The Bone Witch Read online

  ALSO BY RIN CHUPECO

  The Girl from the Well

  The Suffering

  Copyright © 2017 by Rin Chupeco

  Cover and internal design © 2017 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover design by Faceout Studio, Jeff Miller

  Cover images © Mila Supinskaya/Shutterstock; ritfuse/Shutterstock; Pixejoo/Shutterstock; Markus Gann/Shutterstock

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Chupeco, Rin, author.

  Title: The bone witch / Rin Chupeco.

  Description: Naperville, Illinois : Sourcebooks Fire, [2017] | Summary: Tea’s gift for death magic means that she is a bone witch, a title that makes her feared and ostracized by her community, but when an older bone witch trains her to become an asha--one who can wield elemental magic--Tea will have to overcome her obstacles and make a powerful choice in the face of danger as dark forces approach.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016016719 | (13 : alk. paper)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Magic--Fiction. | Witches--Fiction. | Fantasy.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.C4594 Bo 2017 | DDC [Fic]--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016016719

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Map: The World of the Bone Witch

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  The World of The Bone Witch: The 8 Kingdoms

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  Dedicated to the countless bowls of ramen, who have supported me throughout the writing of this book and have still continued to do so long after I was done.

  And also to Ramen Santouka, for supplying said ramen.

  The beast raged; it punctured the air with its spite. But the girl was fiercer. She held no weapons except for the diamonds glinting like stars above her brow, against hair like a dark mass of sky. She wore no armor save a beautiful hua of mahogany and amber spun from damask silk, a golden dragon embroidered down its length, its body half-hidden by her waist wrap. She raised her arm, and I saw nothing. But the creature saw, and its wrath gentled, until it did little but whimper.

  “Kneel,” the girl ordered, and—against all expectations—the daeva obeyed. It sank to its knees and bowed its head.

  Seventeen, I thought. She could not be older than seventeen years. Seventeen could explain the poetry of her face, with her skin brown and unblemished. Seventeen explained the pertness of her nose, the determined tilt to her chin. But seventeen did not explain the oldness in her eyes, large twin pools of black from where no light could escape.

  The girl stood beside the fiend. It was four times as tall and weighed a hundred tons, but it shrunk from the touch of her hand. It was an elephant-like beast, with a hide the color of dead trees and a mouth full of teeth as large as tusks, but it did not attack. It bore fangs like knives, each canine more jagged than the next, but it was afraid. They made for a bizarre sight: the girl and the monster on a beach of ash and silt, while waves crashed against the shore and sent up sprays of seawater and salt.

  The beast watched her with its dull, white eyes. It whimpered again.

  The girl smiled. She stroked its misshapen jaw and leaned toward the hideous, yellowing teeth as if she had a secret to share.

  “Die,” she whispered.

  The daeva sighed, a relieved sound. It toppled onto its side, raised its head beseechingly at her one last time, and died.

  The girl rose to her feet, slipping a knife out of her sleeve. Her hand traveled past the beast’s jaw and neck, searching. She paused at a spot halfway down its throat and sank her blade into the roughened flesh. Black liquid, slick as oil and thick as congealed syrup, bubbled from the gaping wound.

  I turned my face away. My last meal rose in my throat unbidden, and I forced it back down with effort.

  Blood and grime dripped down her fingers. From within the depths of the creature, the girl withdrew a perfectly round stone. It was as large as her hand, smooth and polished, and it glittered red, the color of giant rubies. As she did, the monster crumbled, reduced to a mountain of dust in an instant.

  “A bezoar,” she said for my benefit. “The mark of every daeva. This creature is called an akvan, and its bezoar can sense all known magic. But it does not explain you here in my domain.”

  Despite the masterful craftsmanship of her hua, there was something unusual about the dragon woven on it—its snout was too long, and it too had tusks instead of sharp teeth and whiskers. It was an imperfection I was not accustomed to in such fineries.

  The gown was slit on one side, and I saw the long, white scar that climbed her right thigh. She made no move to hide this flaw and stood boldly, with her legs apart, so that the beaded dragon looked to have burst out onto her dress from the puckered skin. She wore her waist wrap loosely, in defiance of tradition; like her hua, it was black, but with chrysanthemums stitched in gilded thread. One of the great atelier Arrakan’s creations, I surmised; intricate gold embroidery was his specialty.

  She wore a beautiful chain around her neck, and on it a heart-shaped pendant. I had my own heartsglass of the common glossy, apple red. I expected hers to be of a bright silver, a soft, swirling mist contained within the tempered glass, as expected of an asha. Instead, it was as black as the night.

