A River of Golden Bones, page 22
“Oh, I don’t know.” I snorted, feeling strange nerves bubbling up in me. “I’m not very appealing in dresses.”
“Appealing to who?” Ora cocked their head, their hazel eyes cutting straight through my defenses. “The first person you should be appealing to is yourself. You wear the things that make you happy.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know what that is . . .”
Ora took off their fur-lined hat and plopped it on my head. I smiled, smelling their citrusy floral scent in the fabric. “Maybe it’s time to try on a few new hats and see which ones fit.”
I had never really considered it. All of Galen den’ Mora knew me as someone other than the person I insisted I was in my own head . . . and it seemed they liked me without any other name or label. Just me.
Ora and I joined the others at the table by the fountain, and I kept my jittery hands in my cloak pockets. It felt freeing and confusing all at once. If I gave myself permission to be anything, who would I want to be? No answers jumped immediately to mind, but I knew one thing for certain, though I didn’t know what it meant: I didn’t want to wear dresses like Briar.
I wanted to wear them like Ora.
Twenty-Six
The music of the horns danced around the lively plaza as we people-watched. I loved all the rounded fur hats and thick wool cloaks with silver embroidered hems. The Taigosi human garb was a little worn, but exceedingly beautiful. I admired the details on their thick leather belts and the silver hoops they wore in their ears, far more elegant than the humans in Allesdale.
I didn’t spot Grae, though I kept searching, and I hoped for the hundredth time that morning that wherever he was, he was okay.
“Navin!” Ora called, flagging down the tall harpist.
Even hunched against the chill, Navin stood a head taller than the shoppers meandering around him. He veered over toward us, winding through the tables and chairs.
Sadie sat up, her slumped posture turning rod straight.
“Join us.” Ora gestured to an empty chair.
“I’m off to buy some more resin for the twins,” he said, tipping his head toward the end of the plaza. He glanced at Sadie, lips curving up as he looked at her. “Want to come with me?”
“She can’t,” Hector said before Sadie could reply. “We’ve got some errands we need to run.”
“Oh, okay,” Navin replied, rubbing his hands together.
Sadie glared at her brother and back at Navin, jutting her jaw to the side. “Ora was telling us about this restaurant, the Ice Dragon. Have you heard of it?”
“Yes, I love the food there.” Navin’s bronze eyes beamed.
“Maybe we could go there for dinner tonight?” she asked, leaning into the table to block Hector. “Just us?”
I leaned back and smirked at Hector’s fuming expression.
Navin’s eyebrows shot up as his cheeks dimpled. “I’d like that.”
“Great.” Sadie nodded. “I’ll see you tonight.”
“See you then.” Navin’s chest puffed up, the invitation breathing new life into him. He bobbed his chin to the rest of us and headed back into the throng.
“Could you excuse us for a moment?” Hector asked, rising from his chair and tapping his sister on the shoulder.
Ora and I watched the two of them storm off. Hector was cursing something I couldn’t hear, flinging his hands in the air, but I knew he was talking about the sign in the third-floor window: No Skin Chasers.
I grimaced. “He’s protective.”
“I can see that.” Ora chuckled with a shrug. “Navin’s a really nice person and he seems smitten with your friend, but I’m sure I’m missing part of the puzzle.”
“Yes,” I said with a sigh. A very large piece of the puzzle.
The music stopped and the crowd applauded. Five of the musicians set down their instruments, heading off to the hot cider cart that had just wheeled into the square. Only a lone horn remained, playing a deep, resonant tune. I recognized the Olmderian mining song. “Sa Sortienna”—it meant “above the golden trees.” I’d always loved the lyrics. I began mouthing the words, tapping my foot to the sad, slow song.
The musician stopped, lowering his horn. “Do you know the words? Please, sing along.” He chuckled, tipping his head toward his bandmates. “They all left me to get a hot drink.”
“I’m not a very good singer,” I blurted out.
“It’ll be fun.” Ora nudged me as if it wasn’t a big deal to break into song in a public square. “I’ll sing, too.”
