Silver in the Bone, page 39
“I don’t know,” I said. “But at least it’s dead.” Then, because that had a different meaning in this Otherland, I added, “Dead dead.”
The bones were all around us, each arching over the hedge to meet at a knobby joint almost like…
A massive skeleton’s spine and ribs.
“Should we…?” he asked, using the sword to point at the tracks.
The hedge fed into a labyrinthine enclosure, but there wasn’t far to go to find its center, and what was hidden there.
I’d been right. A gigantic creature had curled up and died there, its body giving life to the hedge. Behind us, the delicate bones of the folded wings were still there, supported by the gnarled growth. The skull, nearly as large as the stone cottage next to it, was filled with rows of serrated teeth.
Dragon, I thought faintly. Mari hadn’t been teasing me.
Emrys and I crouched as we came around the last corner. A cottage with its snow-dusted thatched roof, like something out of a fairy tale.
The trail of steps led to a firmly shut door. With its lone window covered by fabric, it was impossible to tell who, if anyone, was inside.
I caught Emrys’s eye and shrugged. He shrugged back but slid the sword across the snow to me with a meaningful look.
I hesitated, motioning that we should try to approach the cottage from the side, but he only pointed to the sword and drew his collapsible axe out of his workbag.
My fingers closed around the hilt, and blue flames roared to life along the blade. Emrys stared at it in wonder, shaking his head.
Before either of us could lose our courage, we charged at the door. Emrys readied himself to kick it in and I assumed the best fighting stance I could—but we never had the chance to strike. The door swung open and there was a knife at my throat.
Not a knife—a wand.
Neve and I both yelped, dropping our weapons. The sword’s flames extinguished themselves in the snow and the wand rolled to Emrys’s feet as we threw our arms around each other.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, my voice tight with shock.
Caitriona hovered with a sword a step behind her, and Olwen twisted a misty snarl of magic between her hands a step behind that. Both relaxed at the sight of us, but only just.
Neve took a step back, keeping her grip on my upper arms, and gave me a look of utter disbelief. “We came to find you. Both of you.”
“Why?” I asked, alarmed. “What’s happened?”
Olwen pressed a hand to her face in either dismay or amusement.
“I’ll make some tea, shall I?” she murmured.
“What’s happened is that you left the protection of the tower, you utter ninny,” Caitriona said, her voice even raspier than usual. “Come inside, the both of you. Now.”
It took me a moment to understand. “You came to find us.”
“Yes!” Neve said, exasperated. “What else did you think we’d do when you didn’t come back before nightfall?”
Nothing. The word clanged in my mind. I only stared at her as she shook her head. My life wasn’t worth trading theirs. Neither Emrys nor the others should have followed. I tried to tell them, but something was happening in my chest, in my throat, and the urge to cry suddenly became too much.
Emrys bent to retrieve the sword, then put a gentle hand on my shoulder, guiding me inside so the door could be shut and latched firmly behind us.
The inside of the cottage was surprisingly homey, with a bed in the far corner, a dining table set up in front of the hearth, and a pair of stuffed chairs near a bookshelf jammed with what appeared to be record books of some kind.
“What is this place?” Emrys asked, all but collapsing into one of the chairs.
“This home belongs to the keeper of the orchards,” Caitriona said, sheathing her sword. Softly, she corrected herself. “Belonged.”
“Talk about burying the lede,” I muttered. “Is that really a dragon?”
“It was Caron, the last of her kind,” Olwen explained. “She was a dear friend to a keeper of the orchards years and years ago.”
Neve sat me in the other chair, putting her hands on my shoulders to push me not so gently down into it. I made a face at her assessing look and she returned it, twice over.
You shouldn’t be here, I thought desperately. None of you should have left the tower. The whole point of my mission had been to keep everyone safe, and now they were in far more danger because of me. This was the last thing I’d wanted.
Neve’s expression turned serious, as if she could see the flow of thoughts passing through my mind. “You really thought we wouldn’t?”
