Silver in the Bone, page 17
“It’s the reason only nine priestesses remain in service of the Goddess,” Olwen added. “As one dies, another is called. It has taken an age for all nine of us to be called.”
Neve turned to face Caitriona again, fighting the drugging pull of exhaustion as she said, her voice firm, “Morgan and the others loved Avalon. They would never have cursed it.”
“How could any curse be powerful enough to turn this place into a wasteland?” I asked.
I looked to Cabell, watching his expression for any hint of his thoughts. If it was a curse, he’d have felt it. He didn’t turn to glance my way, though the way he shifted then, shuttering his expression, was acknowledgment enough. He placed two fingers against his opposite palm, our signal for Later.
Caitriona spun toward me. “You question my honor?”
“No one has said such a thing,” Bedivere said, his gruff voice soothing. “Do not forget that the code also states that all those we encounter deserve truth, kindness, and good faith.”
When Caitriona spoke again, she was more composed. “Before they were cast out, the sorceresses planted the seeds of dark magic they called a curse. One of sickness and pain, and it lingers still, rotting the isle.”
“If that’s true,” I said, “then what are those creatures? Where did they come from?”
“They,” Caitriona answered, her eyes cold, “are our dead.”
The silence seemed to splinter with unspoken emotions. Neve, with her obvious devastation. Caitriona, still blazing with anger. Olwen disapproving. Bedivere’s discomfort. Flea’s wide-eyed wonder as she stared at her very first sorceress.
The neglected cauldron on the fire boiled over, its contents hissing and spitting like a living thing. The noise made Olwen jump to her feet, and that small movement was enough to break the suffocating hold Caitriona’s words had cast over the room.
The sweet scent of apples and cinnamon curled around us as Olwen busied herself with ladling the hot liquid into a cup for Neve.
Neve blew on the steaming drink for a moment before taking a tentative sip. Her expression transformed in an instant, softening with wonder as she glanced down into the cup. Already, her color looked better and her expression more alert.
“Your dead…,” Neve began. “You mean, the curse transformed them?”
“Yes,” Caitriona said sharply. “Again, I ask, how did you call the mist and bend it to your will? How did you pass through the wards that should have repelled you, Sorceress?”
“My name is Neve, not Sorceress,” she said, pressing a hand against that small lump hidden beneath her shirt. “And I’ll answer only to the High Priestess of Avalon.”
“How unfortunate for you, then, that she’s been dead for over a year,” Caitriona said, a muscle in her jaw feathering. “The Nine is eight.”
The young girl, Flea, turned scarlet, gulping down a huge breath. It was enough to make my own stomach clench in sympathy. I knew what it was like to have those big feelings and not be able to let them out—not ever.
Flea shoved past Caitriona and Bedivere, running into the night.
Olwen rose from tending the cauldron, and her hands went to her hips. “Well, now you’ve done it.”
Caitriona’s head fell back with a groan. Just before she stepped out into the courtyard, she turned back one last time, drawing in a breath.
“Don’t trouble yourself, Cait,” Bedivere said before she could speak. “I’ll stay with Olwen and see that they’re brought to their chambers with no trouble.”
Caitriona turned, stiff-backed, toward the door.
“Wait,” Neve said, her voice firm. She held out a hand. “My wand, please.”
Caitriona tightened her fist around it. “You’ll have it back when I decide you can be trusted.”
“I don’t need a wand to work magic,” Neve said, her voice deceptively light. “And you can toss that shiny silver hair all you want, but I neither want nor need your trust, let alone your approval.”
Caitriona stormed out into the waiting dark. The door slammed shut behind her, rattling every bottle on the nearby shelves.
“She’s pleasant,” I noted, hugging my arms to my middle. With the flames fighting to stay alive after their dousing, the infirmary had chilled.
As she passed the hearth, Olwen raised a hand, whispering something like a chant beneath her breath, stoking the embers back into a blaze, damp wood and all. Neve drank the sight down as if she were dying of thirst.
“You must understand,” Olwen said, returning her attention to wrapping Emrys’s arm in a clean bandage. “Cait’s only aim is to protect the survivors. I’ll not hear a word against her.”
In truth, I didn’t care about Caitriona or any of them. We’d come here for a reason, and that was the only thing that could matter.
“Do you agree with Caitriona’s story of how the curse on the land came to be?” Emrys asked, easing some of the tension and changing the subject from how we’d gotten here.
“I believe it is a curse, yes, though I’m less sure of its source.” Olwen rested her cheek in her palm, thinking. “Avalon was once a place where there was no true sickness. No hunger. No suffering. But I’ve read about the pestilences of the mortal world and cannot help but see the similarities now in how the darkness has spread.”
Some sort of magical disease or virus? It was a terrifying idea, and not one I’d seen referenced in any book or Immortality.
“Does your magic work with all plants?” Neve asked Emrys. When he nodded, she had more questions for him: “What did you feel being out in the woods? Did the trees tell you anything?”
“Nothing,” Emrys said with a small shudder. “Absolutely nothing. It was terrible.”
