Page 60 of The BoneKeeper's Daughter

For the first time since I met her, a hint of color enters her cheeks, a pale rose that even our dancing and her laughter hadn’t bloomed. “I…” She’s hesitating, but I’m happy to wait for her answer until the mountain is turned to dust by the brush of a bird’s wing. “My friends call me ‘Wren’.” Her eyes flare wide, as though she’s said something she shouldn’t have, and there is an oddly painful sort of hope on her face. She grips the necklace at her throat again, catching my attention..

Looking closer now, really studying her for the first time, my brain takes in what my eyes have been glancing over since I met her.

“Is that…are you wearinghuman bones?” The words burst from me without thought, tinged with a horror I desperately try to swallow, but am unable to in time. All emotion drains from her in the space of a breath. Scrambling to her feet, she goes completely blank, and the girl who had been slowly unfurling like a flower is suddenly steel straight and lightning bright in front of me.

“I’ll take you to the dancing. I think — I think you’ll like the music better there. Noteverything in our village is repulsive.” There’s a bite to her words, no echo of the obviously rare laughter remaining.

“I’m sorry…” I begin, but in so many ways I don’t know what I’m apologizing for. She’s wearing humanbonesas jewelry. I don’t understand this place. It’s dark and glaringly white at the same time, the bones of the walls reflecting the light of a sun so pale it doesn’t resemble our own. Everything here is washed out and faded — the dirt, the grass, the people. It is all muted and quiet, and it makes me uneasy.

“I have known you the space of three breaths, and you spent two of those apologizing, Trader. Not a good start to a temporary friendship, and time here is precious. I don’t think that yours being spent on me is a good use of it.” Again her hand floats to her necklace…of teeth, and maybe fingers, I see now. “I would caution you to remember, though, that were I to go to your lands, I am sure much of it would disgust me in the same way I so clearly disgust you. I warned you once not to disparage the bones. Your lack of respect is…distasteful.”

“My…my…lack of respect? You have made the bones into jewelry!” Stupid,stupidKaden! Sea and Stars. Stop talking!

She glares, thunder quick and fierce, and I realize suddenly that I have vastly misjudged her in some way. This flame in front of me is white hot and would burn a man to dust. It’s not the quiet candle flicker I originally assumed. And for some reason, that makes everything even harder. The way she is now would lure stronger men than me to their deaths.

“It’s not jewelry. It’s armor. And eyes. Andlove.” She stops suddenly, fingers flexing tightly around her necklace, then surges ahead. “Yes.Love. And that is all your time with me spent on ignorant words and wasteful questions.” Suddenly her head jerks up and around, and her hand drifts out to the bone wall, fingers caressing it in a sweet, almost tender movement. “Thank you,” she whispers, and steps further from me, until she is almost pressed against the cistern. Pulling up the high collar of her cloak, she buttons it around her neck, covering her necklace from view.

There is the noise of voices from around the corner, and she draws back even further, sinking into the bones as though they are comforting her.

“Bad, bad choices,” she whispers, and I realize, all of a sudden, that she’s speaking to the bones, not me. That she’s been speaking to them on and off this entire time, and my heart seizes in an ice-cold grip.

A voice filled with thunder rings through the clearing, shattering our fragile, secret world, and I turn to face two men, black garbed and hovering. They smell like danger and death, and, instinctively, I step in front of Wren, between her and whatever promise of harm they bring.

A NAME AND A PROMISE

WREN

“Trader.” The word is knife sharp. “What are you doing here?”

I expect the man in front of me to cower under the dark glare of the Father, but he straightens, eyes narrowing, feet dug deep in the earth.

“I’m speaking to one of your people. Were we not instructed to do so? Is this not part of The Trade?” The words are formal, careful, but edged, though the point hits an unexpected target. There is a pang in my chest. I had forgotten about the Trade in our easy conversation.He was instructed to seek someone out. I am just a someone.I know it deep inside my chest, but my heart still stutters painfully. I don’t know why. I’ve known him for the space of a sentence. Whether he sought me out or stumbled across me, it was nothing.

Kaden sees something in my face, and his brows draw together, before a dawning thought has him reaching out to me. “Oh! No, Wren…” he says, voice apologetic, but before his hand can touch my own, the Father has his wrist in a bruising grip, bending it back to almost breaking.

“You will find someone else. There are many women in the villagewho would be pleased to give you a tour of sorts. Trade…wares…with you.”

Even with an arm wrenched in a painful angle, Kaden laughs, sharp and short. “I am fine where I am. I’m enjoying the company.”

“She is spoken for.” The words are torn from the Father’s mouth, and I step back slightly in surprise. He looks at me, eyes burning like pools of the Everfire.

“I was told that even those…with commitments…are free for the three days we are here. Is that not true?” Kaden is not quite abrasive, but not cautious either, and I assess and reassess the cheerful man in front of me. To speak so to the Father is…well, you may as well jump off the mountain into the Below. The Father exhales on a low note, sending shivers across my skin.

“She. Is.Spoken. For.” The emphasis is different. And the truth of his words hit me all at once, like a rockfall. It is not that anyone wants me, it is that they speak for me. Iamspoken for. I amlivedfor. There are no choices I make for myself — not even this one, which is granted to every other woman in the village. I cannot choose what to eat, what to wear, where to go, with whom to speak, when I rise, when I settle. I cannot even choose the words from my mouth, I am so tightly bound. And in this rare moment, the first of its type since I was born, the first in so long that we thought the Traders would never return, I am being silenced again. Again and again and again, I am only good for speaking other people’s words. Even the dead have more freedom to their voices than I do. And a low keening breaks from my throat, a small hawk’s cry, before I clap my hands to my mouth to silence it.

I know who I am. I have always known. I am a vessel for others. It is my honor and my burden. But the glow of the man in front of me, the casual confidence with which he walks through life…I suddenly and desperately want to taste it, if even for a moment. All three men look at me with mirrored expressions — concern and confusion warring on their faces.

“Are you?” Kadenasks quietly. “Are you not willing, Wren? I would never force you…”

I am about to answer, Iwantto answer, but Rannoch steps from the shadows behind the Father, looking like a storm cloud.

“What do you keep calling her?” The Councilman is all fire and fury. “Keeper? What is this?” There’s a note in his voice that I can’t decipher, but Kaden suddenly grins; whatever he hears in Rannoch’s question makes him fierce and wild, almost baring his teeth.

“Her name, of course.”

“That is not her name,Trader.”

“It’s what her friends call her,” Kaden bites back, and everyone freezes, freezes as though the Storms themselves have poured down the mountain and covered us all.

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