Page 10 of The BoneKeeper's Daughter

And I’ll wrap it in ribbon

I’ll keep it cocooned from the Storms and the rain

It is my only treasure

I’ll always defend it

To keep you from harm and protect you from pain

Until, until, until the stars fall

Until, until, until we’re grey

Until, until, until we’re shadows

And my bones will sing for yours until end of days…”

I don’t know why, but the words are an ache in my heart, and my vision wavers as my eyes fill with tears. It is water gladly given. Tahrik doesn’t move, doesn’t look away from me, his face softening as he watches me react to his song. The air is still and the bones are silent, giving us a moment that seems out of time, that seems like stolen happiness from somewhere other than our here and now. His voice cracks slightly on the next verse, rough with emotion, and then steadies.

“I don’t breathe lest it’s beside you

I don’t see lest you’re in view

If they ask me of my purpose

I’ll answer my heart song so pure and so true

Until, until, until the Storms cease

Until, until, until I fade

Until, until, until the world stops

My bones will sing for yours until end of days.”

The last strum of the strings hovers in the air, like heat on a fallow field, and I know, as soon as it fades, we will be jerked back into the present, our little drops of sunshine dissolving in the shadow of bone. Suddenly, violently, I wish for nothing more than the Keeping to be ripped from me; I don’t care if it leaves me bloody and broken behind it. I want the promise of the man before me, a small house in the village with scrawny chickens and dirty floors, of mudstained children and cold winter evenings sheltered by the hearthfire. I want the feel of his hands on my skin and the taste of the song in his mouth, and it is a dream so overwhelming and excruciating that I cannot breath.

“Keeper,” he whispers, quiet as new bone, and I incline my head.

“Tahrik.” His name is a fever dream, a longing to accept the promise his song made. He offered something with those words, knew that I would hear them, and gave them to me as a gift. And I want, bone, flesh, and blood, to take them, and him, into my heart.What will you do if the bones call for Tahrik?My mind whispers.The Sun God is jealous of happiness. What will you do?

But this is not a happiness to be jealous of, this painful, desperate longing, this unfulfillable wish — this is like the Storm rains — a poisoned blessing, life and yet not life. The Council will never let me go; the bones will never release me. I exist with a foot and a hand and half my heart in the grave, and I will never condemn another to live in the veil with me. The note wavers, wanes, til it is more of a memory of sound than the sound itself exists, and then it, and the moment, are gone.

THE SOUND OF HOPE

WREN

He is unmoving, a world and a breath away from me, face now peaceful and respectful, as any villager should look when regarding the BoneKeeper, and I am sick with longing for the secret smile from moments before. The distant reverence is unwelcome and unnerving. But it is not worth the risk to either of us to say what can’t be said, so my eyes and face are blank and empty as the Silent bracelets around my wrists. My heart, though, cannot be quiet.

Tah-REEK. Tah-REEK. The sound of hope in a soundless word.

“BoneKeeper. Are you well?” He cannot help the curl of his full lips, tilting up at the corner. In a city of death and dust, he is unexpected happiness, and it is always a gift to me, even though it is guarded and careful. Reaching out to the bone wall near me, I run my fingers along their surfaces, wondering how to respond. They’re waiting, noiseless, as I study him surreptitiously.

If our village were made human, it would be Tahrik. His golden skin is the color of the wheat fields in the light of the setting sun, his ebony hair, tumbling in wild waves to his shoulders, a mirror of the mountain rock. The gleaming doors of the Council House are his eyes, so brown they are almost black under heavy brows. His jaw is sharp, and his cheekbones high over hollow shadows; there is neverenough food for any of us to be rounded, even for the millers and bakers. Nose straight and neck long to thin but powerful shoulders, everything about him is a map of our people. He looks no different from any other in so many ways, but my eyes are drawn to him even in a crowd of a hundred. I know the way he folds his cloak, how he laces his boots, and, if heisour village, then he is all of the shining moments with none of the despair.

“Well enough.” My voice is cool and calm. My heart is chaos and lightning.

“Are you free for visitations today?” His eyes dart to either side like the tiny brush birds that live in the pale brown scrub bushes outside of the Southern Bone Arch, making sure we are alone.

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