The musician smiled, pursing his lips back to the aperture. My throat went dry as I listened to the intro again.
Ora started singing, a beautiful mezzo, giving me a wink. “When I leave these caverns, my love, do you know just what I see? Above the golden trees, my love, the same moon shines for me.”
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, singing the higher harmony. “Pray I’ll come home, my love, and no monsters steal my gold. But gold or no, my love, pray I return ’fore we grow old . . .”
The horn crescendoed and my voice grew louder, matching Ora’s. My chest vibrated, the sound filling me down to my bones. The song made me ache, each word stretching out into the corners of my heart.
The song was about a couple missing who they were together and hoping they’d be united again. I imagined all those miners singing to their faraway loves, passing the time until they could return home. Each melancholic note rang with that feeling of loneliness. The bittersweetness echoed through me, hope and sorrow singing in equal measure.
Gooseflesh rippled across my skin, the emotions overwhelming my body. The song slowed into its final refrain, and Ora and I along with it. “Until then, my love, hold on to you and me.”
Cheering erupted and I whirled to see a small crowd gathered around us. I gaped at them, my cheeks burning. I’d been too focused on the song to notice them.
“Your voice!” Ora beamed, having to shout to me over the applause. “It’s so—”
“Beautiful.” A man in the crowd stepped forward. He had sharp features and sky-blue eyes. Something about his eerie stillness made my hackles raise.
“I’m Niklas,” he said, tipping his fur hat. “The Queen’s secretary.”
My eyes widened, taking in his perfect clothing—no snow on his jacket, no dirt staining his hems. I narrowed my eyes at him. He was handsome and elegant, but I didn’t think he was a Wolf, merely a well-to-do human in the Queen’s employ.
He gave me a crooked smile, clearly thinking my shock was because I was a lowly street performer . . . and not because I was a Wolf. “I know Queen Ingrid would be delighted to have you perform that song for her at the masquerade tomorrow night.”
The crowd gasped, applause ringing out again as if it were some great honor to be invited. I let out a stuttering breath, nerves coiling tight in my gut.
Breathe. At least he wasn’t a Silver Wolf. At least he didn’t know me.
“We’re already playing, my Lord.” Ora bowed. “We’re with Galen den’ Mora.”
“Splendid,” Niklas said with a grin. “Make sure you sing that song for Her Majesty.”
“It would be our pleasure.” Ora flourished their hand.
Niklas disappeared into the tittering crowd, people giving him a wide berth. The crowd dispersed as the horn players returned.
Ora’s face lit up looking at me. “Our little duet will be fun!”
“I can’t perform in front of the Queen!” I sputtered. “You can sing the song on your own, can’t you?”
“No, no, no,” they said. “It’s no good as a solo. You must! Please?”
“I-I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said. “I almost passed out doing it in front of ten people.”
Ora chuckled. “If you close your eyes, it doesn’t matter if it’s ten or a thousand.”
“A thousand?”
They settled their hand on my arm. “It’s a masquerade. No one will even see your face.”
“Oh, jumping juvlecks.” I gulped. “I need to find Grae.”
Ora pointed over my shoulder, and I twisted to find a figure at the far end of the plaza. Grae clung to the shadows of the alley, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. I knew even with his face shadowed in his hood that his dark eyes were staring straight into mine.
I stood, taking a step toward him; his arms fell to his side, and he turned back down the alley. My stomach dropped to my feet. Would he never speak to me again?
I thought about heading in the direction of that cloaked figure, but I knew Grae wouldn’t want me to follow him. He’d heard me sing . . . Maybe he didn’t like it? I shook my head, scolding myself for entertaining these thoughts. He needed time, just as Sadie said. My hands clenched in my pockets. How much time did he need?
My mind still whirling, I broke off from Ora to explore the lower east end of Taigoska by myself. The busy markets gave way to quiet older dwellings, beautiful stone architecture, and plaques describing important historical sites.