I looked down. “You shouldn’t have put yourselves at risk.”
“Too bad,” Neve told me. “You don’t get to decide that. I’m sorry to inform you that, despite your best efforts, people care about you, myself included.”
Turning back to where Olwen was using magic to heat a small pot of water, Neve said, “I’ll finish that, Olwen. I think you’d better have a look at these two.”
“Start with Tamsin,” Emrys said, “and don’t judge me too harshly, Olwen. I did my best.”
I shrugged out of my jacket, turning my arm up for the healer to assess. She washed her hands and came toward me, her eyes narrowing as she knelt and took in the sight of the stitches and the ointment. She sniffed at it.
“Echinacea and yarrow?” she asked approvingly.
“And a touch of oregano oil,” Emrys confirmed.
“Your stitching needs work,” Olwen informed him after inspecting both my arm and ankle. She gave me a soft pat on the hand. “I’ll clean it properly and apply something that should help it heal. How did you come by such a deep wound? Was it one of the Children?”
“Not…quite,” I said faintly.
Behind her, Caitriona stopped pacing, allowing Neve to pass by with a steaming cup of something that smelled divine. Dried apples and herbs bobbed at its surface.
“Bedivere told us about the athame, but the storm set in as we reached the lake and we lost your tracks,” Caitriona said. “Did you find it?”
Her bandaged face made it difficult to read her expression, but the thread of hope in her voice was enough to make my lungs squeeze. I hadn’t thought of this part—of having to tell them what had become of their beloved High Priestess, and how she had cursed them all.
As I took my first sip of the tonic, I got to experience what Neve had that very first night. A warm, golden glow seemed to pass through me, easing the soreness of my body and the ache in my stomach instantaneously. That restorative effect had to be Avalon’s famed apples, healing and nurturing all at once. It gave me that last bit of courage I needed.
“I found it,” I told them. Olwen looked up from where she was bandaging my ankle, drawing in a breath of surprise. Her relief was just as terrible as Caitriona’s hope. “But you are really not going to like where it is.”
When I finished, Olwen was in tears and Caitriona had slumped into one of the chairs at the table, bracing her head in her hands. I could practically feel her mind working, running through the story I’d presented—weighing if she could trust it.
“How could this be true?” Olwen asked, dashing the wetness from her cheeks with her hand. “A revenant, from so few bones—who could have cast such a curse on her?”
“Only herself,” came Caitriona’s dark reply. She sat back against the chair, misery etched on her features.
“No,” Olwen said. “It cannot be.”
“Who else, then?” Caitriona asked, bereft. “Our High Priestess was the only one in all of Avalon we know for certain called upon death magic. I’ve denied the possibility for years, but knowing this…”
“Could it have been a mistake?” Neve asked softly. “She could have misunderstood one of the druidic spells.”
“Or she was no longer a servant of the Goddess,” Caitriona said, her long body curling up into the chair. “And accepted the greater magic of death.”
“No,” Olwen said. “No. There are many things I’d believe, but that is not one of them.”
“Olwen,” Caitriona said. “You know how she spoke of her longing to return Morgan to life, to have but one more day with her. Perhaps she sought the magic to resurrect her, and it led to our ruin.”
The other priestess shook her head. “No. She would not upset the balance in such a way.”
“Did the High Priestess tell you how revenants form?” I asked.
Olwen pushed her thick, dark curls over her shoulder. “Very little, though I have gleaned pieces from memories.”
“All that’s needed for a revenant to form is the presence of strong magic lingering in the body, and a desire to go on,” I said. “Sometimes revenants aren’t even malicious. They’re just determined to see some task through and won’t let anyone stop them.”
Emrys nodded. “If this wasn’t intentional, her desire to go on could have been nothing more than a wish to protect Avalon.”
“Or,” I said, “she really was a servant of Lord Death, and she knew that becoming a revenant would make her nearly unstoppable.”
