Page 4 of The BoneKeeper's Daughter

“Earth and Sun! What…what…?”

“They ordered her here for the length of the hunt! They must have put her here as soon as I left.” Lorcan’s voice is tight, shaking with emotion. “I’ve only just returned. A senior Protector told me to check on her.”

“The full hunt?!”

“This cannot continue.”

“What? You’ll go against them? You know what will happen, Lorcan. And what good will it be then?”

“She’s a child, Ollendar.” Lorcan chokes on the words. “There was a time Protectorsdidsomething. Other than being guard dogs for the Council.”

“They won’t let you survive it.”

“One of us won’t survive, and she’s needed more than I am.” He’s resigned, and sighs. “BoneKeeper, if you will? Let’s go figure this out.”

I’m notsure what he does or says when he meets with the Council — he purposefully leaves me outside their room — but I can hear the yelling and angry voices even through the closed doors. Ollendar sits with me, shooting nervous glances my way, but I can’t think through the sudden relief of pressure on my brain. When Lorcan finally emerges, he exchanges a long, meaningful look with Ollendar, then sinks to his feet in front of me.

“Come, Little Keeper,” he says as kindly as possible in his raw, rough voice. It is clear he is not used to speaking gently, but heistrying. The strain of the effort is almost enough to make me smile. Until — “I’m sorry for the collar. It was the only way.” He wraps a cold steel ring carefully around my neck and attaches a short line to it. “Let’s go outside.”

I freeze for a long moment, meeting Lorcan’s eyes like a startled ptarmigan. He does not force me to move, just waits patiently for me to decide. Lorcan is unusual in this new group of Protectors — he was chosen by the bones when I was eleven, and still occasionally allowed outside by myself. The Council was startled, unhappy even, with the choice; Lorcan is young for a Protector — eighteen to my twelve years, but it is not unheard of. The closest to him is Ollendar at twenty-eight. Lorcan always seemed older than his years to me, though. A serious man, his mouth, though full, looks as though it has never seen a smile, and his brows are heavy. The only hint of softness in him is the twinkle in his dappled hazel eyes, like sun through leaves in a forest, a gift from a Trader long ago, perhaps, as our people only have brown.

It takes a breath, maybe two, to adjust, but I don’t argue, don’t complain about the feel of the metal chafing my skin, rubbing a raw line on my throat. It’s enough just to be out of that room. As soon as I stand and nod, he leads me toward the keep door as quickly as he is able. But my legs are stiff from so long in confinement, and we’re still steps from the door to the Council House and the promise of fresh air when, from my peripheral, a newly appointed Council Member approaches. He is not one the bones called for — waspushed through by the Council while I remained “in recovery”. I don’t raise my head to look at him, just hover, quiet and submissive, behind Lorcan.

The man lurches forward, a strange, twisting look on his face, mouth tight, eyes eager, and pushes past my Protector to grab my collar, right at the ring where it meets my throat. He says nothing, just looks down at me with dark, leering eyes, and licks his thin lips with a lizard-like tongue, gliding along his mouth with deliberate slowness as he inhales deeply, nostrils flaring. “This is how you should be all the time, Keeper. Collared and leashed. For your protection, of course.” He tugs a little, frowning when I don’t make a sound, and leans forward til he is inches from my face. Lorcan studies the two of us, brow furrowed, then reaches out to loosen the Councilman’s grasping hand. They meet each other’s eyes in challenge, until Lorcan steps forward beside me, threat clear in the way his shoulders tense. The Councilmember smirks, dropping his fingers from my collar, hand sweeping seemingly accidentally down my young body, and I choke on bile. Lorcan’s gaze darkens, and he physically places his body between the Councilmember and myself.

“You know, Lorcan, I’d be careful,” the man says, smiling. “Until the Keeper is considered able, the Council is still responsible for naming the Offerings. I is for infant, Protector. We all owe our due.”

“A threat, Nickolas?” Lorcan replies, and Nickolas shakes his head.

“Just a caution. Of course I can’t speak for the Gods. Who knows what will happen.” Nickolas tilts his head in amused farewell, then turns and walks away.

The Protector frowns, eyes trailing the Councilman’s steps until he disappears from view, hands flexing into white fists at his sides. When Nickolas is no longer in sight, Lorcan hurries me to a back corner of the First Wall, farther than I have ever been before, as far from the Council House as he can without leaving the inner village. He looks around, face grim, then sits me down in the shade of a Chokecherry tree, and commands me not to move. “I must speak to the Council,” he says, words rushed and laced with worry. “Don’t move. I’ll be back.” And, laying my leash on a low branch, he leaves.

