Page 80 of The BoneKeeper's Daughter

“Ah. You haven’t,” he says, a strange twist of disappointment curls through the sound. “I wasn’t. If that makes any sort of difference. I didn’t agree with it, but you were, what, five when you started coming to the Council House? I was twelve or thirteen at the time. Most of my days were spent with tutors, learning the rhythms of our people, the patterns of the Council. The price of our past, and the cost for our future.” He stops, then exhales sharply, a mirthless huff of sound. “We chose the wrong man, she said. The soul that spoke through you.We chose the wrong man, and you have failed us at every turn.” The words are bitter, acidic. “They didn’t choose amanat all, though, did they. They chose a boy. A wholly unprepared boy. And threw me to the wolves to be raised, then expected me to know the correct path forward, though all the ways are lined with blood and bone.”

There is a shifting in the darkness and suddenly he is next to me, still hard to distinguish in the dim room, but close enough I can see the curve of his shoulders, the bend of his head, the curve of his cheek. “Do you need anything?” he asks. “Can I get you water? Something else?” I shake my head carefully, painfully, and he sighs, then continues on his original path, as though he never detoured. “You were newly twenty. It was the spring where the Month of the Maiden was unusually forgiving.” He pauses as though waiting to see if I remember. What he doesn’t know is that I remember every soul that has been lost over the years, every soul I have guided as well. The spring of my twentieth year bloomed so vividly and enticingly that I thought I would be trembling under the weight of those I would haveto guide to bone. But we only lost two to the poisoned harvest. More made it through the winter than in the previous few years, and I think it lent courage and strength to the villagers.

“It was early enough in the morning that the light was still thin, the air almost painful from breathing in the cold. I don’t remember why I was out, where I was going. Just that I rounded a curve in the road, and there you were, kneeling on the ground in front of a child who was giving you a loaf of bread. It was the first time I saw your face look like…likeyouwere in your body. You thanked the girl, and smiled at her, then stood up, dusted yourself off, and walked away.”

“Thatwas the first time you saw me?” I ask, surprise clear even in my barely voiced question, and he laughs briefly, a deep, delicious rumble of thunder that rolls through my chest.

“It was. Because —” He pauses as though he is trying to make a decision, then, reaching out hesitantly, he takes my hand in his, leaving it open so I can pull away if I want to. But his hand is warm surrounding mine, and my fingers curl into his without thought. “Because I thought in that moment that you knew what it was like to wear a masque. That perhaps you knew what it was like to be someone who was created by their circumstance, who had their life forced upon them rather than…I thought, selfishly, maybe here is someone who could understand me.” He stares down at our intertwined fingers. “I regret not thinking instead, maybe here is someone I could understand.”

Neither of us speaks for a long time. The only noise is the settling of the house, the wind outside, the occasional deeper breath. “Wren,” he finally says, “when the sun rises, we will have to forget tonight, and return to our duties. We both know there is no escaping the commands from the Bones. Nothing can come of this.” There is no uncertainty; he is resolute and immovable. “Tomorrow we will be back to normal, back to the masques we wear to make it through a day.” Here his fingers betray him, his thumb tracing patterns on the back of my hand, and his voice drops from a murmur to a whisper. “But for tonight, for this moment, maybe you’ll let me pretend that it is just you, and just me. That the first time I saw you, I approachedyou as a boy in this village would. That we have spent the last several years meeting under the full moon of the Dancing Month, that we have shared mead from the same cup. And that we are both unbound from expectations, from duty. Just for the space of a few hours. You can sleep and dream, I can sit and dream, and if dreams are the only place we meet, for tonight it will be enough. We can be an unwritten book together, just in this moment, the ink being sketched on the very first page. No chapters before, only empty pages after. Everything still to be decided, scribed only by your hands and mine, none other to guide the pen.”

It is a fantasy woven in rich fabric, and I tighten my fingers around his, closing my eyes to picture what he is painting in his words. Taking the movement as assent, he slowly reaches up his other hand to brush my tangled hair from my face, to gently trace the line of my jaw, carefully avoiding any cuts or bruising. “I will pretend that I haven’t been breaking under years of other people's expectations. That between us, we have made our own plans, that we have not been not forced into those ideas for what we should do and who we should be.” He swallows hard, and though his voice doesn’t tremble, it is tight, so controlled it is almost shattering. “This village has left little room for me to know myself, even now, though it is becoming easier. For so long, every step has been a prescribed path forward — despite what I am, most things are chosen for me, and those expectations are a heavy burden. I think you know how that feels as no one else in the world would. That, in a different time and place, your soul might recognize mine as a mirror.” Silence fills the space between us, swelling and pushing out, and time freezes in the seconds between our heartbeats. When he speaks, his heart is in his words, raw and ragged and true. “I have been called so many things in my life, and none ever seemed to fit. Father, Brother, even Silas. But here, in the dark with you, I have no name.”

