Page 155 of The BoneKeeper's Daughter

Standing, he’d turned back to Ellie, her face damp with tears. “We knew it wouldn’t last, Lolly-girl.” She didn’t reply, and he’d glanced at me before shrugging. “I love you, Ell. We’ll figure something out.” Her intake of breath was sharp and sudden enough that he laughed sadly, shaking his head. “Aw, now. Wren knows. I don’t think it’s a surprise to her.”

“Wren is fast asleep and can’t hear anything,” I whispered in the dark, and could feel more than see their answering smiles. “If you give Wren a quarter candle, she’ll be so lost to the world that an earthquake wouldn’t wake her.”

Which was true. Faster than expected, worn out from the day and the late hour, I’d fallen asleep. I don’t know how long he’d remained, what promises were made once I was out, but Ellie was still lost to the world when I’d gotten up, sleeping like the dead. For the first time since I’d been taken by the People of the Blood, I stepped outside alone.

Mist was still thick on the damp ground as I’d made my way to the pickets where the horses were tied overnight. My own lay lazily in a patch of wet dirt, and I curled up beside him, face pressed against his velvet coat, breathing in rhythm with the slow in-and-out of his body, eventually falling back to sleep there until Rannoch and Kaden’s voices woke me like a dream.

“No wonder we never see her, if she’s spending all her time sleeping with the livestock…”

I’d come awake immediately, feeling on the edge of tears at the familiar tone. I’d missed them more than I could even acknowledge to myself; to look too closely at their places in my heart would open doors that couldn’t be closed again. But their absence in the last two weeks had left more space inside me than I knew.

“Horse isn’tlivestock,” I’d replied without opening my eyes, desperate to keep them, to not let them dissipate with the morning mist. “He’s my…I don’t know. Friend.” I finally opened my eyes to glare at him, but assoon as I’d seen the angles of their cheekbones, the familiar shapes of their lips and eyes and faces, everything softened into excruciating, daggersharp yearning. And it hasn’t faded since, sitting here with them, voices quiet in the waking morning, feeling like we’re stealing time.

“Where have you two been, anyway?” I ask curiously, unable to hide the longing in my voice, still leaning against Horse, trying to ignore the way my lips want to tilt up at the sounds of their laughter.

Kaden scrubs his face with a hand tiredly. “We’ve been put to work, Wren. Morning to night. We’re in an odd position. Not quite guests, not quite prisoners. And since we’re not together, per se, we’ve completely befuddled them. So our days are tasked, but cautiously so — nothing too hard, or below what the Second Tier do here. But we’re not left to our own devices.”

The easy way he saysSecond Tiercatches my attention. “Second Tier? Is that something you have too, where you’re from?”

For the first time since I met him, he looks…almost nervous, although I feel like I must be wrong.

“Ah…well…”

A scream shatters the air around us, a dagger in glass, and the shards fall down, cutting my ears with its sound. I know that voice. I know the voice that calls out with her; Ellie is singing with death, and I am off running before I know it, chasing down the music, praying I am wrong.

“What? Wren, what?” Kaden and Rannoch are racing behind me, cannot hear the change in the cry, and I run faster.

But I am too late.

Her soul is a bright star above her body, where a snake lies, headless and bloody by her bare feet, two small holes clear on her ankle.

Her eyes are open and empty.

Above her crumpled body, Axton is wrapped around Teo’s body, whispering frantically in the shaking man’s ear, pressing a hand over his mouth to muffle the agonized sounds pushing through the BloodLetter’s fingers.

Axton looks around, clearly panicked, eyes flaring wide when hesees us. We are the first to the clearing, but can hear others following closely behind, though they aren’t in sightline yet.

“Take him. Quickly. Somewhere far from here, where sound will be swallowed,” I command Rannoch and Kaden. Thank the Goddess they respond instantly, stepping carefully around Ellie, prying Teo from Axton’s embrace, and physically pulling the collapsing man along between them.

“I’ll follow her, I’ll follow her!” Teo is moaning, wailing, the sound of an animal being slaughtered, and Rannoch’s face is blank when he turns to me.

“BoneKeeper?” he asks, waiting for approval; shivering, I press my hands to my eyes.

“Hemustbe silent, or he’ll be silent forever.”

Rannoch nods, and, with the blunt end of his dagger, knocks Teo out in a quick, decisive movement. Kaden groans under the sudden weight, but then helps shoulder Teo’s body, and they stagger into the heavy wood just in time.

“What happened?” Kylabet’s horrified voice pushes through the brush just before she appears, flanked by several of Axton’s men. Her face drains of color, and she wavers briefly on her feet before steadying herself.

“Some kind of serpent. I don’t know. I’ve not seen its like before.” Axton’s voice is careful; there is some kind of conversation, but I can’t hear it over Ellie’s song.

Stepping forward, I kneel beside her body and take her soul in my hands, where she flows like water.

What is this, Keeper?She sings, astounded.

This is the Guiding. I can bind you to waiting bone, have you sleep until you are woken again in your own.

It is not painful…It is…so much different than we’ve been told. Will I be safe?

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