Page 19 of Mistress of Bones
“Come here, dear.” The woman gathered Azul in her arms. “Your sister is with the Lord Death now, and no foulness shall touch her again.”
Azul grasped at the woman’s shirt, her body such a contrast from Isadora’s smaller form. “I want to see Isadora.”
“Don’t worry, child. We’ll take care of her.”
“Butwhereis she?”
The woman sighed. “Waiting in a safe place. Tomorrow the cart will come to take her remains away to rest with the gods.”
Isadora rest with the gods? Not if Azul had anything to do with it.
Swiftly, she made some calculations in her head. Her sister’s body must still be here if they were waiting for a cart, and the inn was not so big. She looked up at the woman and allowed the trepidation in her heart to show in her eyes, filling them with tears. “Take her remains away to where?”
“Monteverde, of course.”
THE PRESENT
“Ossuary? There is nothing like that here,” the man at the Monteverde inn said. Not the same inn where Azul and Nereida had left their hired horses—no need to make the job easier for anyone who might follow—but a run-down place on the edge between those with their fortunes intact and those who could not afford to move.
“Are you sure?” Azul asked. She looked for signs of shrewdness in his haggard face, or any hint of wanting coin for the information.
“Lived here all my life,” he answered, narrowing his eyes at Nereida, who stood quiet and impassive behind Azul.
Perhaps, Azul thought,they called it something else around these parts. “The place where they keep people’s bones.”
The man made a face of disgust. “I know what an ossuary is, and there is no such thing in this town. We don’t deal with the Lord Death’s refuse here. If you’re not going to buy a drink, stop wasting my time.”
Azul spun on her heel, intent on wasting someone else’s time. She strode out of the stuffy, low-ceiling room and considered her surroundings.
The Lord Death’s refuse—what a rude but succinct way to put it. Luck willing, a view not widely shared, or this town’s ossuary might end up being just a hole in the ground.
Monteverde was a sprawling mantle of buildings surrounding an ancient fortress built on a low hill. The houses were wide and elegant, comprising walls and doors but no other openings—they could afford open patios inside.
The ruins of the fortress peeked between the houses. Calls were often made to tear it down and build something more elegant, but legend claimed its foundations had been laid by a god—which one, no one knew—and superstition died slowly in places like this. Ravaging wars were things of the dark past, and skirmishes inflicted only upon the borders, not towns this far inland. And yet, they thought, mightnot their safety exist because a god was looking out for them? What would this god say if they were to tear down their gift?
Noticing a woman watching them with curiosity from under a doorway, Azul approached.
“Forgive me,” she said in her friendliest tone. “We are new to Monteverde. Could you direct us to the ossuary?”
“The ossuary?”
Azul deepened her smile to the point of hurt. “Where they keep people’s bones.”
The woman brought out a piece of ribbon from inside the belt holding up her breeches and waved it in front of her, guarding off ill intent. Azul wanted to snatch it from her hands and stamp on it, even if doing so would be stamping on the Lady Dream.
“I have nothing to do with the dead,” the woman said, full of distrust. “Don’t bring your problems to me.”
With another wave of her ribbon, she stepped inside the house and closed the door in Azul’s face.
“Friendly bunch,” Nereida commented.
She should know, Azul thought,considering the woman had uttered less than a handful of words since their talk inside the ship.
Azul turned, looking for more prey. Surely someone in this city must know where they kept Isadora’s bones.
Her gaze strayed toward the hill. Perhaps they kept the bones in the fort itself? She directed her steps that way and waited until the housing quality increased, the buildings just a little wider, the flagstone on the ground a little less dusty.
She approached an older man dressed in fine clothing slowly making his way along the street with the help of a beautiful cane.