Olwen pressed her hands to her face, struggling to contain herself at the thought. Behind her, Neve let her head fall back in exasperation.
“Your mind is intolerable,” Caitriona told me.
“Look.” I tried again. “I don’t like the idea either, but it did seem like she controlled the Children at the lake. I think we have to accept the possibility that she allowed the transformation so she could continue her work in secret or become closer to invincible.”
“Blessed Mother,” Olwen said, pressing a hand to her chest.
“What if it was the Ring of Dispel?” Emrys said suddenly. “I’ve been wondering all day how she came to have it. What if Mari was right, and the ring has a corrupting influence? Could it have caused her to do all of this?”
Olwen shook her head. “The only ring she wore was one of moonstone…but…perhaps she kept it hidden on her? I will not deny that she had secrets, or that she enjoyed collecting those of others.”
“Or it played no role in all of this,” Neve said. “And the revenant happened upon it somewhere in the forest.”
My own theories were still too thin to voice, and, ultimately, they didn’t matter. The athame and ring were within reach, and now it was just a matter of figuring out how to find the revenant and take them from her.
Which, as my wounds clearly demonstrated, was easier said than done.
“A revenant is a parasite. It has to feed on magic to maintain a physical form,” I said. “Is there someplace north of here that’s still protected by old, strong magic? There’s such a thing as high magic, right? A spell you ask the more powerful Goddess to cast on your behalf through ritual?”
Olwen and Caitriona exchanged a look.
“Yes,” Caitriona said cautiously. “Why?”
“Because that’s the kind of magic she’ll want, and most likely where she’s headed,” I said.
“So to destroy a revenant, you first have to cut it off from that magic?” Neve clarified, intrigue and horror warring in her expression.
“Right. You’d have to remove the old spellwork.” I turned back to the two priestesses. “Is that site far from here?”
Caitriona rose from her seat. “That is none of your concern, as you’ll be returning to the tower with the others.”
“What?” I said. “No!”
Caitriona pulled the various pieces of her steel and leather armor back on, stubbornly refusing to look at the four of us. Neve sat on the arm of my chair with a sigh, shooting me a worried look.
“You are not leaving here without us,” Olwen told her.
“Who will stop me?” Caitriona asked with a haughtiness that was truly earned.
“No one, you wonderful, glorious fool,” Olwen said. “I know where it is too, and I’ll just bring them there myself.”
Caitriona’s braid whipped around as she whirled on Olwen, eyes flashing. Olwen didn’t so much as flinch.
“I am not so delicate, Cait,” Olwen told her softly. “And she was my High Priestess, as well as yours. You should not have to face this alone.”
“It was my mistake,” Caitriona said roughly. “I should have—”
“Stopped Sir Bedivere from doing something he kept secret until yesterday?” Neve offered. “How? Tell us, and we’ll let you go alone.”
Catriona’s grip on her gauntlet tightened, her jaw working.
“Everyone here understands the risks,” I said. “And between all of us, we can figure out how to stop the revenant and get the athame and the ring.”
“You still desire the Ring of Dispel?” Olwen asked, surprised. “Knowing what you know about it?”
“If the renewal ritual doesn’t work as intended, it may be my brother’s last hope,” I said.
Caitriona’s nostrils flared with her next hard breath. “Come if you must, then. But only after Olwen finishes her work and restores herself with water.”
“I don’t need to, I promise,” Olwen said. “I don’t feel weak or even tired, and I’m not about to haul in a tub of snow to melt.”
“You will,” Caitriona said, a gentle order. “I’ll not have you or anyone else hurt.”
She returned to her armor, wincing as she shifted her bad shoulder. She lifted her arm to her mouth in visible pain, trying to use her teeth to tighten the gauntlet.
“Here,” Neve said, coming toward her. “Let me help you.”