  The akvan had not been the first death on that lonely shore. Bits of other bones lay scattered around the desolate beach, their skeletal remains victims of the relentless tides that sent them crashing at intervals against sharpened rocks. Large rib cages glistened despite the soot-ridden light. Empty skulls gaped back at me, silent and accusing.

  The girl turned to face me, and I saw the grave behind her for the first time. It was a slab of headstone lying on the only patch of grass that flourished in the otherwise barren landscape of sand. It bore no inscription, and I wondered who lay buried within, whom she mourned.

  “They call you Tea of the Embers,” I said.
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  She said nothing and waited.

  “I collect stories,” I continued. “I was born in Drycht but was banished when I came of age for my freethinking ways and for singing against the tyrant kings. Since then, I have made my living on tales and ballads. I have seen with my own eyes the endless wars of the Yadosha city-states. I have broken bread with the reindeer people and have danced with the Gorvekan tribes on the Isteran steppes. I have seen princes poisoned, have watched a Faceless follower hanged, and have survived in a city that’s been swept out to sea. My name is known in many places; my reputation is more than modest.

  “But I know very little of the workings of the asha. I know of their dances and of their weapons and of their legends but not of their quarrels and their gossip and their loves. And until today, I have never seen one slay a daeva.”

  She laughed; it sounded bitter. “I am no longer an asha, Bard; they are beloved by the people, and I am not. My exile here, at the end of the world, is proof of that. They have another name for those like me. Call me a bone witch; it suits me better. But I have no need of you, and you are in my way. Give me one reason why I should not cut you down where you stand.”

  I am used to pleading for my life, and so I said, “You are an asha, and you must know how to discern truth from lies. Put me to the test.”

  The girl moved closer. From within the folds of her hua, she took out another stone and placed it in my hand. I was no magic adept, but even I could feel the strength of the spells woven into her dress, though I did not know what they enhanced—her beauty, which such magic was commonly used for, or her power, which was formidable enough without them.

  “If you speak the truth, it will flare a brighter blue,” she said. “Tell me lies and it will shine the deepest black. Choose your words carefully, Bard.”

  “I had a dream. I saw a bright-blue moon in the sky. I followed it across the clouds until it shone over a gray, empty beach littered with the bones of sea monsters of old. On it stood a young girl with her hands stained with blood but who promised me a tale beyond anything I could ever imagine. ‘If there is one thing people desire more than a good story,’ she said, ‘it is when they speak their own.’ When I woke, I saw that same moon, as blue and as real as you and I, looking down. I trusted my instincts and followed the road the way it had been mapped out for me in my dream. It is here I find that same beach and that same girl. I have heard all the tales they speak of you. It would be my honor to hear yours. Give me leave to sing your story, and I will do it justice.”

  The waves lapped at the shore. Vultures circled overhead. The sapphire in my hand shone the purest blue.

  She broke the silence with more laughter, the stillness shattering at the sound. “You are confident and curious. Some would say that is not always a healthy combination.” She took back the bezoar and turned away. “I leave in seven days. I will give you until then.”

  I followed her, my heartsglass heavy with questions. Of everything I had heard, I had not expected her to be so young. Seventeen did not explain why she stood on that strange, graying beach, alone, with monsters’ corpses for company.

  1

  Let me be clear: I never intended to raise my brother from his grave, though he may claim otherwise. If there’s anything I’ve learned from him in the years since, it’s that the dead hide truths as well as the living. I have not been a bone witch for very long, whatever the stories you’ve heard, but this was the first lesson I learned.

  I understand now why people fear bone witches. Theirs is not the magic found in storybooks, slaying onyx-eyed dragons and rescuing grateful maidens from ivory towers. Theirs is not the magic made from smoke and mirrors, where the trap lies in the twitch of the hand and a trick of the eyes. Nor is theirs the magic that seeds runeberry fields, whose crops people harvest for potions and spells. This is death magic, complicated and exclusive and implacable, and from the start, I wielded it with ease.

  There was never anything unnatural or mysterious about me. I was born in Knightscross, one of the smallest villages that dotted the kingdom of Odalia, surrounded by a lovely forest on three sides and rolling plains on the other. My only claim to strangeness was that I read fiercely, learned thirstily. I read of the history of the Eight Kingdoms, about the Five Great Heroes and the False Prince. It was here that I learned of the magic-wielding asha and their never-ending war against the Faceless, the people of the lie, practitioners of the Dark, sworn to the False Prince. Sometimes I would pretend to be the asha, Taki of the Silk, whom the fabled King Marrus took to wife. Or Nadine of the Whispers, who ended the war between the kingdoms of Istera and Daanoris with her dancing.

