Page 10 of Mistress of Bones
She fought to get the words past her throat. “It’s true.”
Nereida leaned closer. “How?”
“I’d need a bone,” Azul said.
Loosening her hold on Azul’s belt, Nereida leaned back to peer into the hallway. “Which?”
“Any will do. A leg, a finger, a tooth—it doesn’t matter.”
“How does it work, exactly? How does a bone bring a person back?” Tension hastened Nereida’s voice, but also cold calculation. She spoke as if she had no feelings about the process—no shock, no curiosity. Whatever her opinion, it remained locked behind her expressionless face. A mask of skin instead of bones.
“I’d need the bone and something organic or alive to grow the new body.”
“Such as another person?”
Azul gave her a look of horror. “Such as a tree, or food, or fertile mud.”
Nereida nodded to herself. “And what sort of person comes out of it? Must one teach them all they ought to know again?”
“The body will have the memories of the bone, will remember as much as the bone does until its life was shorn, and not beyond.”
“So simple,” Nereida murmured. “A bone and dirt to make a person.”
And a piece of Azul’s own soul to give it sentience. This, she didn’t mention.
“Can you promise the person comes back just as they were?” Nereida insisted.
“You’ve met my sister; you’ve talked to her. You wouldn’t have known the difference had we not arrived to Valanje.”
Nereida acknowledged this truth with another short nod and extended her left arm. “I will trust you, for now. These are my terms: I will help you out of the city and onto a ship, and in exchange, you will bring back to life someone of my choice.”
She could’ve offered a damp prison cell in Cienpuentes filled with rats, and Azul would not have cared. “Deal.” She took Nereida’s arm, gripping it tightly and feeling the answering hard grip. They shook once.
Then Nereida was striding across the polished hallway, Azul at her heels. They ignored the guard slumped by a set of winding stone stairs and took them at the same hurried speed, hands trailing the central pillar, heels echoing against the steps.
“Don’t hide your face, don’t hunch your shoulders. None of them have seen you except for the few servants and the emissary. They have no reason to suspect you.”
Nereida didn’t wait for an answer. She shoved a curtain aside at the end of the staircase leading to a wider, finer corridor growing brighter under the encroaching daylight. Azul fixed her attention onthe back of Nereida’s waistcoat. Time, an enemy not even the gods could best. How long did they have until someone noticed her gone?
The building was never-ending, the halls interminable. They passed servants and guards who paid the pair no attention. Nereida’s footsteps matched Azul’s heartbeats, a steady trot, rising, rising, on the edge of turning into a full-out run. They ate the marble floors one step ahead of the morning light.
The guards at the entrance must’ve known Nereida, because she did not ask to be allowed outside, and they did not halt them to ask the reason for their hurry.
The taste of salt in the air shocked Azul, increased the prickling on her skin. She was leaving the land as she had entered it—without its owner’s permission.
Hurrying, she took her place by Nereida’s side. A town sprawling from the top of a mountain was easy to navigate—spiraling streets and steep stairs tumbling toward the azure sea. Seagulls cried overhead, as if they were raising the alarm.
Azul wiped her brow. The lack of food and sleep was catching up to her. Sweat stuck the back of her shirt to her skin, clammy in the chill of dawn. She’d had no time to grab a waistcoat, to grab anything. What she wore was all she owned now: her own boots, her sister’s breeches, one pair of well-worn shirtsleeves. One gold-and-Anchor earring.
The town leveled once outside the Anchor tip, the houses becoming wider rather than taller. Daring a peek behind, Azul again marveled at the number of buildings covering the Anchor, their faces forming straight cliffs, their square windows watchful eyes for the god’s bones.
Nereida’s sharp inhales were the only hint that the trip so far was affecting her in any way. Her features were handsome, her green eyes alluring and so stone-cold. Azul could see why such a beautiful, closed face had found favor with the late queen. This face would give nothing away, no secrets, no distaste. It could spew a lie as much as it could invoke a truth, and one would never be the wiser.
They rounded a corner, and the flagstone turned into mud and horse manure as the main port blossomed in front of them. Azul gaped at the two enormous ships anchored near the harbor and the few farther back—so much bigger than the one that had taken them across. Their sails were tied up, the oars retracted, seemingly ready to slide right into the city.
Carts and donkeys and sailors and farmers filled the space between town and seawater. Shouts, curses, neighs. Nereida herself appeared lost as she surveyed the spread. Azul grew restless, her gaze drifting over her shoulder. Sunlight was firmly in place now, the silver orbs of Luck and Wonder in hiding. Azul missed their reassuring visages. So many things could go wrong when you didn’t have the moons watching over you.
At last, Nereida began walking again. Dodging people and beasts of burden, they made their way to a far dock marked by a pole covered in strips of fading blue.