I stopped at a mosaic of a Wolf with a giant silver serpent in its maw. The inscription below it read King Joakim Enghdall III, Slayer of the Ebarvens. This was Queen Ingrid’s ancestor—the one credited with ridding Taigoska of the snow snakes. But ebarvens still existed in Taigos, like in the crater outside Hengreave, just pushed to the corners of the kingdom. Still, the humans lit candles upon the altar below his mosaic, a prayer for continued protection. This was the legacy of the Wolves, my legacy, but the world was still filled with monsters, Sawyn being one of them.
I stepped into the carved archway of a human temple. Like so many things in Taigoska, the temple was a hidden gem. There was no shrine to the Goddess of Knowledge; instead there were books. The library had towering rows of leather tomes, ladders lining either side, and rows of desks for people to sit and study. The ceilings weren’t vaulted and the space wasn’t grand, but there was something cozy and lived-in about the worn cushions and the dusty shelves. Stained-glass windows cast spectrums of sacred light around the dim room.
My fingers skimmed the rows, following them to a little nook with a carved crown placard. The shelves were filled with history books, royal lineages, and census scrolls. My eyes landed on the gold lettering down the spine of a burgundy book: The Sleeping Queen.
Dizzy, I grabbed the book off the shelf. Of course there would be books written about my mother. She was royalty, one of the most famous figures in all Aotreas. Everyone knew the story of how my father broke her sleeping curse with a kiss. There were songs and plays and children’s bedtime stories about the two of them. Still, to stumble across a book about my family . . . With Briar gone, it felt harder than ever to be reminded of their absence.
I took the book over to one of the rickety desks tucked in the corner and sat. I flipped through the yellowing pages, my eyes scanning the detailed borders and drawings surrounding the blocks of text. My eyes snagged on a sentence, and I read it over again:
Sameir Marriel, third child and second son of Their Majesties, King and Queen Marriel.
I flipped over to the next page, but there was no more detail about my father. I read it again. Third child? I never knew my father had any siblings. I knew my mother’s side of the family had been killed by Sawyn, along with the rest of the Gold Wolf pack. I also knew my father’s parents had passed away before the night of my birth, but siblings? With a sigh, I shoved back from the desk and returned to the nook of royal books. Scanning, I found a book of Olmdere royal lineages: Wyn dese Olmdelaire—the kings of Olmdere.
I set the heavy leather-bound tome on top of my mother’s story and began flipping toward the end. I got to the last chapter of recent descendants and found the family tree. My stomach lurched when I saw two names above Sameir with an X next to them: Leanna, and below, Sahandr. I had an aunt and uncle that I had never known about.
I turned the page, fingers tracing Leanna’s name:
Born under a waning moon, Leanna Marriel, the first child of King and Queen Marriel, was betrothed to Prince Luo of Valta upon her birth. The crimson-haired princess was an accomplished singer and painter. She died of a sudden illness, along with her younger brother, at the age of fifteen.
I turned to Sahandr’s page:
Born under a new moon, Sahandr Marriel, the first son and crown prince of Olmdere. He was strong, with excellent sparring and hunting skills. He died of a sudden illness, along with his elder sister, at the age of eight.
Whereas my aunt and uncle’s pages were little more than a paragraph, my father’s biography took up two whole pages. He was born one year after the death of his siblings. They called him a surprise and blessing. His pages detailed the days and moons of his many accomplishments, his coronation, and his wedding to my mother. And at the very end of the page was the announcement of the birth of his only child, Briar. I don’t know why it still stung to see her name there alone.
But it did.
I flipped to Briar’s page, the borders only half-drawn and the words hastily written. The halfhearted text made me wonder if the scribe had given up after Sawyn’s attack. How the book ended up in a Taigoska library, I had no idea. Perhaps the scribe fled from Olmdere along with so many other humans. Curious, I skimmed over Briar’s biography.
Born under a full moon, Briar Marriel, the first child of King and Queen Marriel, was betrothed to Prince Graemon of Damrienn upon her birth. Nicknamed the Crimson Princess for the blood that was spilt on the night of her birth. Her whereabouts remain unknown and many believe her dead.