Picking up my hand very gently, he brings it to his lips and kisses it softly, before laying it carefully down by my side and pulling the blankets up around me.

“Rest now, Wren. I’ll stand watch and none will cross the threshold.We are somewhere out of time, somewhere unexpected and unknown, a path no feet have trodden. You’re safe here, in this moment. Tomorrow will come with all it may bring, but for now, I have you. And I will keep the darkness from your door.”

When I wake again, the room is empty, and I am alone.

THE WORLD IN BLACK AND WHITE

WREN

By the time I am well enough to stand, the Traders have gone, and with them, the faint whisper of hope that had breathed some small amount of life into the dying coals banked in my heart. It has been all of two days, not even, but their caravan is already high enough on the golden mountain path that only a faint cloud of dust is visible. They must have left early, been loaded before the third day of trade even commenced, taken their bright eyed ponies and flame red wagons before the sun was awake, before the traditional feast, the parting songs, the last, lingering moments of short-lived romance.

Lorcan is studiously silent around my neck. Every now and again it feels like he is about to speak, but stops himself. I am glad he doesn’t try to offer comfort. It would be water into a sieve.

“BoneKeeper?” There is a hesitant knock at my door, but I’m unusually slow to respond. It feels like moving through mud, the effort to turn draining what little energy I had.

“Yes?” Though my voice is dull with fatigue and pain, it’s enough for the two women hovering at the threshold, and they come in like ptarmigans, feathers fluffed, feet skittish.

“Oh. Oh, Keeper!” Bri’s voice is horrified,but Grace shushes her quickly, and when Bri speaks again, it is with forced cheerfulness, a hard, crackling sound at odds with her careful, gentle movements. “We heard you were…indisposed…and brought you some bread and soup. Grace?”

At the prompt, Grace drags a broken table in front of me, tutting under her breath at the state of the previously abandoned cottage, exchanging silent looks with her friend. Bri keeps chattering, filling the empty space with tumbling, meaningless words.

“...and I told Dav that we were coming, so he decided to fill a sack with some small things…you know children, they just get it into their heads that they don’t like something that week, so we have more carrots and potatoes than we know what to do with, and I’ll ask you, what sort of child doesn’t like fried potatoes…”

I’m only catching the scattered edges of her monologue, finding it surprisingly difficult to focus for too long on one thing. I don’t understand what has happened to me; the hollowness in my stomach is a gnawing pit and a sickening, dense rock heavy enough to make me curl forward despite myself.

“Keeper.” Hesitancy, then, “I’m so sorry,” with so much sympathy in her voice my eyes fill, and it takes every last ounce of control I have left in me not to let them overflow. If I start to cry, I may never stop. “You’ll feel better with a little food. Grace is going to help you. You don’t have to do anything. We’re here.” She pauses, swallowing hard, and Grace takes over, spooning a small amount of soup into my unresisting mouth.

“We’re here,” she repeats Bri’s words, then, “and we’re sorry we weren’t here sooner. We didn’t know is all I can say. We just didn’t know.” Clearing her throat, she takes a deep breath, then pushes forward, trying to keep her tone level and emotionless. “Councilman Rannoch and the Father mentioned you had…some injuries. Would you like I to look at them or?—”

Lifting my eyes to her face, I shake my head in a shadow of movement. It’s enough, and though she presses her lips together in a thin line, she nods to herself and just offers me more soup.

“It was a strange day today for most of the village. The, uh, theTraders left early, if you didn’t hear them this morning.” Bri is clearly trying to break the news gently, but the words force themselves out in reluctant stutters of sound.

“Why?” Again they exchange heavy glances before Bri responds.

“There was some disagreement between the Traders and the Councilmen. It was enough that the trade was called early, that they took back sacks and sacks of grain they had only just unloaded. The Father attempted to…there was no…I’m not sure. I’m not sure what happened; it was so far from where most of the villagers were. The Councilmen tried to explain it away afterwards, but there is unrest. Everyone knows how badly we needed this trade; it seemed like a miracle when the wagons came.”

“They tookbackgrain?” My voice is a raw, bloody scrape, but I’ve never heard of such a thing. To take back the trade offer, and after so long without a trade at all. The women nod in unison, lips pursed in silent disapproval.

“Enough for at least a month, as long as we used shallow cups to measure. And left our dusty ore and dull, useless jewels sitting in pointless piles. What sense is there in arguing over small things when we can’teatrocks?” Bri is almost frantic, tears thick in her throat; Grace murmurs small, unintelligible comfort to her. “I’m sorry, Keeper.” Bri takes a deep breath. “We’re not here to add further upset. I just…I have children.”

“No one could do anything?” I ask, too stunned to think clearly, and Grace sighs.

“The Father tried. Councilor Rannoch. A few of the Traders — your emerald-eyed one was particularly vocal. But it wasn’t enough by half. Too many accusations made, some ugly words spoken. It has been a long time since the last Trade happened, and women were free to their own devices in the night.”

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