Page 88 of The BoneKeeper's Daughter

I lurch from sleep, from dead to living in a single, painful gasp. Who is screaming? What wrenched me from my dreamless world?

Wren! Hurry! Hurry! My boy!

The pull from bone is so strong it is almost tangible; I’ve never felt something like it before — it is a command I can’t ignore, leaving no room for thought, only action. There is no space even for breath; I don’t put on any bone armor, any clothes other than my thin sleep shift, don’t even grab my Guiding Knife. My windows are rattling with the shrieking dead, urging me to fly as quickly as I can, through the black night, the moonless sky swallowing sound and motion.

The knife is at his throat! You must run! Run run run run run…

The command is repeated, over and over, as I stumble over the uneven ground, the surrounding dark too thick to see anything; for once my masque is reality — I’m truly blind in the night, pressedrelentlessly forward by the voices of bone now acting as my eyes, urging me to go faster and faster still. They sink into me, wrapping around me, suffocating me with their panic. Night-damp earth slides beneath my racing feet, sharp, slicing rocks carving bloody footprints from my bare skin, a clear path for Hunters towards their quarry.

Breath coming in shallow, terror-stricken gasps, I fly around the corner of my small lane, then jerk to an abrupt halt. Beyond me, at the end of the long, unbending main street, the thick ink of the sky has been torn open. In front of the Council House, a bonfire is lit, a raging inferno so bright it seers the eyes, dancing garishly against the night. And beyond it, on the stage, four, maybe five large, shadowed shapes, with a shorter one in front of them, bent back at a painful angle and struggling silently against grasping hands.

There is something in the turn of the small head that catches my breath in my throat, that freezes my heart in panic.

Wren! My boy, my boy, my boy…

Her voice is a mother’s desperate lament, calling from around his neck. She thinks I am too late.

Perhaps I am.

I am too far for anything but drastic measures.

Too far for anything but steps which, if taken, can never be undone.

I am ashamed that, for a moment, I wonder if the end will be worth the journey.

Until Marrin makes a small sound, barely a whisper, but it travels down the empty streets like a scream, and my heart cracks.

Oh Little Keeper…what are you thinking?

Lorcan is scared for me, but he hasn’t learned all my secrets yet, despite his years on my spine.

I draw myself up to my full height, and plant my bleeding feet in the earth.

“If you harm that boy,” I call, voice diamond and stone, loud even over the snapping of the fire, “It will be the last thing you do on this earth.”

The man exposing Marrin’s young, pale throat, cackles, echoed bythe carrion birds hovering behind him — loud, braying laughter that is swallowed by the oily stones of the square.

“Threats from a ghost are as worthless as water from the village ponds,” the sneering man returns. Nickolas. Of course.

Around us, up and down the street, the village wakens, the unusual noise in the Reaper’s-pit-silence of midnight running like a lightning bolt of fear through the homes over the shops. I hear more than one latch rattling in indecision; is it worth the risk of night to open their windows? Most remain closed.

“I will only warn you once, Councilman, and it’s more than you deserve. If you walk down this path, there is no way back home for you.” My words are amplified by the exposed ivory surrounding me, the sound shivering like shattered glass, echoing in hollow, sharp reverberations off the walls of the town around me. I can hear them, mirrored from the First Gate to the Third Gate, the sound repeating in a faint, eerie chorus much farther than was logical. The bones are crying out with my voice, and the men on the stage shift uneasily. All but Nickolas, who grins, teeth in the darkness looking decayed in a snarling mouth, skin mottled and leathery in the fire’s light.

Behind me, hesitant footsteps approach.

Your…friend.Lorcan’s words twist in strange ways.

Tahrik is silent, shaking, but standing at my shoulder.

Fear is a tangible beast in the night, claws flashing, cutting everyone but me. I’ve made my decision; there is no room for anything but certainty. There is no if.

Behind the men, the keep door opens, and Rannoch emerges, sleepy and confused, but alert; even from this distance I can see his eyes darting back and forth from the men on the stage to where I stand, a short distance down the road.

“Your warnings are useless,Keeper.” Nickolas sneers. “The old ways are dead. The gift of bone was wasted on you; perhaps the answer is a sacrifice greater than any before. A sacrifice others are afraid to make. A gift that has been given, given back.”

The threat is toothless, but scares Marrin. My littlest friend. My young Protector.

He speaks for the first time, throat trembling against the blade, but he does his best, his child-high voice shaking with a desperate attempt at bravery. “BoneKeeper, go. It’s not safe for you. Please. Please go.”

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