For the first time in weeks I am outside, the air tasting clear and pure as fresh water, the relief of being out of my room so painful I can’t prevent tears from coursing down my face. What a waste of water. Leaning my head intothe curved bones of the walls, I stroke the smooth ivory, calling to the souls inside. They respond in surprise, eager and falling over themselves to speak. At first they’re confused, then concerned, voices pushing through each other.Collared, like a dog? Kept in a cage? What to do? What to do?It’s pure luck, nothing but chance, that I hear the almost silent whisper of an old, pockmarked bone at the very bottom of the wall, half in dirt and covered in dry leaves.Keeper, he sighs,Keeper. Attend. I was a jeweler in my flesh life. I can assist. Listen. Listen. Loosen me. Take me.So I pull him from the wall and tuck him in my shirt. Over the next few weeks, I concentrate carefully on his faint voice, remembering every word, following every instruction, until I have the beginnings of my armor, my escape, my new “eyes”.

Lorcan is only able to negotiate leashed walks outside three times a week, and always under a watchful Protector, so at first, all of my bone armor is made from the Silent — those poor, lost souls who had no Keeper to guide them home after their deaths. These are the bones lining my cage, the only ones I have constant access to, so I apologize gently to their absent souls, then I pull pieces from the walls in the darkness to weave together on leather and wire. I connect vertebrae in long cuffs — almost bracers — running from the curve of my wrists to my elbows, their v’s interlocking and pointing down toward my fingers, linked with other, shorter bones. Using scraps of hide, I bind them tightly around my forearms. A wide necklace of teeth and fingers, also taken from the Silent, covers my chest, almost to my shoulders, and drips down my back in a straight, thin line along my spine. Tiny, pearled sesamoids are strung together and curve around the shell of my ears, and I braid a series of bones on thin leather strands into my long, white hair.

Knowing the Council and the young Father cannot tell a bird bone from a leg bone, or Exiled from living bone, I spend all my free moments under the guidance of the jeweler creating my new skin. No one comes to see me — I am not allowed visitors, and have no family or friends, so only Lorcan and Ollendar watch me through knowing or amused eyes, respectively. Lorcan is curious but silent, while Ollendar is condescendingly lenient, thinking my tinkering the fumbling pastime of a little girl. Neither sees the deeper truth, and I hum softly to myself in the night, curled up against the jeweler, my only friend.

I am learning to trust living bone, and no other.

Once all my pieces are complete, I put them on every morning, and practice. It will be only a matter of time until the Council demands my presence; despite their attempts to hide me away, I am still needed for Reapings and Renderings. So at the turning of the month, when they finally call for me, I leave my room and the girl I was behind, and glide into their meeting on silent, ghostlike feet. The moment I enter the Council Chamber, it erupts into chaos.

“Peace,” I say, voice cast low, no hint of the child I’d been left in my tone. “Peace.” They look at me, eyes wide with fear, as though they are seeing the TriGoddess return, and back up against the wall behind them. Twelve men brought to wetting themselves by a girl. It is my first taste of my own power, and I grab it, swallowing it to glow in my belly like the Everfire. “The Bones have volunteered to be my eyes and ears. They offer me their protection so I may resume my full duties as Keeper.”

A murmuring, a muttering, and one man, Raek, steps forward, face set. Turning unerringly to face him before he speaks, I cut him off at the knees. “Councilman Raek? You have a question?”

He looks uneasy, voice placating. “Surely you can’t mean to leave yourself vulnerable, Keeper. We are here to keep you safe.”

“If you are offering your bone to join me, I accept. Thank you for your sacrifice.”

His eyes flare, panic clear as a bell ringing in them. “NO! No. BoneKeeper, you misunderstand me. I meant?—”

“I do not misunderstand, Councilor. Your meaning is obvious. I no longer need your particular brand of protection. I have the bones. It is enough.” Touching my neck, I smile, a vicious little grin, sharp teeth flashing in the torchlight. “They tell me all I need to know, and show me what I need to see.”

Nickolas slithers away in the darkness, around the edges of the room, and approaches me from behind, seemingly trying to surprise me and prove me wrong. Whirling around to face him, I raise my Guiding Knife, bone sharp, blade ready, to rest against his unexpecting throat. “Do you wish to go to your forever home, Councilor?” The bones on my body chatter together when I whip around, creating an eerie rattling, like the shaking tail of a snake, and the color drains from his face.

“I thought…I thought…” he stutters, and I shake my head, enjoying the wooden rattling of the hollow bones laced in my braids..

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