Page 73 of The BoneKeeper's Daughter

NICKOLAS IN THE NIGHT

WREN

It is late, far into the depth of night when time loses meaning, when the creak of my door pulls me from slumber. For a second I’m confused, but then my lips curl up despite myself. I didn’t think he’d make it back, and I shiver in anticipation — anticipation, which quickly turns to apprehension as I hear the slow shuffle of footsteps on the dirt floor.

“BoneKeeper…”

The voice is sibilant in the darkness, a snake’s whisper from the shadows, and is much too close to me. It’s thick with saliva, a hideous, dripping sound, and nausea curls in the stomach. I swallow reflexively, hand at my throat. It’s not Kaden; my heart beats frantically in my chest as I silently slip from my bed to the floor in the darkness.

“BoneKeeper…” He is seconds behind me, though he couldn’t have seen me leave my bed in the inky blackness, I can hear his hands pull at the covers, looking for me. “Come out now. I’m…to take you to the Council House. Whereaaareyou?”

He’s trying to lure me out, but cannot hide his excitement. It’s lurid, lascivious, and crawls along my skin in rotting paths. “BoneKeeper!” He snaps sharply, a snarling wolf, before calming his voice again. “No harm will come to you. I swear it on the Sun God.”

Skies and seas, Nickolas must be far gone now if he is willing to blaspheme the Sun God’s name.

“Comeout!” A chair being knocked over, and a high pitched laugh. “I won’thurtyou, Keeper! Just a little taste won’t hurt…I saw you with that Trader.” The frenetic switching between molten anger and erratic giggling is petrifying. “Isawyou!” It’s sharp claws, accusatory, desirous…and dangerous. He laughs again, an unexpectedly girlish sound. “But he didn’t stay long. Not long enough. You’re making all sorts of friends, aren’t you? We should be friends. Come be my friend, child. I’ll protect you.”

His mind is gone. It is the only explanation. I crawl silently away from him, tucking into a small corner, thankful for the first time that the fire has died, that icicle chill fills the air.

“Keeper....the Council sent me for you. You cannot hide forever! Is this a game?” A fevered elation floods his words. “Itisa game, clever girl. To heighten my senses. To add spice to the flavour, hmmm?”

I’m barely breathing now, small, fluttering movements of my chest, tiny flares of my nostrils. The cottage is quiet when he stops moving, and panic floods my blood.He will find me. There is not enough room to hide here. And nowhere to go.I am trapped in the tight corner, wedged between the wall and a cabinet. His footsteps, heavy moments before, are now phantom shuffles of sound.

“I am coming for you, sweet girl. And we will have time together before I take you to the great house. Time for a sip of your honey. No one will know. No one will know…” He is fumbling in the room, breaking things with in his grasping movements. “I saw you, you know…I saaaw you….” Nickolas’s voice is ricocheting between pleading and biting. “You’re too good for our village, but you’ll give yourself away to a dirty Trader? No.No. He didn’t have enough time. But I do.I do.”

I cannot hide forever. Fear is a weapon he is wielding against me, that I am letting him use.He had too much in his corner for me to give him more advantage.Who am I, to be hiding in my own home, letting him feast on my terror? Steel enters my stomach, and I force my frantic heart to calm.

Think, Wren. Think. This is your home. You can move like a shadow. He has no advantage but size.

I have not calmed quickly enough. A meaty hand, sweating and slick, circles my wrist in a bruising grasp, and the whites of his eyes shine in the darkness. “Ah! My little blood moth! I’ve found you.” A whimper escapes my throat, and he shivers at the sound, yanking me toward him. He presses me flat against him, between the bureau and his body, cold, damp skin flush against my own. But his breath is unexpectedly hot and wet on my cheek and when he murmurs in my ear. “I will crush your wings beneath my foot and keep you flightless for me alone.” Desperately I pull my head back, turning it from him, but he grabs a handful of hair in his fist and turns my face back to his. “Don’t be cruel, Keeper. I can coax sweetness from you in many ways.” Leaning forward to press his forehead into my neck, he inhales deeply, and I gag as he licks my neck. “You will learn to like it,” he whispers gently, and then gnashes his teeth, biting me, his mood flashing back and forth like strikes of lightning. “You will like it or I’ll break you until you have no choice.” There is spittle on my skin, and he is giggling again. The eerie sound curdles my stomach before it is swallowed by the darkness in the room. “No one will know, no one will know. I’ll be quick.” And, lifting his free hand, he yanks down my thin shift, tearing it, and grabs my breast in a clawed motion, tightening, tightening until I cry out in pain. “Yesssss….” The hiss is drawn out in a craving hiss, and he squeezes harder, dirty nails digging into my skin. “Make those sweet sounds for me, Keeper.” His hand releases, skims lower, lower, until it presses into my stomach. “I’ll make you sing for me.”

I am bent backwards now, him ripping out hair as he forces me to bow, curved like a hunter’s weapon. His hand is lower still now, trailing acid across my skin, and I panic, a wild bird caught. Something dark churns within me, a threat, an idea. I have only done it once, only ever once, and swore never to call the bones that way again, but…before the thought goes from fragment to force, my flailing fingers close around a heavy weight.My knife!It’s upside down, my hand wrapped around the blade, but I ignore the sharpslice, and in an instant am swinging the thick bone handle to connect with a scarily loudcrackagainst him that shakes the teeth in my skull.

