Page 63 of The BoneKeeper's Daughter

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean…” I reply shortly. His shoulders tighten, muscles rippling beneath his thin shirt.

“I know your thoughts, Keeper. You have not learned to school your face well enough to hide them from me when we are in private.” His voice is strangely sardonic, “Your thoughts are not your own in any case. They belong to the village, and the Council.” A long pause, and then, so low it’s hard to hear, “They belong to the Gods, and the bones. But most of all, they belong to me. As they are mine, so you are mine.” It is a threat, a promise, and, in the far corners, a dark desperation I have not heard in the Father’s voice before. But the claiming makes me deaf to whatever slip of his soul he is exposing to me in this moment.

“Do I havenorights?” I snap, and he lets out a tired laugh that is more of a cry.

“No. No, you don’t.”

“I am still a citizen of this village!” All of a sudden it is too much, and the wild anger of years of frustration, of being caged and kept, bursts from me, caution thrown to the storm winds. “Every BoneKeeper before me has had the full rights of a citizen!”

Silas is just as angry, just as rash in his reply. “Every BoneKeeper before you has lost a right, just bit by bit, chiseled away until we’re where we are now. As BoneKeeper you are more and less than a citizen,Wren. You should know that by now. You are not seen as a woman.” The words are a punch to my stomach. They drip with disdain.I am not a woman.“The Council has been meeting, preparing for the coming Storms. And in the meetings many things other than food and shelter have been discussed. You chief amongst them. There is a debate…” He pauses, seemingly discomforted, which makes me more nervous than anything else up to this point. “...there is a debate asto whether you are to be considered human, or a blessed vessel from the Gods. And, as a vessel, you are a tool, nothing more. A sacred tool, to be protected and cherished. But you would not have the rights you are so used to now.”

A bitter laugh escapes my mouth. “Rights?You think I haveanyrights now? That I am living a life of comfort and ease?”

He shakes his head sharply. “You have no idea how things could be for you, who fights for you to keep your cage door open, even slightly.” He is frustrated, furious.

“They are not fighting hard, if you know anything of my life.”

“You knownothing.” The words are a rebuke. “They riskeverythingto keep you from the wolves.”

“The wolves are at my door every night,Sir.”

His eyebrows draw together, a deep crease between them. “What wolves?”

Shaking my sleeve back, I show the fingerprint bruises, the slices of skin raw from nails. “You may think I’m not worthy of being called a woman, but rest assured. Nickolas and others do not have your same distance, and would treat me as such if given the chance. They are not kind with their conquests, I’m sure you know.”

He reaches out a massive hand with unexpected gentleness, and caresses the bruises. “Nickolas did this?”

I nod. If I am in for blood, I am in for bone. “And worse. And has promised worse still. But I keep the door barred. If I am moved to a place to sit on a dais and be a vessel, this vessel will be filled and broken before morning light.”

“Nickolas will not do so again.”

I laugh, now with real amusement. “You think you have a tamed beast, but he is rabid, and none of you are willing to see it.”

He shakes his head. “He will come to heel when I call. He is not as brave as you think.”

I fight against rolling my eyes. It would be comical if it weren’t so dangerous for me personally. “He is not as stupid asyouthink. And when you loosen his leash, I only hope I am not in his sight.”

“He will not hurt you, Wren. You have my word.”

“You are more blind than I am, and when it is too late, I will be food for the Earth and will not be able to say you were wrong. And even if he were not to hurt me, do the other woman in this village not matter to you? Or do you truely not see him for what he is? Ignorance is no excuse for you.”

He rubs a hand across his face, a tired movement that speaks volumes of frustration and exhaustion. “Do you know the Bones called for me when I was eight?” he asks conversationally, as though any of this conversation is normal. As though anyoneeverspeaks to the Father. Come to think of it, as though anyone speaks to the Bonekeeper.

“Yes, in theory, but not the details of it.” I answer carefully. It is always best to be cautious when one does not know where the path leads.

“They did. You were a babe, a child, so I am not surprised you do not know the full story.”

“As though 8 isnota child?” I bite back, and then sigh, rubbing my forehead. I am not myself today, am being dangerously careless.But I don’twantto be myself!I think mutinously.I want to be…anyone else.My head is throbbing, and I feel dizzy suddenly.

Head between your knees, Little Keeper!

Lorcan barks out the command which I immediately obey, leaning forward and trying to calm my breathing.

Silas’s bass is surprisingly contrite. “My apologies, Keeper. I forgot that the Silent and the Exiled are difficult for you.”

Ah. That explains it.We are too deep in the Keep, too deep in the carved out mountain, and I am surrounded only by fragmented mosaics made of Silent bone, and worse still, the Exiled. The coldness and emptiness pulls at something inside me, but it is muted by a dark, throbbing pain pounding nails in my skull.Guide us homethey whisper, agonized pleading, tearing at my skin like claws.Blood, flesh, and bone. Bring us home, Keeper, or give us Silence, but end the pain. We repent, we repent, we repent.I am being sucked in and down, pulled by dragging hands into the Below, until?—

A cool breeze and cold cloth yank me back into myself. The Fatheris kneeling before me, holding me up with one giant hand, guiding my fingers forward with the other to place them on a well-worn femur. She sings to me, a joyful trill of recognition, and I startle.

---