“It began two years ago.” Olwen nodded, breathing in deeply. “The curse came for the others first. The smallest of the fae, no bigger than flowers, then those who tended the sacred grove, the animals, even the trees and their dryads. My naiad kin.”
She looked down at her hands again, collecting herself before continuing. “Any creatures who did not seek the shelter of the tower perished—which is to say, nearly all. The dark magic sickened and killed them, but it had a different effect on our dead. It caused them to…rise again. Transformed and corrupted of mind. Now they care only for their hunger.”
“Mother of all,” Neve whispered.
“We call them the Children of the Night, because they hunt in the dark hours,” Olwen said. “They are living, and yet I feel nothing of the Goddess in them anymore. They can’t seem to bear any light, and only fire can stop them. And fortunately for them, our skies have been overtaken by shadow. We have only a few sunlit hours each morning before the darkness returns.”
“That must make it nearly impossible to grow anything,” Emrys said.
“We have spells to mimic sun, but as the darkness spread, we lost our groves and fields to blight,” Olwen said. “As you might imagine, Avalon now knows something of hunger.”
“We are managing well enough, thanks to the Nine,” Bedivere said gently. “Our food stock will carry us through another few months yet.”
Olwen mustered a small smile at his praise.
“And you really have no idea what caused it?” Cabell pressed.
“Caitriona has her theory, as you’ve now heard vigorously told,” Olwen said. “Some of my sisters agree, while others think the land sickened because the Goddess turned her back on us after the bloodshed.”
“What about the druids?” I asked. “You said they worshiped Lord Death and used magic he gave to them—that they massacred children. Why aren’t they higher on the list of suspects?”
“They might well be the source of our woes,” Olwen said. “But we were raised with the belief that the sorceresses’ choice was the worse of the two betrayals, because it came from those our elders loved and trusted most.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I scoffed.
“Perhaps, but pain wears many faces—anger, suspicion, fear,” Olwen said quietly. “When my sisters and I were called by the Goddess, we had to leave our families and homes behind to come to the tower for our training. High Priestess Viviane became like a second mother to us all. She taught us everything we know about the Goddess, magic, and ritual. But her grief from the Forsaking was also part of that inheritance, and it is difficult to dismiss that when it feels like a dismissal of her as well.”
“Hang on,” Cabell said. “Viviane? Was there more than one High Priestess with that name?”
“Only the one,” Olwen confirmed with a sad smile. “And to answer what I suspect is your next question, yes, she was hundreds of years old at her death. Likely almost a thousand, if we were to measure her life by the more rapid passage of time in your world.”
“Even factoring in the different timelines,” I said, glad to at least have that confirmed, “not even sorceresses live that long. How did she manage it?”
“The magic of the vow she took to the Goddess—the one we all take as priestesses—kept her alive until nine new priestesses were finally born,” Olwen continued. “The Forsaking was a scar on Viviane’s heart, and she never forgave those who caused it. Some of my sisters have inherited her sentiments, though not nearly to the same degree.”
“And you?” Neve asked.
“I understand why the sorceresses did what they did, though I can’t condone it,” Olwen said. “I know Sir Bedivere feels the same.”
“Indeed.” The old knight leaned against the doorframe, looking contemplative. “Such was the greed of the druids that I believe they would wish ill upon Avalon if they themselves could not rule it.”
“Is there any proof either way?” Cabell asked. “Wouldn’t death magic feel different than the power we draw from?”
“I couldn’t say,” Olwen said. “We have but one other clue to the cause of the sickness.”
Olwen moved toward the shelves, her fingers skimming leather spines and scrolls until she found a small volume, the thick parchment pages roughly bound with knotted string. The One Vision bled and swirled the symbols on the first sheet into words I understood: Wisdom of the Mother.
“Here it is…” She cleared her throat, flipping her magnifying glass down in front of her eye. “Three magics to be feared: curses born of the wrath of gods, poisons that turn soil to ash, and that which leaves one dark of heart and silver in the bone.”
Olwen set the volume down. “There’s no record of such an affliction—silver in the bone—anywhere else. I feel certain the tower’s healer would have noted it in their own records, having examined some of the sorceresses and druids killed in the struggle. And yet…”
Olwen shifted back to her worktable, retrieving what appeared to be a long-necked forceps from a leather roll of tools. Then, her hand skimming over some of the covered jars and baskets, she retrieved what looked to be a weighty jar from the shelf and placed it on the worktable.
With a flick of the wrist, Olwen pulled the fabric away, and I found myself staring at a shriveled human head.
“Ooooh!” Neve gasped, captivated.
“Augh!” I gagged.
Olwen removed the lid from the jar, sending a foul odor into the air. It was the reek of death, made fouler by the green ooze the head had been suspended in.
Using the forceps, she fished the head out and set it down on the table, oblivious to the repulsed looks around the room. Even Bedivere, the battle-hardened knight, grimaced.
“Gather around, please,” she said.
When only Neve did, Olwen looked up, confused.
“Not all possess your fascination with such things, dear one,” Bedivere reminded her. “Perhaps a warning might not go amiss in the future.”
The old knight spoke in such a fatherly manner, gentle with his advice and calming in a storm of emotions. Both Caitriona and Olwen adored him like a father—it was clear in the way they looked to him and responded to his words.
