Page 38 of The BoneKeeper's Daughter

I do not even need to question the jeweler to know he is gone as well, and, without moving from the wall where my face is pressed into unresponsive bone, I cry, and cry, and cry, tears pouring unchecked down my face, sobs tearing through my body in tremors as brutal as any storm.

He is gone.

And if the Hunter is gone…I can’t eventhinkthe words.

Forcing myself, I raise a shuddering hand to my throat, whereLorcan’s bones are wrapped around my neck in a crimson and ivory collar.

The silence in front of me is echoed now behind me, the world having fallen into a mute hush with only my keening to shatter its stillness.

Lorcan?

Silence.

Please, please Goddess.

…lorcan?

His name is a whisper, barely a whisper, a prayer.

And the response is a breath, not even, but…

keeper…what?

The relief births a fury in me unlike anything I have ever known, and I turn in one, savage motion, skin raw and bleeding, the cuts from the bone crown and thorn vines reopened here a third time by the bone wall, wind whipping my hair into twisting strands, all my bone armor now completely silent other than Lorcan, who is barely a sigh on my skin.

“What have you done?”I scream, the sound reverberating off the mountains, echoed by the hawks circling above us, biting shrieks of a predator spotting prey.

The men cower before me, pressing back against the Blood Tree.

“What bonds have you broken, Council? Here beyond the sight of your people. What. Have. You.Done?”

Raek, still with Nickolas, stares at me, eyes bright with malice, but does not respond. Several of the Council mumble and mutter, placating noises full of meaningless excuses. Interestingly enough, others turn to each other in confusion — Rannoch and Silas exchange long, heavy glances, an entire conversation held in the space of a breath.

“This is not your province, BoneKeeper.” Nickolas’s entire body is tight with disdain, my title an insult in his mouth, and I turn my full attention on him, stalking toward him, trembling with rage.

“Youdragged me out here, Nickolas. You havemadethis my province.”

He falls silent as his brother’s grip tightens down again, and I smirk, glancing back and forth between the two men. “A caution, Councilman. Your brother will not always be here to save you and silence your tongue.”

“Is that a threat, BoneKeeper?” Raek asks, voice purposefully loud, faux concern and indignation clear. He is trying to take control, to turn the tide on this chaos. Tilting my head, I smile and reply softly.

“I certainly hope so, Raek. I rarely waste words.”

“Howdareyou!...” His outrage would be funny if it weren't so hideously out of place.

“How…how dareI?” Turning from him, I dismiss him in a casual shrug of motion, then slowly approach the tree. It is a black, twisting thing, with climbing, looped roots bursting from the ground then diving back beneath, branches like claws and talons curving toward the sky and the bone wall.

The Blood Tree has been here, just outside the gates of our city, for as long as anyone can remember, though it has grown in recent years, grasping root systems running up to and climbing the bone walls of our city. During the warmer months it produces a thick red sap identical to its namesake that the Hunters collect in endless buckets. The sap is boiled down with brackish water to create a heavy, salty-sweet syrup used in every village festival. The syrup is mixed with fermented grain to make mead, is kneaded into dough for flavored breads and cakes during the solstices, and is even combined into tinctures to aid against sickness or help with pain. In turn, during times of hardship, the Blood Tree is anointed with blood collected at the Rendings and Reapings, as a plea for help from the Sun God and Earth. It is a practice outside of the Rendings and Reapings called for by the bones and the Gods, a tradition born of desperation, like the watering of our fruit tree groves.

I am certain, though I have no part in it, that as soon as wheat in the silos was growing scant, the Council was out here, pouring small, ceremonial drops of Offering Blood on its bark. But the ground is wet beneath my feet, marshy and spongy. A cold chill runs down my spine, where Lorcan is painfully quiet, and I raise a horrified hand to covermy mouth. They could not. Even them. It would be…but the tree has grown so much. So quickly. Approaching it carefully, I ignore the protesting men around me and pick my way through the curving roots to the soggy earth nearest the trunk.

It has not rained here since the last storm season.

Shaking, I drop to my knees and press my hands to the ground.

They come away red and metallic, smelling of iron.

“BoneKeeper…” Silas’s voice is cautious. He and Rannoch stand directly behind me, blocking me from the watchful eyes of the rest of the men, and I cast blank eyes up to their faces.

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