My mouth dropped open. I had always thought they called Briar “the Crimson Princess” because she had red hair, but the moniker originated from something much darker. No one even knew she had red hair, I realized. No one had known her at all except Grae, King Nero, and Vellia.
My fingers trembled over the pages. It was too much. Everyone on these pages was dead or cursed, or both. The only Gold Wolf that still lived never made it into the book to begin with. A book of sons and daughters . . . and then there was me—both and neither. I traced my name over the blank parchment. I existed between the ink and the pages. I existed in the breath after a long-held note. I existed safe in my mother’s womb before the world could tell me who I was. And even if the world forgot those silent spaces, those in-betweens, in that moment I knew I had always been entirely whole—that I existed, remembered or not.
I shut both heavy books, the loud thwack echoing in the silence.
I hefted the tomes into my arms and returned to the nook to shelve them. When I turned into the last row of shelves, I smelled the smoky earth scent of Grae before I even saw him. I craned my neck down the stacks, seeing the whipping wool of a cloak. I hastily shoved the books back onto a random shelf and followed, cutting down a narrow row and popping out in front of him.
He halted, hood shifting backward just enough so that I could see his tightly clenched jaw and vexed eyes.
“Is this what we’ve come to? Tailing me, but also avoiding me?” I asked, leaning back to check again that the library was vacant. “I saw you in the plaza.”
“Your performance was beautiful, little fox.” The sound of his voice made my body respond with a deep, sorrowful twang. I missed his voice, his smell. I’d been mourning him this past day without knowing it, and now I felt it all rushing into me.
I folded my arms, trying to hide my trembling hands. “And why are you here now?”
“I wanted to make sure you were safe.”
“I’m safest when I’m with you.” I peered up into his shadowed face, feeling his eyes pierce into me. “Would it really be that bad? To be with me?” I repeated the words he had asked me so many days ago in that tent.
“No, little fox.” He reached out and swept a thumb across my cheek. “It wouldn’t be bad at all.”
I covered his hand with my own, holding his palm to my cheek as I fixed him with my gaze. “Talk to me.”
His eyes guttered and his hand pulled away. I let it drop, knowing that I had just touched upon some festering poison within him.
The library door swung open and two humans walked in, shoulders raised against the torrent of snow that followed them in the door. Grae pulled the rim of his hood higher, concealing his face again.
“Talk to me,” I pleaded, searching for his eyes in the shadows of his hood.
“Not here.” He turned his hood toward the direction of the humans perusing the shelves. His warm hand reached out and threaded his fingers through mine. That gesture meant more to me than he would ever know. I knew he was battling with himself not to pull away from me.
“Come,” he said. “I have a place in mind.”
Twenty-Seven
“Tell me you said no.”
“I couldn’t!” I lifted my shoulders. “What was I supposed to say? Tell the Queen I won’t perform for her?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what you should have said,” Grae growled.
I snorted, stomping harder through the deep snow. “That’s rich coming from one of the most privileged Wolves in Aotreas.”
I squinted against the gale, keeping my head down as we trudged toward the pine forest at the eastern edge of Taigoska.
“You are also one of the most privileged Wolves in Aotreas,” he muttered.
“No. I should be, but I’m without a kingdom or a pack, remember? That secretary thought I was a human. To him I was a nobody, and I couldn’t say no.” We broke into the tree line and I sighed with relief. My cheeks tingled with the wind’s absence, my nose numb. “Besides, it’s a masquerade. No one will see my face anyway, and we were planning on going to steal the nitehock—”
“The plan was to stay hidden amongst the human servants,” Grae said. “Not parade in front of the entire pack of Ice Wolves. You’d be walking straight into the belly of the beast, Calla.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing going after Maez?” He didn’t reply, so I moved on. “You don’t have to come with me,” I insisted. “In fact, you and the others should stay back in the wagon. I’ll perform, get the nitehock, and get out. The fewer of us in the palace, the better.”