“I will work quickly to spare your stomachs,” Olwen said.
Using a different metal tool, she opened a sickly flap of skin on the back of the skull. Beneath the wrinkles of the shriveled layer of flesh was the gleam of pure silver, as if the entire skull had been dipped into a molten vat of it.
“Hellfire,” Cabell said in amazement, stooping to get a better look. “This happens to all of them?”
“All of them, and all of their bones,” Olwen said. She looked to Neve, who was peering at the skull with obvious fascination. “Neve, perhaps you might be able to help me in my research. My knowledge of cursework is admittedly quite thin, and we do not possess many such accounts.”
“Of course,” Neve said, her eyes widening. “I’m sure we can figure this out.”
My brows rose. That was quite the optimistic take.
“It’s strange, isn’t it?” Olwen said to Neve. “How we are born of the same isle and to the same Goddess, but now use our magic in such different ways. But I am glad to have met you, Neve, and though they may be frightened now, I know my sisters will come to share my gratitude.”
“I can think of at least one who wouldn’t agree,” Neve said.
“She only needs time,” Olwen promised. “If I am absolutely certain of anything, it is this: the Goddess led you here to us. All of you.”
As Olwen spoke, I watched Bedivere’s reaction. The old knight had seen his share of death and darkness, and his stony expression gave his thoughts away. He recognized the futility of the situation, just like I did.
“And I’m glad of it,” Olwen said, “for there have been many days when it has felt as if the Goddess has turned her heart from us. Yet here you are. The path opened for you.”
There was a faint knock on the door, and Betrys stepped inside, hugging a bundle to her chest. “You missed supper again.”
“Well, I was rather preoccupied,” Olwen said defensively.
“When are you not?” Betrys said in gentle admonishment.
Betrys set the bundle down on the table and opened the fabric to reveal a small chunk of bread and what looked like cold gray stew. My mouth watered.
“Thank you, sister,” Olwen said.
“I don’t need thanks,” Betrys said. “I need to know that you’re taking care of yourself. You’ll go to the pools tonight, won’t you? Any of us will be glad to accompany you.”
“Yes, yes,” Olwen said dismissively.
Betrys glanced over her shoulder at the rest of us. “I’ve orders to bring you to the springs to wash. You’ll be given a change of clothes the others will find less alarming and be brought to private chambers to rest.”
“What about our stuff?” I asked.
“You’ll be reunited with your belongings there,” Betrys confirmed. “However, there have been questions raised about this—”
She reached into a bag at her side and pulled out a familiar bundle of purple silk. Cabell coughed, sending me a look of Do something.
Emrys stood from the cot and came forward, intrigued. I watched the slow rise of his eyebrows as Betrys unwrapped Ignatius and held him up into the candlelight. His crusty eye remained mercifully closed.
Botheration. I’d completely forgotten about Ignatius. How had Septimus not stolen him—how had he not fallen out in all the chaos of the last two days?
I clasped my hands behind my back, and it took just about everything in me not to react in the silence that followed. Over the years, I’d learned that a speedy defense only made you look guiltier.
“Oh—I have one too!” Olwen said, delighted. She went back to her shelves, lifted the fabric from one of the covered jars, and proudly displayed a wretched-looking hand suspended in that same green gunk.
Olwen beamed. Betrys shuddered.
“You do it on purpose, don’t you?” Betrys asked weakly.
“Never,” Olwen said innocently. She covered the container again.
That fleeting moment had given me enough time to work out a strategy: play the victim, not the suspect.
“You had no right to go through our things,” I said.
“Didn’t we?” Betrys asked. “Strangers show up in our lands and we have no right to ensure they aren’t bringing weapons or more dark magic with them?”
Bedivere stood behind her, silently backing the words. He took the Hand of Glory from her, careful to touch only its metal holder. His top lip curled in disgust. “What is the magic attached to this…thing? I can feel its presence, but it does not reveal itself.”
The hand remained stiff and the eye shut. It was a true reflection of how grim our situation was, and my heart swelled a bit at Ignatius’s loyalty.
“Is that…?” Neve breathed out, daring to come a bit closer.
“I always wondered how you managed—” Emrys began.
“To find such—ah, a uniquely carved torch?” I finished. “Very lifelike, isn’t it?”
“Very,” Betrys said, eyes narrowing. “And its magic?”
“To brighten its glow,” I answered.
“My sister is drawn to strange and dreadful things,” Cabell offered fondly.
“Love ’em,” I said, not missing a beat. “Bring me the macabre, all things forbidding and ghastly—as long as they’re not possessed by angry spirits.”
Emrys snorted in amusement.
“Why do you think I spend so much time with this hideous wretch?” I said, jerking a thumb in his direction.
“Ha,” he said. “And here I thought it was for my repulsive personality.”
If I’d been in Betrys’s place, I would have made me light the wicks and prove my ridiculous torch story. Instead, she simply took my word for it and passed it back to me.
“Flea has a similar fascination,” she warned, “and the habit of collecting odd things, so I’d keep an eye on it if I were you.”