My hand comes away from his skull sticky and wet. He collapses to the floor. In flashes of movement I’m across the room without thought.Flash.The door is open.Flash.I’m in the village on the main road. Everything is a stuttering pulse of vision. The street is empty.No one comes out at night in the village. Stay silent. For the love of the Gods, stay silent.My head aches, fear and panic locked tight in my throat, raw and throbbing. No one would help, in any case. No onecouldhelp. This is unheard of. Who would attack the BoneKeeper? I stare at my shaking hands, glistening even in the vibrating light from the street torches.You’re in shock. You’re okay. You’re in shock. But you must move. MOVE!

Flash. Somehow I’m in front of the Council House. In the distance, a strange cry echoes tremulously from the night. A laughing howl and a low purr, a chuffing noise, and slow footsteps. The sounds are not far from the main street. Iron is in the air, the red rust scent of blood, and the cry tumbles from the mountains around me. Fear is a living, twisting creature in my stomach, and it closes my lungs in a ferrous fist.Flash.Terror takes over, and suddenly I am watching from above the ghost girl, floating outside her body. She’s pounding on the door, her hands dripping, a strange keening wail erupting from her mouth.Calm, calm,I try to whisper to her.Calm.But she is looking over her shoulder into the blackness like a hellhound is chasing her. I see the moment she makes her decision, breathing deeply through her nose, her chest expanding and contracting in a long, slow movement, andflash.I am pulled back into her body.

The bones of the village vibrate. The sound is so jarring that all other noise ceases. There is a grinding, a creaking, a groaning, a pop, as they hear my plea, even the oldest crackling with effort. The white skulls high atop the pillars of the Council House, none of whom have ever spoken to me before, murmur behind me.We are awakethey whisper, a comforting murmur in the night.We are awake, Keeper. Stand your ground. It is not as it seems. Stand your ground.I breathe again,deeply, and an otherworldly peace settles like a shroud over me. I am not a child, to be scared of the dark. I am not weak, to let fear take over me to where I lose myself. Drawing myself up, covered in blood, I remember myself.I am The BoneKeeper. This is my village. These are my people. And the bones will answer me if I call.

Facing the empty street from the dias of the Council House, I wait. The main road is 400 meters long, and every ten meters of the main stretch is shadowed in the flickering light of a torch. Beyond the last shop, the road disappears into ink and coal. I can only just make out a figure stepping forward at the far end. Tall, even at this distance, and broad, it pauses, not coming further towards me, though nothing bars its path. Great curling horns catch what is left of dying torches still fastened outside shops and homes lining the street. They are massive, larger than any elk or deer I’ve ever seen, mostly hidden in the night’s shadows. The man, or creature, tilts his head, as though scenting the air, moving more like a predator than a human.Were you not hunted tonight by a human?my mind whispers insidiously, and I tremble at the memory, grabbing my Guiding Knife carelessly for comfort. It nicks my already bleeding hands, and tiny beads of crimson liquid drip in staccato rhythm to the ground.

As soon as the first one hits the stone beneath my feet, the creature whips its head around to face me, and freezes. The night expands and contracts between us, pulsing in a strange, tangible breath, and he takes an oddly gaited step forward, almost as if against his will. I wait, bones humming around me, hands bleeding at my side, and tilt my head subconsciously, studying what little is visible of the creature. I was more scared in the safety of my home than I am in this moment.

Oddly, though I cannot be sure, it feels like the creature mimics my movements, head tilted, hands at its side, and it seems…the whole thing seems so surreal, so out of time for a moment, my lips twitching despite myself. There is no way the creature could see it, no way it could tell at this distance, but it throws its head back and calls out a liquid howling sound, such joy in its deep song that it almost pulls the same from my throat. I am overcome with the urge to tip back my own head and answer it, howling until I have torn my voice from my body, and somehow it can tell, taking another single, confident step forward, before the door at my back is yanked open, and I fall, unresisting, inside.

A VOICE IN BONE

WREN

Iland on the floor with a pained gasp, and am immediately pulled to my feet by Rannoch, who is murmuring apologies, even as Silas is barring the door behind him.

“Quickly, quickly,” he commands, deep voice tense and fraying at the edges. I’ve never heard him sound so…human. “What were youthinking, Wren? Out at full dark? What were youthinking?”

Rannoch’s eyes jerk to the Father, startled by the emotion in his tone, but there is no space for questioning as the light hits my face and my torn clothing. Silas pulls back his now bloody hand, looking at it in confusion, as Rannoch’s face darkens into something murderous.

“Who did this to you?Who DID this to you?”

Silas is a towering storm, and picks me up in his arms like a child as Rannoch moves swiftly to the water basin they have in the corner of the Council House.Such a luxuryI think inanely. It is fresh and not brackish, and they have a deep well of it sitting in the open, like gold spilling from their fingers. Rannoch grabs a cloth and soaks it, even as Silas pushes open a private door through which I’ve never been before and sets me gently on a cushioned couch inside.

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