  “You think in the same way men drink, Tea,” my father once said, “far too much—under the delusion it is too little.” But he brought me books from distant fairs and encouraged my clutter of parchment and paper. Some days, I would read to him when his work at the forge was done for the day. It was a sight to see: him, a tall, muscular man with a heavy beard, reclining in his favorite chair and listening as I read children’s fables and folktales in my high, piping voice.

  It was true that I was born at the height of an eclipse, when the sky closed its only moon eye to wink back at the world, like my arrival was a private joke between old friends. Or perhaps the moon read my fate in the stars and hid, unwilling to bear witness to my birth. It is the kind of cataclysm people associate with bone witches. But surely normal children have been born under this cover of night, when the light refused to shine, and went on to live perfectly normal lives?

  Necromancy did not run in my family’s blood, though witchery did. But my older sisters were witches of good standing within the community and did not go about summoning dead siblings from graveyards as a rule. Rose was a Forest witch; she was plump, pickled brown from the hot sun, darker than even the farmers who worked the fields from dawn to dusk. She owned an herb garden and sold poultices and home remedies for gout, lovesickness, and all other common ailments. Lilac was a Water witch; she was tall and stagnant, like a deep pool. She was fond of donning veils, telling merry fortunes, and occasionally finding lost trinkets, often by accident.

  She had cast auguries for me and found nothing amiss. “Tea shows an inclination to be a witch like us, if she wishes to,” Lilac told my mother. “I see her wearing a beautiful amber gown, with bright gems in her hair and a handsome prince on her arm. Our little Tea is destined for something greater than Knightscross, I think.”

  Even those who knew nothing of the witching trade considered Forest and Water magic to be reasonable, respectable professions. And Rose and Lilac made for reasonable, respectable witches.

  Had I known the color of my heartsglass sooner, I might have been better prepared.

  On the third day of the third month of their thirteenth summer, children gathered at the village square for the spring equinox and because it was tradition. Boys and girls wore delicate heartsglass on chains around their necks. Some were simple cases their parents bought cheap at the Odalian market; those who could afford it purchased them from famed glassblowers in Kneave.

  A witch—some years it was Rose, and others it was Lilac—traced Heartsrune spells in the air until each empty glass sputtered and flared and filled with red and pink hues. As was the tradition in Odalia, my father and mother wore each other’s heartsglass—his was burned and ruddy, like the endless fires of his forge, and hers was coral tinged and warm, like the hearth. Most of my brothers and sisters wavered between their colors, though purple-tinted hearts singled Rose and Lilac out for witching. I was only twelve years old then, thought too young to appreciate my heart’s value. Having a heart was a responsibility; young children were heartless creatures anyway—or so said Mrs. Drury, who lived three cottages away and was the acknowledged village busybody. But I never believed that grown-ups took great care of their hearts either, because my older sister Daisy, seventeen and the loveliest of us Pahlavis, was constantly losing h
ers. She gave it to Demian Terr and then later to Sam Fallow and then again to Heath Clodbarron, and Rose or Lilac had to draw new Heartsrune spells each time her romances ended. It was all right, Daisy insisted, because the hearts she’d given away faded over time, and she could always ask for one anew.

  “Never give your heart freely or as often,” Rose or Lilac would reprimand her. “The wrong kinds of people can place spells on it to gain and keep power over you.”

  I wasn’t sure why anyone would want power over Daisy, because I couldn’t imagine her doing anything involving work. And Demian and Sam and Heath, obviously the wrong kind of people for my sister, wouldn’t know magic if it kneed them in the loins.

  I once asked Rose why Daisy’s heart never lasted longer than her courtships, while Mother’s and Father’s heartsglass never needed replacing. “Hearts only last when you put in work to make them last,” she responded. She was, however, more forgiving of Daisy than Lilac was. “She can’t help herself,” Rose said. “Sometimes you can’t help who you love or for how long.”

  • • •

  With my sisters named the way they are, you might wonder about my unusual name. My mother had high expectations of her children—and of her daughters in particular. Fine, upstanding young ladies, she believed, needed fine, upstanding names. My sisters were named Rose and Lilac, Marigold and Daisy; by the time I came along, she had abandoned flowers. I grew up to the sounds of squabbles and running feet and love, and, despite my preference for ungainly books, I was unremarkable in every way.

  But Fox? Fox was the family tragedy. His heart was a solid and dependable umber, bronze when held in the right kind of light. He was like a second father to me and is one of my earliest childhood memories. As the oldest, he looked after me when the rest of my siblings occupied my mother’s time. He joined the army when I was ten, and for two years, I read his letters home to my parents. There were no shortages of ill-mannered nobles who raised banners of gold and silver and called the throne their own, he wrote, and so King Telemaine sent soldiers like him, armed and primed for war, to force them down from such high, insolent ledges.