Didn’t anyone pursue them down the stream?”

She nods and rubs her wrinkled olive brow. Damiana is almost sixty years old. I can’t imagine she’ll ferry much longer—or spend many more nights joining search parties for the matrone’s missing daughter. “The stream soon met a wide river, you see. Pernelle, Chantae, and Nadine are still there, doing what they can, but when I left, Nadine still hadn’t picked up Ailesse’s scent.”

Damiana shakes her head. “Her sense of smell is powerful, too.”

I nod, picturing Nadine’s eel skull hair comb. “What about Milicent, Roxane, and Dolssa?”

“They set off in separate directions in a blind search for Ailesse. Meanwhile, I traced the captors’ trail back here to make sure we didn’t miss any clues as to where they could have gone.”

“I’ve already searched Castelpont and the riverbed.” I say. “All I found was Ailesse’s ritual knife.”

Damiana releases a heavy exhale. “None of us want to return to Chateau Creux until we’ve exhausted the search, but we finally agreed to meet there by nightfall to report to the matrone. You should go there now, Sabine. You can tell her what I’ve told you.”

“No.” I shrug a step back. “I can’t. Not without Ailesse. Not without more graces.” My brows pull together. “I should have had them to begin with.”

Damiana tilts her head and pats my cheek. “It’s best not to fight your life’s design for you, Sabine.”

“And what is that?” I force a shaky smile. “To be a killer?” Every Leurress who survives has the same destiny.

“No, my dear.” Damiana leans closer. Her silver-streaked braid slips in front of her shoulder.

“An instrument of the gods. Neither Tyrus nor Elara can walk this earth, so they trust us to guide departed souls into their realms. We must do what it takes to rise to the occasion.”

I meet her fervent eyes, and a measure of courage steals into me, as strong as a heady breath of Elara’s Light.

I need to do what she says—rise to the occasion and be the person I’m meant to be. Someone capable of rescuing Ailesse. My friend won’t be saved without me. It isn’t just stubbornness that tells me so, but a deep sense—an innate grace all its own—that warns me her life is in my hands.

The elders haven’t found Ailesse yet, and who knows if the strange ritual Odiva performed last night resulted in anything? I don’t trust it. Or her.

I need more graces. It’s as simple as that.

I give Damiana a parting embrace and hurry away into the forest. My focus for now must be hunting.

The hours pass swiftly as I search for the right animal—maybe a pit viper for heat vision or a wild boar for muscle—but I only come across small birds, martens, and rabbits. I shoot two arrows at what I hope is a fox, but it’s only the wind howling through the tall grass.

Twilight descends, and I’ve still found nothing satisfactory. I’m somewhere in the forest, maybe two miles outside Dovré. I weave through the trees, my senses alert. I don’t have Ailesse beside me to warn when the breeze shifts and I should move downwind of my prey. I’ve never had a gift for hunting. I traveled with her and mimicked her stealthy movements, but I put off learning the art of killing for myself. Now I must learn. And quickly.