Caitriona suddenly looked like a fox caught by the tail. “No, truly, I can…”
Her words trailed off as Neve gently turned her wrist up and began to work the leather laces as if she had done it a thousand times before.
With her head bent over her work, Neve was too focused to notice the way the other girl had stilled, or the way the hardness of her expression had eased. For a moment, it didn’t seem like she was even breathing—as if Neve were a feather that might drift away with even the smallest stirring of the air.
Olwen’s finger prodded the stitches in my arm, sharply drawing my attention back to where she knelt in front of me.
“Ow!”
“Dear me,” she said with a pointed look. “A thousand apologies for my rough handling.”
I raised my brows. She raised hers back.
Emrys leaned over my shoulder, watching as she dabbed oil on the wound—oregano, by the pungent smell of it—and then a waxy ointment that she warmed between her fingers before gently massaging it into my skin.
“This is a deep wound,” Olwen began, a small tremor in her voice. “It must have been terribly painful when she…when the revenant cut you.” She drew a breath and looked up. “Viviane never would have done this if she were—if she were still herself. I’m so very sorry.”
“I know, and there’s nothing to apologize for.” I caught Emrys’s eye. He gave me a small, reassuring smile, and I knew I couldn’t keep withholding the other important piece of information I’d learned at the barrow. “There’s something else you should know. About me.”
The others listened with varying degrees of horror as I spoke. Once or twice, Olwen seemed on the verge of bursting with some thought or question, but managed to hold it in—until she couldn’t.
“Your bone was silver? It wasn’t merely a vision?” she asked, eyeing the stitches.
I tensed. “As shiny as a polished coin. Just rotten to the core, I guess.”
Emrys gripped my shoulder, but Neve cut in before he could speak.
“It doesn’t mean what you clearly think it does,” she said sternly as she came toward us. “So stop feeling sorry for yourself about it.”
My lips parted in indignation.
“Yes, you are, and it’s understandable, but it doesn’t make all of your worst thoughts true,” Neve continued. “And here I was thinking that finding a mystical fire sword would have cheered you up.”
I sighed. “Well…there’s something else I have to tell you about that, too.”
Olwen nodded as I explained about the dreams, absorbing the information with the same imperviousness I’d come to expect from her. Caitriona hung back, an odd expression on her face I couldn’t quite read.
“Why didn’t you say something about this before?” Emrys asked, troubled.
“I don’t know, I just…didn’t know what it meant or if it meant anything at all.” I looked at Olwen. “You don’t think it’s related to the silver, do you?”
“I think it has a far simpler explanation,” Olwen said, exchanging another knowing look with Caitriona. “The Goddess uses the mist to speak to us in different ways. Song, dreams, even visions. Perhaps she, in all her great wisdom, has need for you to listen, and is speaking to you the only way she knows you will hear her.”
“By sending me visions of unicorns?” I asked, pained. “She needs to work on her communication skills.”
“Perhaps that is merely how she chose to appear to you,” Olwen said.
“I have to admit, some part of me was afraid I was dreaming these things into existence,” I said hoarsely.
Olwen glanced over to the door, where Emrys had leaned the sword I pulled from the lake. “A fascinating thought. Objects may be born from the mist in rare cases, but I believe that sword has been in existence far longer than you’ve been in Avalon.”
“Do you recognize it?” Neve asked.
“It reminds me of a story Mari told us once, though I cannot quite recall it all now,” Olwen said.
“You must ask her when you return to the tower,” Caitriona said. “Such a treasure will delight her.”
“I do have a suspicion about the silver, if you’d like to hear it,” Olwen offered, reaching into her bag for a rolled bandage.
Emrys’s hand was still on my shoulder, warm and reassuring. I had to tuck my hand under my leg to keep from reaching for it. “All ears.”
“Well,” she said, eyes shining with an excitement I might have appreciated more under different circumstances. “I believe bone turns silver when you come across a great deal of death magic. You’re certain you never happened upon a curse or spell—perhaps in an object you touched?”
